The Hybrid Sales Kickoff Playbook

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The Hybrid Sales Kickoff Playbook HOW TO TRAIN YOUR SELLERS IN A VIRTUAL WORLD

Transcript of The Hybrid Sales Kickoff Playbook

The Hybrid Sales Kickoff PlaybookHOW TO TRAIN YOUR SELLERS IN

A VIRTUAL WORLD

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The Hybrid Sales Kickoff Playbook: How to Train Your Sellers in a Virtual W

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Planning a Successful Sales KickoffSales kickoff season is here. It’s time to celebrate the successes of the past year, train your sellers, crank up the energy, and motivate everyone for the next twelve months.

A successful national sales meeting or kickoff is critical. It’s important to set goals for the coming year, align on key initiatives, and learn new strategies and tactics for succeeding in a hybrid world.

B2B sales have changed. Like consumers in the B2C space, business buyers developed new habits during the pandemic. Many now prefer digital interactions. They want self-directed experiences, online and on their own time.

Organizations must be more flexible than ever. Sellers—working from the office or remote—must meet buyers where they are—also working from the office or remote.

Now, more than ever, you’ve got to use your sales kickoff to prepare your team for an unpredictable virtual world.

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Sales Leader Playbook: 3 Ways to Enable a Hybrid Sales Team

McKinsey research shows that 80% of buyers now prefer virtual engagements.

80%

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How to Deliver a Hybrid SKOThere’s no one-size-fits all SKO this year. Some organizations are working in the office, some are fully remote, and some are hybrid. With so much uncertainty, planning your sales meeting may feel like a daunting task.

What are your options if you can’t bring everyone together for several days of training, breakout sessions, and banquets?

This year, you have to rethink every aspect of your meeting—from subject matter expert presentations to handouts to role playing—not to mention how to foster the networking and collaboration that goes on when you’re face to face.

And what about fun? A big part of a successful sales meeting is ramping up the energy and giving reps a boost to hit the ground running for the next sales cycle.

Don’t let time zone conflicts and geographically dispersed teams disrupt your national sales meeting. Even when your sales force is hybrid, there are still ways you can meet your goals, maximize the value of your kickoff, build connections, and recognize your top performers.

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There’s no one- size-fits all SKO this year. Some organi-zations are working in the office, some are fully remote, and some are hybrid.

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1Phase One » Before the Meeting

Rethink the AgendaYou can’t simply host a three-day Zoom call. People will zone out and experience screen fatigue after just a few hours, and you can only see so many slides before you’re ready for a new format. The key is to identify which content must be delivered live and which can be presented asynchronously.

Analyze presentations from previous meetings to identify dynamic speakers and hot topics that are likely to inspire conversation. Those are the things you’ll want to highlight with short, live video sessions. All the other content must be delivered another way.

Pre-recorded video presentations are essential, but there are also many other ways to inform and engage the audience: online flash drills, quizzes, small panels, and breakout sessions are just a few examples of using technology creatively to convey information effectively, without leaning too much on live conferencing.

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3-Phased Approach to SKO SuccessYou need an efficient and engaging way to run your meeting. There are several proven tactics that organizations can employ to deliver a hybrid sales meeting that also trains your sellers to compete in a hybrid world.

Follow these three phases to plan and deliver an outstanding kickoff that sets your sellers up for success.

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The Hybrid Sales Kickoff Playbook: How to Train Your Sellers in a Virtual W

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Start EarlyWith a hybrid meeting, you gain the benefit of not bringing all sellers in from the field at the same time. You don’t have to cram everything into a few days, and can minimize their time away from selling.

Start to distribute relevant, on-demand content to your team days (or weeks) before the meeting. Roll out product information, messaging, new hire introduction videos, sales presentations—and anything else you want to cover. This approach saves you time during the meeting because you can refer to content reps have already seen, and it helps them absorb the information at their own pace.

Crowdsource ContentOne of the biggest obstacles to hosting a hybrid meeting is being creative with sessions that would normally be delivered live. Prior to the meeting, ask Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and reps to submit presentations, practice videos, competitive insights, or any assets they think might benefit the team as they prepare for the coming year. You can curate and share this content during the hybrid meeting.

One way to surface best practice content is to hold a sales pitch competition for the best presentation or talk track. Instruct reps to record themselves on video and vote for the best online. Rather than presenting during the sales meeting, you can simply recognize the winners. Best of all, after the meeting, you can post the presentations online and make them accessible to the team as needed.

Reward ComplianceIn many industries, compliance training is a substantial segment of the sales kickoff. With a hybrid meeting, you can pre-record a compliance video and reward sales reps who watch it prior to your session.

Modern sales enablement platforms not only let you share videos easily, but also track who has watched to completion. Incorporate interactive knowledge checks and quizzes to ensure reps absorb the content and recognize those who do their homework—and call out those who don’t.

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2Phase Two » During the Meeting

Put People FirstAs the stress of selling in an uncertain economic climate continues, you must prioritize the human element of your meeting. The underlying theme of the kickoff should center on fostering connections. After working remotely, the last thing your sales reps need is more talking heads and one-way lectures.

Maximize engagement and make the most of participants’ time by presenting a mix of live and pre-recorded content. Incorporate simulated customer interactions and role play, best practices, opportunities for sharing, and activities that allow for lots of interaction and reconnection.

Make It FunAnd don’t be afraid to gamify the experience. Deliver poll questions and game-like quizzing throughout the event and reward those who get the right answers.

