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By now you’re 30+ days past your Annual Sales Kick-off meeting.  The sessions went off without a hitch and the travel reports have been filed – does that mean the "high" is over?  Not if you want to leverage the time and investment you made to set the direction and tone of the 2007 sales year.  After participating in several corporate sales kick-offs this past January, here are a few tips to extend the impact of your sales meeting throughout the year.

Tip 1 – Amplify the Theme 

Take the theme you used for this year’s kick-off and reuse it in every “All Sales” communication that goes out to your team.  Think about how the theme relates to the content of what you are sending to the reps – and tie it in at every opportunity. What actions, activities or occurrences are contributing to achieving the goal of the theme?  For example, if the theme is “Leading Customer Success,” then every time a customer has become successful using your product or service, share it with your organization.  Note – I’m suggesting sharing the customer’s success which means waiting until the product is installed, used and shown to be successful.  This is about embodying the theme, not just celebrating the sale.

Tip 2 – Demonstrate Learning Quarterly

The majority of annual sales meetings have an element of training to them. How do you ensure that the training investment is showing some benefits?  And how do you make sure that your sales reps are actually using what they learned?   Include a refresher, case study, or exercise at quarterly or regional meetings that reps can work on as a team to reinforce the skills and information.  Left to their own devices, most reps will revert quickly back to what they were doing before – usually because no one has made them accountable for changing their sales behaviors.

Tip 3 – Act Now on Meeting Feedback

The time to start addressing feedback from the attendees is not at year-end when you’re preparing for the 2008 kick-off.  It’s highly likely that there are suggestions, issues, and concerns that could be addressed over the course of the year.  Are there tools, skills or information they wish they had received?  Don’t wait until next year to provide it.  What aspects of the event can be replicated or built into the daily sales culture?  Is there a “quick win” item that can be addressed soon that will let them know you heard them and that their feedback was meaningful?

Tip 4 – Engage Partners & Customers Early

The most successful meetings include active participation by partners and/or customers.  But the challenge is to get their commitment to prepare and come when they are scrambling to put together their own meeting.  Begin thinking about and talking about content and their potential roles mid-year.  How do they want to engage with your company and sales force?  This is an excellent opportunity to deepen an important set of relationships.  Instead of just asking them to come and deliver a presentation, ask for their input and ideas on the meeting’s theme and content.  It will make the planning process for next year easier (by starting early), and it shows a commitment to your sales force that your team and your customers will reap the benefits from.

Tip 5 – Track & Communicate Progress

Every meeting has multiple desired outcomes – some financial, some operational, some skills-based – all focused on progress and growth.  Consider communicating achievement of milestones throughout the year – above and beyond just the sharing of the revenue numbers.  What partnership reached a new level this quarter?  How many reps succeeded in calling at the C-level successfully?  How specifically have the new tools you armed them with made a difference?  Communicating progress against a complete set of the meeting’s objectives, and not just the revenue goal, will provide a sense of momentum and help propel your team further faster.

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