Drive SKO Success in the Current Economic Landscape

In today’s economic environment, it’s important to focus your kickoff on mission-critical sales priorities. Your customers’ needs this year have changed from just eighteen months ago, so it’s important to pivot your approach to SKO planning that adjusts to current dynamics.

Forward-thinking sales leaders are already finding ways to use their kickoff as a way to build momentum around changes in their company's revenue strategy or their customers’ evolving needs. Use your SKO to motivate your team, push for performance and kickstart the plan to execute against revenue targets.

Whether you’re considering a full in-person event, a virtual meeting or a hybrid of the two, one thing you don’t want to do is wait too long to pull your SKO together.

Use these resources as you plan your SKO and define how to help your organization hit revenue goals.

1

SKO Focus Areas to Prepare for a Shifting Economy

Changing economic dynamics demand a strategic pivot. The challenge becomes identifying which priorities are critical and where to devote your resources. Define where to focus and how to align your organization behind a message that delivers on your critical priorities.

2

How to Set Objectives for Your SKO

Your SKO objectives are a critical component to executing a successful event, no matter if you're doing it virtually or in-person. Do you or your executive team know what you’ll need to align your entire sales organization on for success after your SKO event is over? Here are a few things to factor in when you begin to set clear objectives for your next sales kickoff.

3

Align Your SKO Agenda to the Company Strategy

One of the keys to a successful sales kickoff is to execute it in a way that aligns with your organization's overall business strategy. From there, your SKO agenda should be prioritized by the objectives and the outcomes you want the event to drive as it relates to that strategy. Here's what to consider.

4

Three Sales Areas to Address for Economic Change

As a sales leader, it’s critical to acknowledge the current economic state, align your organization on key objectives and provide managers and sales reps with a framework for success. As you define the go-to-market strategy for the upcoming year, here are three ways to use your SKO to invest in your salespeople’s (and your company’s) success.

5

Critical SKO Concepts Sales Leaders Must Communicate

While there are many goals associated with the typical SKO, one that’s often overlooked is seller retention. The SKO is your opportunity to articulate what’s expected of your salespeople next year, and how you’re going to help them get there. What you do (or don’t) say will have a large impact on your sales team’s actions after they log off or return home from your SKO. Here's what you should cover.

6

Results-Driven SKO Adoption & Reinforcement

The key to making a sales initiative stick is to have a plan for results-driven adoption and reinforcement. When putting your investment into a sales initiative, what happens after the so-called training is almost more important than what happens in the actual delivery of the training.

Here are a couple of best practices we encourage our clients to put forth when launching a sales initiative tied to a sales kickoff event.

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