Send gift cards to the reps who perform best on role plays and exercises. Anything you can do to make the experience truly shared and motivating will help your team extract maximum value from the session.

Capture ContentThe national sales meeting is a great opportunity to introduce new products and features that can energize the team. Capture any live presentations on video and break them into small, searchable clips.

After the meeting, reps can easily refresh on these topics as they need them. This just-in-time approach to learning ensures reps have access to content when they need it most.

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3Phase Three » After the Meeting

Reinforce LearningResearch confirms that 80% of learning is lost within 30 days of a live training session if it’s not properly reinforced. Don’t lose the investment you’ve made in your event. Package meeting content and make it available on-demand in a dedicated channel, and develop knowledge checks that ensure knowledge is being retained.

Serve up reinforcement exercises after the meeting on a regular cadence. Over the following weeks and months, help reps build proficiency and reinforce newly acquired knowledge so they can articulate value, differentiate the company, and handle objections.

Plan for Next YearRunning a hybrid national sales meeting will be a learning experience for everyone. Before, during, and after the event, take notes about what’s working and what could be improved next time.

Poll participants about what they enjoyed (or didn’t) and ask them to share their top three takeaways. Keep the positive vibes flowing with a short thank you video from sales leadership to attendees, reinforcing key take-aways and outlining any next steps.

TAKEAWAY

Before, during, and after the event, take notes about what’s working and what could be improved next time.

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The Hybrid Sales Kickoff ChecklistUse this checklist to plan and deliver an outstanding hybrid sales kickoff that will set your team up for success for an unpredictable virtual world.

Build Excitement for the Event Share logistics of the meeting. Have

sales leadership create a welcome video sharing goals and vision for the meeting. Offer a series of self-directed learnings, pre-recorded sessions, or virtual brainstorming sessions before the event.

Share Preview Videos Video is a great way to connect sales

people with leaders and SMEs who will be speaking at the meeting. Speakers can also share their presentations in advance of the meeting so attendees come prepared to ask questions.

Prep Attendees Are you launching a new product?

Teaching a new sales technique? Prep attendees with content and quizzes so that they come prepared with a baseline of knowledge.

Introduce External Speakers Introduce your external speakers and

share topics and expertise. Even better, preload content from the external speaker or trainer into a channel or course.

Establish a Baseline Find out where your team needs help.

Run a flash drill to determine strengths, weaknesses, and specific areas of focus at the meeting.

Run a Contest Use the meeting as a catalyst to build

some friendly competition and solicit new content. Challenge your reps to submit the best idea from the field, best pitch, or best talk track. Prior to the event, select three finalists and allow attendees to vote for the winner live.

Capture Sessions Record each live meeting session for

future use. Share the entire meeting and each speaker’s session with your team. Break longer videos into shorter, topic-specific segments for reinforcement and new hire onboarding.

Coach Your Coaches Include a session on the practice of

coaching for managers. Take advantage of this dedicated time to share your coaching methodology, manager success stories, and practice using feedback.

Conduct Knowledge Check-Ins Launch a video quiz after each session

to measure and validate understanding. Use practice exercises, quizzes, or flash drills to keep key information and new learnings top of mind.

Support Private Practice If your reps will undergo a live

certification at the meeting, build in time for private practice before going live.

Keep the Knowledge Alive Create a dedicated content channel for

sharing session recordings, handouts, and all meeting-related assets before, during, and after the event.

Solicit Feedback for Next Year Ask participants to share their

suggestions and top three takeaways from the meeting.

Say Thank You Have sales leadership send a short

thank you video to attendees reinforcing key take-aways, outlining any next steps, and reinforcing the company vision.

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Mastering Sales Enablement with Allego’s All-In-One-SolutionMastering sales enablement means investing in the tools your organization needs. You could cobble together multiple platforms with a range of capabilities, but the most efficient approach is a solution that delivers training, content, and coaching all in one place.

When you implement a robust sales enablement platform, you save time and resources and gain the ability to scale across your organization.

Allego® is built for dynamic learning, content, and collaboration anytime, anywhere. You can empower your organization with mobile, interactive technology built for the way today’s virtual teams work—all through a single platform. Allego drives success with these key capabilities:

Virtual SellingEngage buyers virtually at every stage of the sales process with interactive, personalized experiences and content.

Onboarding and TrainingBolster engagement, behavior change, and retention with virtual programs that shorten ramp time and produce measurable business value.

Launches and RolloutsAccelerate profi-ciency, drive the use of strategic content, and ensure reps artic-ulate key mes-saging for every prospect’s need.

Coaching and CollaborationTarget skill gaps with conversation intelligence and point-in-time feedback. Drive team productivity by connecting sellers, managers, internal experts, and peers with the knowledge needed to win.

Sales Content ManagementCreate, manage, and optimize sales content with context for greater effectiveness through marketing and sales collabo-ration.

About AllegoAllego represents the next era of sales enablement. Our all-in-one, rep-centric platform ensures that sellers have the skills, knowledge, and content they need to optimize team success in a virtual world. In place of traditional training and content enablement tactics—which are rapidly outdated and often ineffective—Allego empowers reps with the activated content they need to close deals faster, and the personalized coaching and learning they require for continuous improve-ment. And it all happens in the flow of their daily work.

Whether it’s providing feedback to one another through asynchronous video, or enhancing their skills through AI-pow-ered coaching and peer-to-peer collaboration, nearly 500,000 professionals use Allego to revolutionize the way they onboard, train, collaborate, and sell.

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