Launch into 2023 with a Winning Sales Kick-off!

Introduction

It’s time to kick off the new sales journey for 2023! Whether your team is focusing on exploring new market opportunities, focusing on existing customer profitability, or finding new marginal gains, a successful sales kick-off can give everyone a clear line of sight, motivation and alignment to hit their goals in this important year. Here are 13 core ingredients to help you make the most of your sales kick-off to ensure that you set yourselves up for success this year!

What did we learn from 2022? 

Reflecting on the year that just passed can provide a lot of valuable insight when planning for success in the upcoming year. By learning from the successes and failures of 2022, organizations can ensure that they don’t make the same mistakes again, and instead build on their wins to increase marginal gains in 2023. To ensure that your sales team is well-equipped to hit their targets next year, you should dedicate some time during your sales kick-off to review what worked, what didn’t and figure out how to leverage those learnings to drive sales success in 2023. Doing this can help your team become more focused, motivated, and better aligned, so they can take on the coming year with confidence and hit their sales goals!

Share business goals for 2023

For any sales team to succeed, they need to set achievable targets. That’s why it’s essential to get everyone aligned before the start of the year. A clear goal gives your team a target to aim at and the motivation to reach it. Your 2023 sales kick-off should include setting realistic targets so everyone has a clear line of sight and the chance to succeed over the year. Setting targets is just the start, though. It’s also important to ensure your sales team has the confidence and resources to hit those targets. That is why exploring new marginal gains and opportunities for growth should be part of the sales kick-off, to help unlearn what worked in the previous year and explore ways to identify new, untapped areas for growth. So, take a few moments to look for new marginal gains and strategies to ensure sales success in 2023!

The path to target attainment (“show them the way”). 

The path to success in any sales kick-off is a shared responsibility. At this critical milestone event, the leadership team must take responsibility for showing the path to target attainment, which does not just involve telling the sales team to “get on with it.” Business leaders should partner with their sales team to explore new market opportunities and marginal gains, helping the team remain focused and motivated to achieve the set goals and objectives. By providing clarity of direction, access to resources, and support, the sales team can feel confident that they’ll have the backing they need to succeed and achieve their sales targets. With these elements in place, your team will surely have the best chance of success in the coming year.

Inspire and motivate

Inspire and motivate the team to set the tone from the start with high-impact activity, customers are refreshed, front load your sales activity and reap the rewards, and discover new opportunities for marginal gains, new approaches, and winning versus the competition. With a successful sales kick-off, your team will be motivated to discover new opportunities for marginal gains, get off to a strong start, and take your sales figures to the next level. 

As the saying goes, “a penny saved is a penny earned” – the same applies to sales figures. 

Your team should explore ways to identify upsell opportunities in existing customers, leverage your CRM data to rank new incoming leads based on their probability of closing and use Predictive Analytics to highlight data patterns ahead of time that can help you identify areas of potential customer churn. 

There’s no time like now to start exploring ways to optimize your sales goals and get the most out of your sales kick-off! With careful planning, strong motivation, and innovative ideas, your team can hit their targets and launch into 2023 with a winning sales kick-off.

Customer stories

To have a successful 2023 kick-off, it is essential to ensure that the sales team is motivated and inspired. High-impact activity is key to setting the team up for success and achieving the goals set. 

One of the most effective ways to do this is to focus on customer stories; sharing both good and bad histories with the team. This can promote a better understanding of customer needs and aid in upselling and retention opportunities. It can even help to give the team visibility into competitor offers and behavior! 

It is also essential for leadership to cultivate a culture of winning together and building team support. With powerful customer stories and the right motivation, the sales team can be set up to have the best chance of success.

Energize the team – “We are in it together”.

Make organizational commitments that set the team up for success. Organizational and sales leadership must be one with the sales team. Sales team success will set the tone for organizational togetherness and all functions will feed off this. Commit to being available to support the team and “showing up” for sales “all hands” from time to time to listen to team challenges, provide feedback and gauge customer sentiment. 

