The World’s premier athletes are preparing for the biggest moment of their careers, the Winter Olympics. As your organization’s Sales Enablement leader, you also have a date in early winter top of mind… Sales Kickoff (SKO).

 

You have been preparing for the past few months. This is your chance to launch a new persona initiative and have the entire Sales org in attendance to listen. Are you ready to stick the landing?

 

Unfortunately, many Enablement leaders falter in the big moment. Why? For discussion, let’s narrow our focus to a very common scenario, the Re-introduction of Buyer Personas.

 

Why Re-launching Personas at SKO’s Fail:

 

  1. Lack of Buy-in: For Personas to stick, you need buy-in and support from your peers. Without this, you will be nothing but dead air at SKO. If Reps do not believe their VP’s care, then you will see a flood of smartphone lights in the audience.

     

  2. Island of Misfit Toys: If you are in the same position as other Enablement leaders, you are looking at your team thinking “How in the world are we going to pull this off?” Often, Enablement teams are the dumping grounds of “C Player” talent from Sales and Marketing.

     

  3. Delivery Method: Like your peers in the Field, your audience has a short attention span. You may have the best researched and developed Buyer Personas ever created. But what is your approach going to be in delivering the material? Without the correct facilitation of this information, it will not matter. Your precious 90-minute window will become time for checking email and reminiscing about last night’s team building event.

 

How to Correct Your Approach:

 

  1. Sales Enablement Charter: Want your VP Sales and Marketing buy-in and drive adoption among their teams? It starts with sharing your Enablement Strategy with them. If they know the “why’s”, “what’s next?”, and “what’s in it for me?” behind Personas, they will ensure their team gives you the attention you deserve.

     

  2. Adult Learning: If your plan was to pull up a PowerPoint deck with detailed intel on your Personas and lecture for 90 minutes, think again. Keep the discussion as interactive as possible to drive engagement. Also, pre-wire your audience with information before-hand so everyone is participating.

     

  3. Train, Coach, Reinforce: SKO is only step one in a successful launch of Buyer Personas. Be sure that Management understands their role in reinforcing what their team learned. Otherwise, Personas will just be the “flavor of the month” in January. How are you going to ensure that Managers coach effectively and consistently? Build a certification plan to occur 3-6 months after the initial launch at SKO to evaluate the ability to apply their new knowledge on Personas.

 

Reconsidering your approach for Sales Kickoff? Download this SKO Initiative Launch Checklist to make sure you are ready to score a Perfect 10!

 

Need Pointers?

Review the “How to Make Your Number in 2018” Workbook or interactive tool to review emerging best practices, to ensure you are in a position to:

  • Increase Revenue per Sales Head
  • Develop Skills for Tenured Reps
  • Decrease Onboarding Time for new Reps

 

Sales Revenue Growth

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam Sheehan

Blends his background in consulting and sales to deliver a detailed analytical solution for his clients to help them make their number.
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Adam has built onto his Sales and Consulting background by being involved with a wide variety of projects at SBI. Adam has designed and implement best-in-class custom Sales Processes for multiple clients. He has redesigned territories, realigned quotas, and constructed sales compensation plans to provide the best opportunity for Reps to optimize their selling time and for the client to make their number. Adam has deep experience in campaign development as well. Everything from designing and executing  multi-touch campaigns, to developing a Field Marketing strategy for a global B2B organization.

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