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This blog post will explain why you should hold a virtual sales kickoff event, tips and tools to consider when planning your virtual SKO, and even suggestions of different creative ideas to add to your event to make it the most successful SKO you’ve ever had.
Start 2025 right by planning and implementing the perfect virtual sales kickoff event. Invest in the future of your company and the individual sales reps that make up your team.
In this article you will find:
- What is a virtual sales kickoff and why is it so important?
- Benefits of a virtual sales kickoff
- Things to keep in mind when planning a successful virtual sales kickoff
- Tools you should consider to create an engaging virtual sales kickoff event
- 21 Creative virtual sales kickoff event ideas for 2025
- Frequently asked questions about virtual sales kickoffs
What is a Virtual Sales Kickoff and why is it so important?
A virtual sales kickoff meeting is an event designed around bringing your entire sales team together virtually, to share best practices, product updates, and new sales strategies, and motivate your team to bring in new sales.
A successful virtual sales kickoff meeting is so important because it leaves your sales reps feeling inspired, confident, valued, and more prepared to seek and engage leads, and close sales. Therefore, your virtual SKO needs to be entertaining, engaging, and educational.
Benefits of a virtual sales kickoff
The pandemic has made it impossible for you to host an in-person sales kickoff, but that doesn’t mean your company or team has to suffer! Virtual sales kickoffs can provide the same, if not better results than an in-person event. Here are some of the benefits:
1. It is far more cost-effective than an in-person kickoff event. You do not have to pay for accommodation or travel costs for your entire sales team.
2. No time is taken away from selling days in order to travel to and from your event. This means more time to close those deals and make the sale!
3. Research has shown that more than 80% of the information reps take in during a sales kickoff meeting will be forgotten within weeks, if not days. With a virtual sales kickoff, presentations and talks can be recorded and can be accessed after your event. This gives your sales team the ability to review content to optimize retention.
4. Regular updates to SKO content can be made throughout the year. This can add to the training material and overall library of knowledge accessible by your team. This material can even be repurposed for things like onboarding new sales reps.
5. With less overhead, you can run short training events on a more regular basis, which allows them to be more relevant and timely.
6. With the use of polls, tests, and surveys, you can engage with your team and collect feedback instantly. This will help you to track the success of your event and make sure all sales reps understood and are engaged with the materials.
7. It can connect you with your team, and ensure they are on track to be successful in 2023 while maintaining social distancing. It is so important to stay connected with your team during this time and make sure every member is feeling motivated and appreciated.
Things to keep in mind when planning a successful virtual sales kickoff
Most importantly, you must consider the structure of your virtual SKO. It should be designed to:
Be fast-paced because remote attendees have shorter attention spans. It is less engaging watching a screen than being in a room with a speaker. This needs to be considered when setting up the schedule for your SKO. Consider making your event short and action-packed.
Instill and bolster a sense of pride in the company and the products that are sold. This means, pumping up your sales reps by sharing successes and accomplishments from the past year.
Educate sales reps on products in order to close more sales and generate more business. Make sure to include all the key information without rambling on to make sure sales reps are equipped with the correct and up-to-date knowledge that will make them successful.
You should motivate and encourage sales reps to improve their sales game. You could do this by introducing a friendly competition or offering incentives to motivate them to work harder and be more successful.
Make it engaging and interactive. Do this by creating fun elements in your SKO. Later in this article, we provide different ideas that can be implemented in your SKO to keep your team members engaged and having fun.
Choosing a platform: tools you should consider to create an engaging sales kickoff event
When choosing a platform to host your virtual sales kickoff, consider these tools that must be present.
The platform should allow for multiple video sessions to be run at the same time. This will allow more information to be shared over a shorter period of time. Attendees can pick and choose what information is most relevant to them.
The platform should allow a presenter to share their screen and show presentation slides to everyone. This will allow attendees to follow along and stay engaged with the content being shared.
The platform should allow people to mute and unmute their audio. The hosts should have the capability to mute everyone except the presenters so they can speak without interruptions. Once the Q&A or discussion starts attendees can unmute themselves.
The platform should allow multiple users to be hosted at once.
The platform should have breakout rooms to allow for smaller discussions to take place and for multiple training sessions to occur at the same time.
The platform should have gamification functionality. This will allow for fun breaks during the sessions that can create team building, networking, and engagement.
You can find all these tools on team party platforms like Teamland or video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Webex, and Google Meet.
