New Year Sales Kickoff Template Overview

“Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.” -Og Mandino

Most companies around the globe are familiar with the concept of a new year sales kickoff. In simple terms, it’s a meeting held, typically with sales and marketing, to motivate sales reps, leaders, and team members. A new year sales kickoff meeting is a great tool for establishing company goals and relaying where you’d most like to see improvement.

These meetings are essential to forming a solid objective and bringing team members onto the same page. You’ll want to ensure that your entire sales team is present, and it’s not a bad idea to bring in marketing as well, even if it’s just management attending. There are many questions that you can ask yourself before creating a new year sales kickoff meeting agenda.

Since this meeting takes place only once each year, it’s important to think about what you want to convey to your sales reps while motivating your team. You might even want to consider what product training might look like in the near future. There are so many aspects that this type of meeting might cover, so utilizing a sales kickoff planning template will serve to benefit you immensely.

How to Run an Effective New Year Sales Kickoff Meeting

The best practice for a balanced new year sales kickoff meeting is preparation and a balanced agenda. There is likely a substantial amount of information that you want to pass along, so organization is the key here. A sales kickoff presentation should make sense. Skipping too quickly through topics or coming off track is confusing for those in attendance, and that is unacceptable in a meeting that is meant to help everyone come together on company goals and objectives.

For an in-person event, you’ll need your employees to be on the same page. Sending out a sample of the agenda via email is a super way to let everyone know what to expect, and it will keep you on track as well. Think of how much preparation goes into a live customer event and give your employees that same consideration.

If it makes things easier, you could even ask your sales team for input regarding what they want to hear in the meeting. Knowing they’ve played a role in planning helps team members to feel more engaged during the kickoff itself. A new year sales kickoff is your chance to make a huge investment in your sales team, and to show them that your company remains dedicated to providing the consistency, transparency, and assistance they need to succeed in the upcoming year. You can even provide entertainment!

What’s inside this Sales Kickoff Planning Template:

By breaking down the components of this sales kickoff planning template, you can better understand what is expected from you in each section. Each section is extremely important to the way this meeting will run, ensuring you cover all the topics necessary.

1 👥 Networking (1 hr)

Covering networking opportunities for the upcoming year can provide plenty of inspiration and ideas for your sales team. Give them ideas regarding what they can do to improve their networking skills and help them expand their networking pool.

2 📆 Year in review (30 min)

This is where you’ll want to cover the successes (and pitfalls) of the previous sales year. This isn’t a section meant to be negative, however, so whenever you mention something less than desirable, follow up with how you and your team fix it in the upcoming year.

“Become the person who would attract the results you seek.” -Jim Cathcart

3 🗣️ Internal speaker (45 min)

This is where you’ll line up a speaker from within the company. Regardless of who the speaker is, the content of their speech should be to the point and relatable. If you know your sales team well, then you probably know what they want to hear. Remain as encouraging as possible, and while it’s okay to talk numbers, don’t make it everything.

4 🗣️Guest speaker (30 min)

After your internal speaker, you’ll move forward with a guest speaker. The guest speaker should be someone outside of the country, and this is a fantastic place to bring in some motivation. Local celebrities often fill this void, but access to the internet has made it possible to capture fantastic guest speakers from around the country.

5 🔨 Workshop (1 hr)

During the workshop, you’ll want to come up with activities that will build on the selling skills your sales representatives already have. You can build a successful workshop by identifying key performance indicators and identifying overall performance gaps.

6 🏆 Team-building activity (45 min)

A team-building activity can consist of almost anything that will help your team work together.  You can plan a BBQ for a later date or take the time to play laser tag (if you have the space) or trivia during the kickoff event!

7 🗣️Keynote or motivational guest speaker (1 hr)

Now it’s time to build on the motivation from your guest speaker. After the team-building activity, and perhaps some refreshments, bring forward your keynote speaker that everyone is looking forward to hearing from. There are plenty of resources in which to find such a speaker locally and nationally.

8 👥 Guided breakout discussion (45 min)

Remember, you don’t want everyone to talk at once, but here you can jot down some ideas that will help you guide your team through a post-keynote speaker discussion. It’s good to talk about what they were able to take away, and how they’ll apply it to their careers.

9 📹 Lighthearted company skit or video (30 min)

This is something you’ll want to put some time into. Prepare a lighthearted skit or video about your company. It’s okay to poke fun, and you can even hire a work-appropriate comedian for this section.

13 📦 Wrap-up (30 min)

It’s time to wrap up the meeting, touching on important points and asking employees that still have questions to schedule a time to see you or leave time directly after for such occurrences.