What role should frontline managers play in a Sales Kickoff?

The short answer

Frontline managers are the primary carriers of SKO value. Their role is not to attend, absorb, and support the event. Their role is to translate strategy into coached behavior once the event ends. A Sales Kickoff that does not explicitly train managers to inspect, reinforce, and coach the new standards will lose most of its impact within 30 days. In high-ROI SKOs, managers are enabled first and differently, because execution lives or dies in their weekly interactions with sellers.

What an SKO cannot assume about managers

An SKO cannot assume that managers know how to coach just because they were once strong sellers. It cannot assume that managers will instinctively reinforce new frameworks without explicit instruction. It cannot assume that motivation alone will sustain behavior change.

Most SKOs implicitly treat managers as senior reps. They sit through the same sessions, hear the same messaging, and are then expected to carry the torch back in the field. This assumption is costly. Managers default to inspecting numbers because that is what they know how to do under pressure. Coaching conversations drift back to forecasting. The SKO message fades.

The most damaging assumption is this: that managers will figure it out on their own. They rarely do.

How leaders should decide

Leaders should design the SKO with a simple premise: managers are the execution layer.

• If the SKO introduces a new sales motion → managers must be trained to recognize correct and incorrect execution of that motion.
• If the SKO introduces new messaging → managers must be trained to coach language, not just outcomes.
• If the SKO introduces new tools or workflows → managers must be trained to inspect usage and quality, not just activity.

This requires a distinct manager experience. In high-ROI SKOs, managers are often brought in early or separated into a leader track that focuses on three things:

1. A shared definition of what good looks like: Managers learn how to observe behavior and score it consistently.
2. Inspection questions: Managers leave with specific prompts to use in one-on-ones and deal reviews that reinforce the SKO focus.
3. Reinforcement tools: Managers are given ready-to-run meeting structures and agendas so follow-up is not left to improvisation.

If managers leave the SKO with clarity on what to coach and how to coach it, the event has a chance to stick.

Why this matters now

Frontline managers are under unprecedented strain. Team sizes are larger. Expectations are higher. Time is fragmented. Many managers were promoted quickly during growth years and never formally trained to coach.

At the same time, GTM strategies are becoming more complex. Value selling, multi-stakeholder buying, and AI-assisted workflows all require judgment, not scripts. Judgment is developed through coaching, not content.

This makes the manager role more critical than ever. When managers are enabled properly, they become force multipliers. When they are ignored, they become bottlenecks.

In the current environment, the difference between an SKO that fades and one that compounds is almost always the manager layer.

What actually changes after the SKO

When managers are treated as the primary execution lever, several changes become visible quickly.

• One-on-ones shift from status updates to skill discussions.
• Deal reviews become diagnostic instead of speculative.
• Sellers receive consistent feedback across the organization.
• Leadership gains confidence that strategy is being reinforced, not diluted.

Perhaps most importantly, managers feel ownership rather than obligation. They stop being passive recipients of strategy and start acting as partners in execution.

This is when the SKO stops being an event and starts functioning as a system.

How this connects to GTM execution

Core Concept: Manager Enablement as Execution Control

Related Entities: Sales Management, Coaching Systems, Execution Standards, Revenue Enablement, Change Management, Operating Rhythm, Leadership Development