21 Creative Virtual Sales Kickoff Ideas for 2023:
1. Awards and Champagne
Celebrate the success of your team by presenting awards virtually or sending a bottle of champagne to top-performing salespeople from your team. Have a toast to kickstart your virtual SKO.
2. Murder Mystery
There are companies out there that organize murder mystery events. You will work together (or compete) to solve a murder mystery. This is a highly interactive activity that requires collaboration and is great for team building.
3. Virtual Escape Room
Similar to solving a murder mystery, a virtual escape room is an amazing opportunity for team building among your sales reps.
During the virtual escape room, the teams have to work together to solve the puzzles in order to get out and win the game before the timer runs out.
If you'd like to see Teamland's escape room, you can see what it looks like here.
4. Virtual Bingo
Playing Bingo is a fun group activity because it encourages interaction and competition. You can send out bingo cards to everyone in the mail to make it more interactive or even use a platform like Teamland where Bingo is hosted in the app.
5. Send Gift Bags
Sending gift bags will make people feel included in the experience with something tangible. It will make your virtual SKO even more interactive and make your sales reps feel appreciated.
6. Taking advantage of Breakout Rooms
Smaller groups will encourage discussion as well as target specific groups with relevant information, workshops, and learning sessions.
7. Making a Video
Ask the sales teams from each region prior to the virtual sales kickoff event, to make a video and submit it. The video could be a commercial about the company, a company music video, or a video about a day in the life of a sales rep.
This will encourage creativity and teamwork, along with making lasting memories.
8. Trivia
Who doesn’t love a good game of Trivia? It creates a little friendly competition among your sales reps while allowing for teamwork and collaboration.
By adding trivia questions from your training sessions into the game, your audience will be paying extra attention to the session because they want to win!
Teamland's Trivia is a fun way to make it easy for you to plan and enjoy without much planning. See more here.
9. Virtual Jeopardy
Jeopardy is more than just the second-greatest game show in history, it is the perfect framework for virtual team building games/activities during your virtual sales kickoff.
You can upgrade the experience with actual prizes you send out to winners.
10. Virtual Yoga Class
Get your team up and moving around in between information sessions. This will allow for optimal learning. It will help your team feel relaxed and refreshed which will increase their ability to be top performers.
11. Coworker Feud
Like the TV classic Family Feud, Coworker Feud is a digital version specifically for team building and engagement. One person, typically the host, does research on a variety of prompts. For example, you can aggregate numbers related to animals, human behavior, food preferences, and the solar system. An alternative is that you can send a survey out to your team members and their families, and then use the answers from these surveys as your data source.
A lead member of each team is the speaker and buzzer and can consult with their team on answers. The teams take turns guessing the most common answers. In the end, the team with the most points wins.
If you want to see our Feud Gameshow, see more here.
12. Bucket List Challenge
Give all your employees five minutes to think about what would make their bucket list – what are some things they would love to do in their lifetime? Then have everyone go around and share their list. If you have employees who share the same activities, you can challenge them to work on it together! Like, running a marathon – if you have employees who live in the same city or have marathons at the same time in different cities or states, ask them to hold each other accountable to finish the marathon! They can push one another and can check in on each other’s progress. This can be used to set sales goals and competitions as well.
The Bucket List Challenge allows for team building and inspiration/motivation between remote sales reps. It can be fun to hear what other people want to achieve, maybe some have ticked off an item and can share their experiences with the rest of the team.
13. The Desert Island Scenario
Divide sales reps into groups. Each group is given a scenario where they’re stranded on a deserted island with seven objects – but they can only grab three.
Make these objects as obscure and challenging as possible so that your team members are forced to really use critical thinking and planning.
Examples of items are a bag of fruit and vegetable seeds, a pocket knife, a 100 ft rope, a bedsheet, a bucket, 2 liters of kerosene, pen and paper, and so on.
Put the groups into break-out rooms and allow them to collaborate on which items they want to pick. Once all discussions have finished, get onto a team video chat, and discuss the results.
Activities and exercises like this force team members to see each other as teammates and can lead to healthy competition and excitement within the team.
14. Personal Facts Guessing Game
Ask each member of your sales team to share some personal facts with you.
These facts will then be compiled into a document that’s shared with each individual on the team. Next to each personal fact there’s an empty column where each sales rep will have to guess which team member the fact belongs to!
Not only can this game be hilarious, but it is a great way to develop successful team cohesion and camaraderie. Once all the guesses have been submitted, an answer key will be provided so that team members can see how well they guessed.