Outline the Marketing Strategy

Outline the Marketing Strategy and how it’s aligned with business goals. Organizing a successful sales kick-off requires a deep understanding of the customer’s needs and expectations and your own business goals. Exploring a shared marketing strategy aligned to business goals will energize and motivate the team, while also providing a great opportunity to connect with the customer success team to learn from the customer’s journey. 

Doing so allows you to understand trends and customer sentiment and see where your competitors have an advantage. It’s also a great time to discuss product updates, roadmap, and get input from sales team on where they’re finding success. That way, you can use the customer’s insight and your own experience to identify new marginal gains and develop approaches that satisfy customers’ needs and propel your business forward in the coming year.

Look for New Marginal Gains

One of the most valuable additions to any sales team’s arsenal of tools is the utilization of predictive analytics. Predictive analytics gives sales teams the power to make the most out of their efforts in the current market environment. 

By leveraging the data from their CRM and other sources, sales teams can determine the most likely prospective clients to close, as well as identify existing customers who may be good candidates for an upsell. Additionally, predictive analytics can be used to spot patterns in customer behavior that can help teams identify customers who may be at risk of churning. These insights can hugely impact a sales team’s success in the current market environment and help them stay ahead of the competition. With predictive analytics, sales teams can get the most out of their efforts and arm themselves with the crucial insights that will lead to a successful 2023.

The best part is that we have no-code tools like Graphite Note at our disposal today. With these tools, non-technical people can run deep insights into their leads and customers without writing a single line of code.

Show the score

Scoreboards are critical to driving the best individual and team performance. Transparent scoreboards with key lead and lag metrics (more lead than lag) are essential to drive positive team competition. It ups performance, gets people focused, highlights challenges, helps point to solutions, training requirements and it’s also a great way of ensuring everyone “turns up!” (nowhere to hide. The facts are the facts!)

Brainstorm themes in breakouts

Brainstorming can be a powerful tool to help build team support and fuel a culture of success. A successful brainstorming session provides an opportunity for learning, cross fertilization of ideas, and the ability to find solutions to common challenges. In the spirit of building a team dynamic, encourage cross-team collaboration. 

Not only will this create a productive working environment, but it will also help spur creativity and ideas that spark unexpected connections. For example, getting a salesperson and a data analyst together in the same breakout group to collaborate can be a great opportunity for the cross-fertilization of ideas. 

Through this, two very different disciplines can come together, helping create a unified vision for the year and beyond. Throughout the session, remember to emphasize the power of teamwork and the collective success of achieving the team’s overall goals. Doing so can help fuel the team dynamics of success and confidence and ready the team for a great 2023.

Share Product updates, roadmap, and input from sales team 

One of the key ingredients for a successful sales kick-off in 2023 is to share product updates, roadmap, and input from the sales team. As a salesperson myself, I know the importance of staying up-to-date with our product offerings and clearly communicating this information to our customers. 

During our sales kick-off, I saw the importance of having the entire team engaged in this process. From the product development team giving us a deep dive into the product roadmap to the sales team being able to provide feedback and insights from the front line, everyone at the sales kick-off needs to be part of the conversation. 

By having continuous discussions between product development and the sales team, we can ensure that the products and services we offer our customers are always up-to-date and meet their needs. With a well-aligned team focused on this process, we can confidently reach our 2023 goals with ease.

Reward accomplishments

Celebrate 2022 success. Reward the winners and put them up in “lights” so all salespeople want to be the sales rep(s) being celebrated at the 2024 kick-off. This gets the competitive juices flowing.

Conclusion

As you plan for a successful 2023, you have all the ingredients to set your sales team up for success. With reflection, goals, alignment, motivation, and new technology at your fingertips, you have all the right tools to have an impactful and successful sales kick-off. This kick-off is the foundation of success for this upcoming year and should keep in mind as you go through this sales journey. 

Let’s make this an amazing sales journey for 2023!

Have fun!!!