Only 1 in 5 organisations with highly rated sales kick-offs see strong behaviour change. How to match the speaker and session to the target your team must hit.
A sales kick-off (SKO) is the event where a sales team hears next year's target, plan and priorities together, usually in January or February. Most of the budget goes on the venue, the awards and the keynote, and few plans cover what sellers do in the weeks after.
The gap shows up in the research. In a study of more than 220 sales leaders, enablement professionals and sellers published by RAIN Group and Alchemist in October 2025, only one in five organisations with highly effective SKO events reported very strong impact on seller behaviour.
This piece is for sales directors, revenue leaders and events teams planning a 2027 kick-off. It covers what the high-impact SKOs do differently, how to match a speaker to the number your team must hit, and what to put in the brief.
A sales kick-off changes seller behaviour when it is tied to the year's strategy, built around participation and followed by a reinforcement plan. The RAIN Group and Alchemist study compared high-impact and low-performing SKOs:
| Finding (RAIN Group and Alchemist, October 2025) | Figure |
|---|---|
High-impact SKOs tightly linked to company strategy | 1.8 times more likely |
High-impact SKOs that are highly interactive | 2.7 times more likely |
The most impactful SKOs featuring carefully curated external speakers | 2.8 times more likely |
Organisations with a formal reinforcement plan | Less than 50% |
Low-performing SKOs that don't track success | 3.3 times more likely |
The study's sample spans the Americas (58%), EMEA (25%) and APAC (17%), and RAIN Group sells sales training, so read it as a direction of travel. The pattern is still useful: the speaker matters, and so does everything around the speaker.
Start with the number, then name the one behaviour that has to change to hit it, and choose the session from that behaviour. A target such as "grow revenue from existing accounts by 15%" narrows the shortlist to a handful of speakers.
| Your 2027 target | Behaviour that has to change | Session that fits |
|---|---|---|
Growth from existing accounts | Sellers deepen relationships and spot expansion | Customer experience or account growth keynote, followed by a workshop |
New product or new pricing | Sellers explain value and hold price | Value selling session with role-play |
A stretch target after a hard year | The team commits to a goal that feels out of reach | High-performance or resilience keynote |
Bigger, later-stage deals | Sellers handle high-stakes conversations under pressure | Performance under pressure session with practice |
When the target and the behaviour are written in one line each, the speaker can prepare content for your room and your numbers.
A sales kick-off works best when it asks sellers to change one or two behaviours. Gartner's 2024 survey of 1,026 B2B sellers found that 72% feel overwhelmed by the number of skills their job requires, and that overwhelmed sellers are 45% less likely to attain quota.
A two-day agenda with ten priorities adds to that load. Pick the behaviour that moves the number, give it the keynote and the breakout, and let the other items go into the regular sales meeting rhythm.
Plan the 90 days after the kick-off before the event itself. Gartner reported in 2019 that B2B sales reps forget 70% of what they learn within a week of training and 87% within a month. In the RAIN Group study, fewer than half of organisations had a formal reinforcement plan.
A simple plan covers three things:
Agree any follow-up with the speaker when you write the brief, such as a short virtual session for managers a month later. It keeps the one behaviour in front of the team.
You'll find more names on our sales speakers page.
Tiffani Bova on growth:
Growth is a Thinking Game: L&I 2021 Keynote (YouTube)
A sales kick-off brief gives the speaker five things: the number, the behaviour, the audience, the slot in the agenda and the topics to avoid.
1. The number. Next year's target in one line, and where the growth has to come from.
2. The behaviour. The one thing sellers have to do differently to hit it.
3. The audience. How many people, how many in field sales, account management and leadership, and how last year went for them.
4. The slot. Before or after the leadership presentations, morning or after lunch, keynote only or keynote plus breakout.
5. Topics to avoid. Restructures, commission changes or competitor names.
For timing, our guide to planning your 2027 speaker programme covers when to book. For budget and terms, see what moves in a keynote speaker fee.
Choose a sales kick-off speaker from the target and the behaviour behind it. Write next year's number and the one thing sellers must do differently to hit it, then pick the session type (customer growth, value selling, high performance or pressure conversations) and the speaker who fits it.
A sales kick-off keynote usually runs 45 to 60 minutes. Pairing it with a 60 to 90 minute breakout or workshop on the same behaviour gives sellers time to practise, which the RAIN Group study links to higher-impact events.
External speakers can raise a kick-off's impact when they are chosen carefully. RAIN Group and Alchemist found that the most impactful SKOs were 2.8 times more likely to feature carefully curated external speakers, alongside a tight link to strategy and a reinforcement plan.
A kick-off message sticks when it is reinforced in the 90 days after the event. Managers repeat the one behaviour in the first week, bring it into pipeline reviews and one-to-ones, and check a chosen indicator at day 90.
Measure a sales kick-off against one indicator linked to the target, such as expansion meetings booked, discount rate or stage conversion. Record its value before the event and compare it at 90 days; satisfaction scores on the day show how the room felt.
After Dinner Speakers
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