15. Picture Sharing
Picture-sharing activities help facilitate laughter and surprising responses that will leave sales teams feeling happy and connected.
In a virtual SKO, set aside a designated time for a sales rep to share one personal photo that is unrelated to work. This photo can contain pets, hobbies, gadgets, family members, etc.
Then have the sales rep explain the photo such as what’s going on there and why they chose it. This will allow a much-needed break from the information being shared during your SKO.
16. Remote Tai-chi
Similar to the benefits of doing virtual yoga, tai chi is a light and effective exercise that will help limber up your body as you settle into your SKO. One of the major advantages of tai chi is that it is a series of gentle movements that is accessible to many people. You don’t have to contort your body into difficult poses or lift heavy things, you just have to feel your energy and the air and move with it.
Tai chi is a great way to get your blood flowing which allows for better concentration during your information-packed SKO.
17. Virtual Comedy break
This activity is an amazing way to have fun, whilst getting to know and bonding with your fellow sales team. Prior to your virtual SKO create a challenge or theme for the joke. For example, jokes about office habits, rival companies, or food. Throughout your SKP ask different team members to share what they have come up with. This will break up your session with laughter and light-hearted banter.
18. Create a virtual break room
This is a separate area where team members can take breaks from the information sessions during your virtual SKO. They can eat their lunch, chat, and socialize in a casual setting. This will encourage the team to reconnect while on break and focus when in their training sessions.
19. Magic Show
Provide a creative and engaging break during your SKO by having your sales team learn some new tricks. You can do it yourself with your team by watching different youtube videos or Teamland can host it for you with a magician and using a magic kit. We can send you a kit before the event or you can use items around the house.
20. Photo Booth
You can bring the fun and memorable element of photo booths to your SKO by taking screenshots of everyone wearing a particular outfit like a Hawaiian shirt, crazy wig, best mustache, or even the same background.
21. Virtual Dance Break
Get everyone moving by busting a move. Whether it’s a mix that everyone adds to, or using a playlist online that everyone enjoys, you can keep your sales reps awake during your SKO by having short dance breaks. You can even turn it into karaoke.
Creating fun and engaging events that are different, allows your team to have a shared experience that they can talk about after and create bonds. Whether it's a one-day event or a multi-day, having interesting experiences will make it memorable.
People also ask these questions about Virtual Sales Kickoffs
Here are answers to the most common questions about Virtual Sales Kickoffs:
What is a virtual sales kickoff?
A virtual sales kickoff meeting is an event designed around bringing your entire sales team together virtually, to share best practices, product updates, and new sales strategies, and motivate your team to bring in new sales.
What makes virtual SKOs so much better?
It is cost-effective and time-effective. It can be recorded and can be accessed later for review. Regular updates to the content can be made throughout the year to add to the training material and overall library of knowledge accessible by your team. You can engage with your team and collect feedback instantly. You can connect with your team while maintaining social distancing.
What makes sales kickoff training effective?
Know what you want to accomplish with your SKO. Think about the “what, why, and how” of your virtual SKO. These will create a framework for how you approach your SKO training to ensure you land it effectively.
How do you prepare for a virtual SKO?
Send out educational materials a few weeks ahead of your event date. This way your team can get comfortable with the material which will allow for more engaging Q&A. Make the goals of the event clear to attendees and share the itinerary. This ensures that attendees will show up ready to participate on the day off and know what to expect.
How do you engage salespeople during a virtual SKO?
Make sure the virtual SKO is fast-paced because remote attendees have shorter attention spans. Make sure to take breaks and keep information sessions short. Include gamification in your SKO to make it engaging, interactive, and fun.
How do you continue training post-virtual SKO?
Continue to educate your sales team and keep the momentum strong after the virtual SKO. It is so important to celebrate wins. Watch for ways salespeople are implementing the knowledge they learned in the virtual SKO and celebrate when it is done successfully.
What are the best 2025 sales kickoff themes?
You want to theme your SKO something inspirational that will uplift, inspire, and motivate your sales team. Some ideas to consider: A Whole New World, Accelerate, Achieve, Believe, Breakthrough, Carpe Diem, Connect, Elevate, Ignite, In It to Win It, Liftoff, Momentum, New Frontiers, Onwards and Upwards, Power On, Rise, Summit, Synergize, The (Your Company) Experience, The Future Is Now, Unleash, Uplift and more.
