[MTWebinar] 5 Sales kickoff best practices that are proven to work

Sales Kickoff Best
Practices that are
Proven to Work
@mindtickle #MTWEBINAR

About MindTickle
We're a comprehensive sales readiness platform for inside sales, field
sales, and partner enablement — Onboard. Coach. Reinforce. Update.
Proven high adoption. Trusted as the strategic sales enablement partner by
companies, like AppDynamics, Nutanix, Cloudera, Qualtrics, Couchbase,
and many more. Find out more about us at MindTickle.com
Call us on 1(800) 231 5578 or email info@mindtickle.com to set an
appointment.

Tom Snyder
Co-Founder & Managing Partner, VorsightBP
Tom draws from more than 15 years of organizational alignment, sales
strategy and sales process consulting to amplify the sales performance of
VorsightBP clients. He is also listed among America’s 100 Most Influential
Sales Leaders, published by the Encyclopedia of Selling.
He is an internationally known speaker and his book, “Escaping The Price
Driven Sale”, which he then followed up with another book in 2010 called
“Selling in a New Market Space".
Meet the Speakers

David Freeman
VP Corporate Sales, Nutanix
David has 14 years of experience in finance & planning roles. At Nutanix,
David is responsible for Inside Sales, Sales Operations, Sales Enablement
and Business Systems.
Prior to Nutanix, David was VP of Business Planning & Operations at Zscaler
where he led sales operations and business planning.
Prior to that, David was Director of Finance at Palo Alto Networks where he
played an instrumental role in building key financial models that helped
facilitate the company's rapid and predictable growth.
Meet the Speakers

Mohit Garg
Co-Founder & CRO, MindTickle
Mohit has a diverse work experience spanning across 14 years and four
continents. At MindTickle, Mohit leads sales and marketing. He is
passionate about driving sales performance through technology and
regularly blogs at various publications about the “Sales Stack”.
Prior to co-founding MindTickle, Mohit was a Principal in PwC’s
management consulting practice at New York, and has been a senior
member of product teams. He was awarded “Entrepreneur of the Year” by
Startup Leadership Program (SLP) in 2012.
Meet the Speakers

What we will be talking about
5 sales kickoff best practices
#1 Clearly define success for a great outcome
#2 Identify the right mix of celebration, provocation, motivation and education for your team
#3 Evolve your kickoff strategy as your sales team grows
#4 Leverage technology for predictable, long-lasting impact
#5 Measure the effectiveness of your kickoffs

Q & A
We will be taking questions at the end of the speaker presentations.
Send in your questions via Twitter with #MTWebinar or mail them to us
at info@mindtickle.com.
Follow us on Twitter:
@MindTickle
@VorsightBP

What We Will Be Talking About
~ By Tom Snyder -- Co-Founder & Managing Partner, VorsightBP
Sales Kickoffs can Be Quite an Expensive
Exercise

Travel time and cost
Sales Kickoffs can be quite an expensive exercise

Opportunity cost

Opportunity cost
Accommodations and entertainment

Opportunity cost
Risk

Opportunity cost
Risk
Loss of Focus

#1 Clearly Define Success to ensure a Great
Outcome

Define success
Translate into theme
Establish a full agenda
Set expectations
Adequate info to speaker
Communicate individual responsibility
#1 Clearly define success to ensure a great outcome

#2 Identify the right mix of celebration,
provocation, motivation and information

#1 Celebration
#2 Motivation
#3 Provocation
#4 Information
You have four options to choose from

Everyone always wants all four!
You have four options to choose from

#1 Celebration Sales Kickoffs
#2 Identify the right mix

Outcome –
recognition &
appreciation

Outcome –
recognition &
appreciation
Transition to the
coming year

Outcome –
recognition &
appreciation
“Entertainment” is
the key
component
Transition to the
coming year

Team Exercises
Outcome –
recognition &
appreciation
the key
component
Transition to the
coming year

Outcome –
recognition &
appreciation
Team Exercises Themes
the key
component
Transition to the
coming year

#2 Motivation
Outcome: enthusiasm or nervousness
Challenging and inspiring the sales force
“Personal Hero” is the key component
Personal/individual assignment or exercise
Themes

#3 Provocation
Outcome: it's going to take something different
Training, product, competitors, etc.
“Data” are the key components
Team assignments and exercises
Themes

