6 Tips & Tricks to Survive (and Thrive) SKO 2024 as a PMM 👇

I’ve been attending & creating B2B SKOs for the last 10+ years. These events can be an incredible tool for scaling culture, alignment and passion for the product – or they can fall flat. Today we outline what an impactful SKO looks like, with 6 tips & tricks PMMs should consider to orchestrate their best event yet.

What does SKO stand for, and what is it exactly?

SKO stands for sales kickoff. A SKO is usually a multi-day event or conference for B2B SaaS revenue teams (inclusive of sales, sales engineering, customer success and marketing), typically held in January or February or at the beginning of your fiscal year. In this event, SaaS leadership gets everyone on the same page for how they’ll grow business in the new year.

It usually encompasses:

• Celebrating the previous year’s wins

• Sharing goals for the new year

• Aligning sales on how to grow the business
  

In my experience, product marketing and sales enablement typically run a 50/50 split on content creation for SKO content. Product marketing has more responsibility when the sales enablement team is small (or nonexistent).

Tip #1: Align early on measurable goals

This is an executive alignment exercise - you will have a CRO (chief revenue officer) wanting to align the troops on hard quota goals $$, a CPO (chief product officer) wanting to align on the futures product strategy & vision and marketing wanting to drill down on differentiation, competitive positioning and newly unveiled content. 

Select a SKO program owner or DRI and their first task should be to document “what are we trying to accomplish” and “how will we measure this?” It can be as simple as the chart below 👇

This exercise makes visible that your stakeholders have different ideas of what SKO is for. Documenting and sharing publicly will bring attention to this and act as a forcing function to align. Negotiate the top 3 objectives of SKO and write this down as the agreed upon goals. This will help balance the agenda and when you do a post mortem after the event. 

Tip #2: Review rep feedback before developing an agenda 

PMMs and Sales Enablement (myself included) sometimes define the agenda before reflecting on audience feedback from prior SKOs.

Ask your CRO to nominate 5-10 sales reps (not just sales leadership) and interview them on: 

• What they liked about previous SKOs

• What they are begging you NOT to do again

• What they really need in-person training on

• Best practices they have seen from other SKOs
  

Be audience focused. This feedback should be a key input when developing an agenda, alongside executive leadership goals. 

Tip #3: Create the ideal agenda and speaker roster

Setting an agenda is the hardest part. What do you prioritize? The ideal kickoff agenda creates a high-quality schedule by balancing three areas: product enablement, selling skills, and customer / market acumen. Your agenda should encourage networking and celebrate your company’s culture and mission. Common agenda items at sales kickoffs include inspirational keynotes, fun team-building events, awards celebrations, panel discussions (ideally including a customer!), and ample networking time. 

Here are a couple examples of things I’ve seen PMM own at sales kickoffs:

• CEO keynote

• Product strategy for the upcoming year

• Rolling out a new pitch deck

• Deep dive on a top competitor

• Bringing in a key customer speaker 

• Market trends and forecasts

• Introducing a new product

• Objection handling exercises

Just as important as the agenda is WHO is presenting the content and the CONTEXT in which they are presenting? Is this a hybrid event or all in person? Will the presenter be on a stage? What tech are you using for virtual? How will you engage virtual attendees? 

My general rule of thumb is to inform stakeholders upfront that in order to get on stage, we prioritize the following: 

• Stage presence and energy (can you BRING IT?)

• Presentation skills (how comfortable are you on stage without a script in hand?)

• Topic acumen (are you an expert on the topic?)
  
  

Sometimes I see SKO’s prioritize technical expertise over energy & presentation skills, which can result in content falling flat if you don't have the skills to engage an audience. Offer speaker coaching to presenters if you have the budget.

Tip #4: Create mind-blowing content

Your sales team is a smart, savvy group. Don’t put them to sleep with repetitive, same old story stuff.

Here are my ideas to make your 2024 kickoff content #UNIGNORABLE:

• Updated pitch story: The story we tell customers is rooted in our current positioning. It describes why a prospect should pick us over alternatives in the market. How has this changed in the past 12 months? How are we changing as a SaaS company - are we expanding into new markets, new buyers? 

