How to Plan the Sales Kickoff That Fits Your Team and Your Revenue Goals
An approach for choosing your SKO type and planning the event from start to finish.
Sales Kickoffs require a large amount of time, coordination, and cost. Teams want them to set the tone for the year, reinforce expectations, and strengthen company culture, yet the outcomes often vary from one year to the next.
This eBook explains that the inconsistency comes from a simple reality: there isn’t one kind of SKO. There are two, and each one serves a different purpose.
Ignite & Inspire (Red Bull ROI)
Focused on belief, motivation, unity, and energy.
Build & Sustain (Protein ROI)
Focused on capability, skill improvement, and long-term execution.
Both are legitimate. Both create value. The challenge appears when leaders select one but expect the outcomes of the other. This mismatch is a major reason SKOs fail to deliver the tangible results leaders expect.
We created this guide to help leaders choose the event that fits their goals and design the event with that choice in mind.
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What’s Inside
Sales Kickoff planning centers on the core decisions that shape the event. The eBook walks through how to choose your type, design the experience around that choice, and support the outcomes you want after the event ends.
Choose Your Sales Kickoff Type
Begin the planning process by deciding whether the year calls for an Ignite & Inspire or a Build & Sustain. This choice sets the direction, tone, and expectations for the entire event.
- Understand what each type accomplishes
- Match the type to your revenue goals and team needs
- Use this choice to guide agenda and content decisions
Set the Foundation
Assess the environment your team is selling in and the challenges they faced during the year. Evaluate:
- Market and ICP changes
- The issues sellers struggled with
- Where execution broke down
- What managers observed during coaching
- What the team needs to address in the year ahead
This foundation anchors every decision you make about the Sales Kickoff.
Design the Experience
Build the agenda around the outcomes you expect from your SKO type. How to:
- Select sessions that align with capability or energy goals
- Use customer problems and opportunity work inside sessions
- Develop a narrative and theme that tie the event together
- Choose content that reinforces expectations for the year
Every element of the event points back to the purpose you established.
Run the Event
Deliver in a way that keeps your team active and engaged. Key elements include:
- Interactive formats
- Practice and role-play
- Team-based activities
- Visible manager involvement
- Clear takeaways from each session
The emphasis stays on participation and meaningful application.
Reinforcement
Continue the work after the Sales Kickoff to ensure the event influences daily execution. Learn how to:
- Sustain new behaviors
- Integrate content into coaching and reviews
- Update processes and CRM to support adoption
- Keep expectations visible across the team
- Maintain momentum throughout the year
Who This Guide Is For
This guide supports the leaders responsible for planning, running, and reinforcing a Sales Kickoff. It applies to teams that want their kickoff event to do more than generate short-term excitement and are looking for clear direction on how to align the event to performance needs.
Including:
- Chief Revenue Officers setting the direction for the year
- VPs of Sales accountable for execution and team performance
- Sales Enablement leaders designing sessions and managing the learning experience
- Sales Managers who reinforce expectations after
- Revenue Operations teams responsible for tracking adoption and outcomes
Common Questions About Sales Kickoffs
What makes a Sales Kickoff effective?
An effective Sales Kickoff starts with choosing the type that matches your goals. An Ignite & Inspire event builds energy, unity, and momentum. A Build & Sustain event strengthens capability and focuses on long-term execution. The event works when the agenda, content, and design decisions support the outcomes you want for the year.
How do I decide between an Ignite & Inspire SKO and a Build & Sustain SKO?
Start by looking at what your team needs for the year ahead. If the priority is motivation, alignment, celebration, or culture, choose an Ignite & Inspire. If the priority is skill improvement, capability, and consistent execution, choose a Build & Sustain. Each type produces a different return, so the choice depends on the outcomes you want to influence.
How do we keep momentum after the Sales Kickoff?
Momentum comes from reinforcement. Use coaching, process updates, CRM cues, and regular practice to keep expectations visible. Tie SKO content to pipeline reviews, forecast conversations, and team routines. Reinforcement determines whether the event drives change throughout the year.
How much content should a Sales Kickoff include?
Include only the sessions that support the outcomes linked to your SKO type. When planning an Ignite & Inspire, focus on direction, connection, and energy. When planning a Build & Sustain, focus on capability, practice, and clear expectations. Relevance matters more than volume.
How do we keep the team engaged during the SKO?
Use interactive formats, role-plays, team-based activities, and examples pulled from your customer problems and active opportunities. Engagement increases when managers participate visibly and every session has a clear purpose.
About A Sales Growth Company
A Sales Growth Company builds sales training and enablement programs based on Gap Selling. The work focuses on helping sellers identify the problems affecting their customers, understand what’s driving those problems, and communicate with buyers in a way that supports better decisions across every stage of the sales process.
Gap Selling is built on a simple idea: buyers commit when they understand the problems holding them back, the impact those problems create, and the causes underneath them. Our programs teach sellers how to uncover those elements in outreach, discovery, demos, and deal conversations.
The insights in this guide come from extensive conversations with sales leaders who reached out about keynote speaking for their kickoff events. Once we learned more about what their teams were struggling with, it became clear that the issues inside the organization required more than a keynote. The patterns behind those conversations shaped the planning approach outlined in the eBook and informed the distinction between the two kickoff types.
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