#4 Information
Outcome: resolving the “unknown”
Dispensing with rumor/announcing the “new”
Transparency is the key component
Industry speaker
Themes

Thank You!
Grab a free copy of our
“Annual Sales Meeting
Research”
http://bit.ly/1MZVBs0

#3 Evolve Your Kickoff Strategy as Your Sales
Team Grows
~ By David Freeman -- VP Corporate Sales, Nutanix

Case Study: How the Nutanix sales kickoff
strategy evolved as their team grew from
20 to over 500 reps

The Basics
• Sales force has grown from 20 people in 2012 to 500+ people today
• SKOs have ranged from 2-3 days of content with sometimes a bonus day for specialized
training
Sales Kickoff Goals
• Educate
• Update
• Interact
• Recognize
#3 Sales Kickoff at Nutanix

Year 1: (20-50 Reps)
• Early SKOs focused on basic messaging, product issues, objection
handling
• At hotels near office; Significant HQ Presence
#3 Evolution of Sales Kickoff at Nutanix

Year 2: (100–200 Reps)
• Deeper Focus on competition, roadmap, sales approach
• Added Training day (Sales Skills, Negotiations)
• Kept in Bay Area to keep HQ engaged but ventured further (Napa, Monterey,
Berkeley)

Year 3: (300–400 Reps)
• Deeper focus on various uses cases, verticals, market segments
• Created limited breakouts focused on specific skills, technologies
etc
• Began to increase production quality (Professional AV Company)
• Size required move to major convention city

Year 4: (500+ Reps)
• Move from mostly general session to mostly breakout sessions; Starting to segment based on
experience level
• Focused on sessions where sales employees can interact with each other
• Moved one of 2 annual events to regional
• Very professional production

• A Fun location is important; You want your employees to want to be there and be fully engaged
• As the company grows, natural interaction in the company decreases so creating opportunities for
interaction is critical
• Ensure that the Event is a 2-way conversation
• Don’t give people airtime just because they want it (Even Execs)
• Do not have agenda topics that can be covered at a Webinar
10 Sales Kickoff Lessons Learnt in 4+ years

• An SKO cannot be one size fits all; Choose your own
adventure
• Make Recognition a focal point of the Event
• People really do care about the food
• Time at the bar can be as important as time in session
• Be Flexible! Adapt the event as the company evolves
10 Sales Kickoff Lessons Learnt in 4+ years

#4 Leverage Technology For Predictable,
Long-lasting Impact
~ By Mohit Garg -- Co-Founder & CRO, MindTickle

• Make the entire sales team a stakeholder in the
success of the event
• Don't let your sales kickoff be the “best effort”
ceremony; deliver a data-driven and technology
enabled event for maximum impact
• Reinforce to help reps recall and apply what
they learned during the kickoff
#4 Leverage Technology For Predictable, Long-lasting Impact

SKO Planning
45-60 Days
Rep & Manager
Inputs on Agenda
Knowledge Gaps
Identified
Continuous
Reinforcement
Success Stories
Crowdsourced
Data Driven
SKO
Event
Surveys & Polls
Pop Quizzes
Record Videos
on Mobile
Announcements,
Polls, Surveys
& Pre-reads
Highly
Motivated

SKO Planning
45 Days
Rep & Manager
Inputs on Agenda
Knowledge Gaps
Identified
Continuous
Reinforcement
Success Stories
Crowdsourced
Data Driven
SKO
Surveys & Polls
Pop Quizzes
Record Videos
on Mobile
Announcements,
Polls, Surveys
& Pre-reads
Highly
Motivated

• Collect feedback before and after every
individual session. Mobile devices are great
for collecting instant feedback.
• Share the recordings and presentations
after the event. Follow them up with
relevant assignments and role play
exercises.

Q & A Time
If we are unable to answer your questions here,
we will be putting up a blog post next Wednesday
answering them all.
You can even send in your questions via twitter
with #MTWebinar or mail them to us at
info@mindtickle.com.

Click here to watch the webinar

Thank you!

[MTWebinar] 5 Sales kickoff best practices that are proven to work

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to [MTWebinar] 5 Sales kickoff best practices that are proven to work

Similar to [MTWebinar] 5 Sales kickoff best practices that are proven to work (20)

More from MindTickle

More from MindTickle (19)

[MTWebinar] 5 Sales kickoff best practices that are proven to work