• Drill into customer obsession: Paint a picture of the top pain points and obstacles your customers are facing in 2024, where they get their information, how they educate themselves, and what trends are driving their decisions. Focus on new information, reps know everything you said last year.

• Show differentiated value (a mind blowing demo!) - Show (don’t tell) the unique value your product delivers - but not everything. Focus storytelling on differentiated features & “Aha moments” that make customers ‘get it’ right away.

• New proof points - share new and compelling proof points that your product delivers on the promised value. This usually means a new TCO report, new ROI analysis, new customer testimonials (ideally videos or live customers), new case studies, new awards etc.

• Deep dive into competitive positioning - this is usually the hardest part to nail for sales. Have all competition materials updated and a short, pithy elevator pitch against each major competitor ready. Practice delivering it together in person. 

• Combat the “do nothing” obstacle - the prospect is getting the job done today - it might be inefficient and expensive - but it’s happening. The current situation might be painful, but so is switching to something new. Ensure you address this very real “do nothing” obstacle for sales reps and how to reframe the conversation. 

• Show reps how to create urgency - sales cycles naturally fluctuate, especially in constant economic ups/downs. Create an “urgency creating” game plan for sales. Whether it's content addressing key objections or cautions, price promotions & bundles that encourage action, free trials & POCs that minimize risk in the prospects’ mind, competitive stories that urge your prospect to take action in fear of not falling behind...show you're on top of it. 

• Deep dive on a new product / market / persona - I’m seeing a lot of SaaS companies expand their market by offering adjacent products to adjacent buyers. Your reps will not be as familiar with this new landscape, SKO is a great place to do a deep dive on the new buyer, technology and market.

Tip #5: Design mind-blowing content 

Presentation design is more than polishing slides—it's about telling the story through visuals as well as words. Here are some tips from my friends at GhostRanch Communications on where to start with designing mind-blowing content: 

• Establish visual hierarchy - That big fat “wall of text” is public enemy #1 in presentation slides, and will quickly lull your audience to sleep. Avoid this with the power of visual hierarchy. Prioritize content by chunking things out—pulling your most critical key message forward with a standout styling, sizing, font, color, or spacial arrangement. As a general rule, less is best, while trimming your baby isn’t easy, the audience will thank you for distilling it down to a digestible format.

• Un-think PowerPoint - Google search for “brilliant print ads” or “best billboards of all time,” and you’ll be down a rabbit hole of award winning, “at a glance” visual communication. Let’s bring that same creativity to your SKO content! Pair an impactful headline with an unexpectedly smart visual, fostering more “Aha” moments for the audience.
  
  👉 Ashima’s coffee table book reco for unlearning boring visuals is The Advertising Concept Book: Think Now, Design Later by Pete Barry

• Sketch it out - Generic stock photos and illustrations suck. We all know it. Roll up your sleeves and get sketching! Seriously, there is nothing cooler than an SME who creates their own custom diagrams and illustrations. Let ideas run free. And don’t sweat the end result, just draw — designers LOVE working with your napkin art and will be able to bring those across the finish line for a truly one-of-a-kind presentation.
  
  

Don't settle for audience yawns & stock imagery. GhostRanch’s starter fee costs less than a two month retainer for a totally meh PR agency. So for the cost of a few press posts and backlinks, you can have highly impactful content that changes the trajectory of your business. Up to you 💁

Tip #6: Create a post-SKO content plan 

If you have a sales enablement team, they will bring to life a post-SKO enablement curriculum. As a product marketer in today’s economy, I’m always thinking “how can we do more with less?” As you create SKO content, have a side note on all the places you can reuse this content.

Here are some ideas: 

• Virtual customer webinars

• Thought leadership (repurpose into a blog, white paper etc) 

• Customer events (Gartner Symposium, industry events etc)

• Channel partner / reseller enablement & events

• Analyst relation briefings / summits

• Investor relations & board presentations
  
  

It goes without saying that a post-event feedback survey and rep testimonials specifically on content / presentation will go a long way with proving out your SKO’s success.

SKO Get ‘Em!

There you have it — a little fun and a lot of fuel to make this your best SKO yet.

If you want to get started on a great note with sales in 2024, apply these tips and let me know how it goes!