If you’re a manager, director, or VP of sales, you know how important it is to get your team on-board with the company’s vision for a new sales cycle. Sales kick offs are the ideal time to communicate big-picture goals, teach the strategies and skills needed to achieve them, and foster a sense of community that makes it all matter.
There’s a lot riding on your presentation, so you need to make sure your messaging hits home. Try these kick off meeting ideas to plan a memorable session, make sure it helps your team to implement and grow, and wrap it all in a compelling story that casts your salespeople as the heroes of your company.
How to structure a brilliant sales kick off
The first step to building an impactful kick off is to know your objectives. What does your company want to achieve in the next sales year, and what do your salespeople need in order to achieve it? From understanding the context for the new strategy to acquiring new technical skills and a grasp of your new offerings, this is your chance to equip everyone for success.
The second step is to engage your audience. Make sure you don’t just cover talking points, but create interactive experiences that help everyone remember the new concepts and start picturing how they’ll implement them. Wrapping all of this information into a fun kick off presentation can spur your creativity and lead to unforgettable moments, with themed language, quizzes, contests, awards, and group activities.
Finally, make your message meaningful by connecting it to your employees’ personal needs and values. Your company is made of people, and they are all helping to write the next chapter of your brand story.
What elements will make your kick off a smash hit?
Pulling together a session that’s educational, inspiring, and impactful can feel like a tall order. But if you focus on one element at a time, it can be simple.
Elements that educate
Two of the best ways to teach new ideas are by using storytelling and data. They can help you set the context for new changes by grounding them in the story of your company’s past. Who was involved? What were the market conditions like? What obstacles did you encounter, and what tools and strengths helped you overcome them?
As you lay out the narrative, details and visuals make it feel concrete. Specialized templates like Beautiful’s timeline or journey slide make it easy to visualize the way the events unfolded, and a line chart can tell the story of the measurable ups and downs on the way to success.
Elements that inspire
Another great use of story in your kick off is to have top performers share their struggles and wins. Teammates love to hear how their heroes encountered relatable challenges, and they want to know what approaches they can emulate to reach their own goals.
You can have your experienced all-stars tell how they landed their biggest deals, or have ambitious up-and-comers share cutting-edge ideas that are about to rock your industry. Invite external experts to keynote with a goosebump-raising speech, or let a real life customer tell the truth about what it’s really like to purchase and use your product.
If a speaker isn’t able to address your audience live, you can still impart those wows with a pre-recorded message. Beautiful’s video slide template makes it a seamless part of your presentation.
Elements that make a personal impact
Tapping into your salespeople’s personal goals and values makes a huge difference in terms of how much they retain from your kick off and how much they care about following through. It’s important to include their perspective in the way you explain the new plans, highlighting how it will help remove obstacles they’ve struggled with or help them get what they want professionally, like sales, commissions, and influence.
One way to incorporate your team’s input is through surveys and polls, which you can perform either before or during the kick off. Referring to and addressing their biggest concerns helps to bridge the gap between the upper management objectives and their needs at the ground level. The more you engage your employees in the kickoff, the more connected they’ll feel to the outcomes and the more dedicated they’ll be to your company’s success.
Make it Beautiful
A successful sales kick off leaves your team crystal clear about their mission and revved up to achieve it. To make that happen, you need a thoughtful presentation that gives them the information, inspiration, and connection they need to implement your vision.
Be certain that all of your strategic content is going to shine by packaging it in a Beautiful slide deck. With automated formatting that protects you from distracting gaffes and integrated elements that blend seamlessly with your narrative, your messaging will go down smoothly and your team will be primed for an incredible new year.
Try Beautiful for free and see how it supercharges your kick off presentation.
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