Every year January is packed with Sales Kick-offs (SKO) all over the world from SAP, IBM, Microsoft or Oracle. I have been fortunate to attend a few and it is a great time to meet international colleagues or connect with other functions within the organisation.
As the name suggests the focus is on setting the company up for a great year of revenue and growth.
As you can see from the Dimension Data video below SKO's can be a high energy and extravagant experience!
In my experience I have always completed a fundamental task prior to attending and review during, account reviews.
The very basis of previous success (or limited success) can be uncovered through each team (sales, pre-sales, marketing) by tracing the steps that went into an account or deal. Here are a few important areas for further investigation to review (that are hopefully fields in your CRM):
- Source of Lead (social media, content, event, personal network, client referral etc)
- Authority involved by you and the client (when did you involve your boss? Who first connected with your firm? etc)
- First Pitch and subsequent pitches (what detail and which stage did you present your offering? Who was in the room, on the phone, reviewing the information?)
- Pricing discussions
- Decision making process (did client testimonials assist? were there a clear number of confirmation points required? etc)
- Procurement process
- Sign-off
- Planning/Launch (did you have the right resource in place to execute? was the client aware earlier in the process? etc)
- Ongoing support and management (who is now managing this relationship?)
Each team within the organisation will have played a role but until all parties analyse and discuss this together it will be less likely a seamless and efficient process will be in place for the future.
In addition these reviews are often conducted by management. A simple template in the format of a timeline could be provided to every individual, regardless of position, to complete ahead of SKO. One example would be for those of the social media (or millennial) generation might be using specific tactics and influenced the agreement that are not used further up the chain of command.
For startups and SMEs an SKO is not always arranged however I would strongly recommend conducting a review amongst the team before January is complete!
