SKO Series Part 1: Purpose - The Northstar for an Impactful Event
As a revenue enablement firm, we have seen the very best and worst-run sales kickoff (SKO) events, We’ve seen it all. … from PowerPoint marathons to experiences that unite teams for the year ahead. The difference? Purpose: The whole event serves as a North Star. Without the crowd-focused, achievable goal of “this did what for whom,” you are leaving the outcome of your event to chance.
The Power of Purpose
Your SKO purpose is not just another box to tick in your planning. It is the base for everything else you plan for your event. A well-defined purpose:
- Helps you to align your SKO with overall business objectives
- Provides focus for content and activities
- Excites & motivates your sales force
- Ensures that deliverables and ROI are measurable.
SKOs run the risk of being a very expensive waste of time—without a real purpose, all you will have done is send everyone in your company to Las Vegas. For example, the average cost per SKO attendee can be anywhere from $2,500 to $5,500. On a company scale with 100 attendees, that is a $250k to $550k investment!! When the stakes are this high, it is irresponsible not to have a burning purpose.
Creating a North Star for Your SKO
Now, what impacts you can measure your SKO by? Let’s consider this by answering a few key questions:
- The number one thing you want your team to walk away with?
- How do these fit into your broader sales strategy?
- What exactly are the results you want to produce?
- How does this purpose connect and inspire your team?
SKO should be more than “review last year and make goals for the new year,” right? It should be a call to action that fires up your team and lets them know how the next few months will play out.
How to Align Purpose with Strategy
The purpose of your SKO should be a direct extension of your broader sales and business strategy. This way, you can ensure that the time, energy, and resources you invest in planning and executing your SKO are aiding in the success of your organization.
As an example, you may have a strategy to grow into new markets. Your SKO objective might be "To provide our team with the understanding and abilities needed to enter the Asia-Pacific market successfully over 2025.”
This in turn guides everything within your SKO — from what to talk about during the keynote to breakout sessions and team-building events.
Setting Measurable Goals
So, a powerful purpose should turn into specific and measurable objectives. These goals will guide your SKO content and help you measure the event's effectiveness.
For example, tangible outcomes could be:
- All reps can talk about our value proposition in APAC
- 80% of reps are certified in our new APAC sales methodology
- $10M of qualified pipe out of APAC in the first 90 days
Setting targets gives you a scorecard, making your team accountable with something quantifiable they can chase.
Beyond the Numbers: Motivating Your Team
That being said, the emotional aspect of your SKO's purpose should not be overlooked in addition to having measurable goals. The best SKOs are as motivational as they are informational.
This means that your purpose must connect with your team’s intrinsic motivations. It should answer, “Why does our work matter?” Example: “Empowering businesses across APAC to realize their full potential with our innovative solutions.”
This sense of emotional purpose can fuel your team with the energy and determination to work hard long after SKO is over.
Avoiding Common Pitfalls
When creating the purpose of your SKO, avoid these common pitfalls:
- Overloading on product information: Product information is necessary, but it should not distract from your main mission
- Ignoring the customer perspective: After all, your purpose is to create value for your customers.
- Making numbers the only thing that matters: While financial targets are necessary, they seldom motivate peak performance.
- Overlooking SKO reinforcement: Your goal should be more than just the event, helping to provide continuous enablement post-SKO
Putting Purpose into Practice
Use your North Star as the guide for every element of sales kick-off planning:
- Content: Clearly, all sessions must support your core purpose.
- Speakers: Choose presenters that can convincingly articulate your purpose
- Activities and breakouts: designing interactive elements that reps can play with to bring your rationale to life.
- Post-SKO follow-through: Put together a plan on how you can maintain your North Star weeks and months after the event.
The Ultimate Test
To make it easy, here's a SIMPLE litmus test of how strong your SKO purpose is:
Can every member on your planning team throughly and succinctly share the same message? If not, refine and clarify.
Always remember, a clear purpose makes all the difference between an expensive distraction SKO and a rocket launcher! So take the extra time to do it correctly, and you'll be looking at an SKO that can make a meaningful difference for the long term and even deliver real ROI.
When you leverage a more simple, resonant purpose for your event, you transform your SKO from being the thing that has to get done into something that can be used as a lever for driving success among your sales teams. So before you get too deep into the logistics and planning of your SKO, check yourself with this question: “What is that all-encompassing North Star for our SKO?”
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