Professional athletes understand that you’re only as good as your last performance! That’s why they work tirelessly every day to be the best.

So, what can sales professionals learn from this?

We must continue to learn, develop our skillset, and grow every day.

Sales is challenging. Yes, we’ve heard that before, but with Gartner predicting that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in digital channels, how can sales not change? We, as professionals, need to plan and prepare for what’s on the road ahead.

And with FY23 literally on our doorstep, it’s the perfect opportunity to put the pedal to the metal on those plans to reignite and reskill your sales team.

So, let us ask you, have you got your FY23 sales kick-off locked and loaded yet?

If not, here are our top 5 tips for organising a momentous sales kick-off:

1. Bring fresh thinking 

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Ok, truth bomb moment, even as sales guru’s we’ve dreaded some sales training. You know, the kind that feels 10 years out of date, straight out of a textbook, and you can’t work out how the concepts would apply in the real world let alone in your current sales role.

Lead the way with fresh topics, new content and challenge the status quo. To encourage teams to think differently and have a growth mindset, purposefully design the workshop content around this theme.

Our firm favourite for this is challenging sales teams to find “The Third Door”, a concept by Alex Banayan on what he found the world’s best performers do to succeed.

For teams that need fresh energy and mojo after a challenging few years, consider how to incorporate elements of motivation too.

2. Create a shared understanding of High-Performance Sales 

Most sales teams have different levels of experience, different tenure in the company and different perceptions of what sales excellence looks like. A lack of shared understanding makes it hard to build a consistently high-performing team and, therefore, a consistent customer experience (which we all know is the secret weapon in sales).

Our top tip is to set the bar high and agree on a shared understanding of high-performance sales, the company follow up process, and the lead nurturing method.

3. Bias for execution 

90% of what you learn will be forgotten within a couple of weeks unless applied to action. That makes getting an ROI on enablement really challenging unless there is accountability for execution.

Within the kick-off, agree on actions, owners, what will be put into practice, and how.

Create cheat sheets from the learnings generated to serve as a reminder whilst embedding new habits.

4. We’ve lost our attention span! Are you still with me? 

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The average attention span has dropped to 8 seconds, which is apparently less than a goldfish at 9 seconds. We’re not sure who tested the goldfish, but we are sure that this means your kick-off better pack a punch.

To add to this, none of us is used to sitting in a full day enablement session all day long anymore; most of us have not done it in 2 years, so it can become really challenging.

What does this mean for enablement? To stop everyone from checking their phone or planning their dinner, we need to hold attention with relevant and engaging content that doesn’t teach sales teams to stuck eggs.

Challenge your sales teams thinking with current examples of what’s working and what lies ahead.

5. Create space for connection

Many sales teams have not been together face to face in 2 years, or for some team members, it might be the first-time meeting in-person, change up the agenda to create time for connection.

For any activities in workshops, mix up the groups to form new connections.

Allow extra time than you would have planned for at pre-COVID kick-offs (the old days).

Need a helping hand?

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 Ok, we’re a little biased here, but we’d love to help you plan your FY23 kick-off. We can either hook you up with our Founder Abbie White for an energetic dose of high-performance sales. If you need a sales kick-off ready to go straight out of a box, let us take on the event management side. You just turn up with your team ready for action.

Either way, don’t be shy to reach out to us at [email protected].