Does Your SKO Actually Achieve the Strategic Outcomes that Justify the Investment?

There’s almost no limit on how much effort, how many people, and how many hours you can invest in an internal conference like a Sales Kick Off. When you add in the cost of the hotel, vendor partners, and travel, it’s a huge expense.

But the investment is worth it, right? …right? Do you even know?

If you are responsible for all or a portion of an event like this, you are under an overwhelming amount of pressure to plan and produce an amazing event. And yet, it’s surprising how often the metrics which indicate success are either not clear, or they don’t really connect to key organizational KPIs. For example, one client we worked with crafted the post-event survey to include questions like, How likely are you to recommend this event to your colleagues? and How engaging was the keynote speaker? These are important questions to ask, but even if the responses to these questions are over the moon, they’re not asking about things that are strategic enough on their own to justify the investment of a typical SKO.

A SKO investment should be justified by how well it achieves strategic organizational goals. Unfortunately, SKO goals are often so vague that it’s impossible to integrate them into the feedback mechanism. If that’s the case for an event you’re planning, you certainly won’t know if you’ve achieved those goals… which begs the question, why have a SKO at all?

If you want your event to achieve its objectives, it’s critical that you identify, clearly, what those outcomes should be, and then weave them through your event like a red thread. That is how you’ll produce a Sales Kick Off where the investment earns you a return.

Craft Your Goals

Gather with your event leadership to identify what success looks like, and the measurable indicators that will suggest to you that you achieved it. Our favorite starting point is to ask the leaders to complete these sentences:

At the end of this event, attendees should KNOW…

At the end of this event, attendees should FEEL…

At the end of this event, attendees should DO…

Begin with a rough draft to get some words on paper. Then do your best to make these statements as specific as possible. Instead of something like, At the end of this meeting, attendees should know our new strategy, be specific and describe what their main takeaway(s) about the strategy will be. This helps clarify the depth of understanding you are trying to achieve at the event. 

Consider what you want your attendees to feel. The emotional quality and outcome of an experience is often overlooked, but it’s critical, because clarity and alignment here can surface the energetic arc of the conference. 

Lastly, make sure that what happens at SKO carries forward into the field. Instead of, At the end of this meeting, attendees should be more effective sellers, take it further to something like, At the end of this meeting, attendees will confidently integrate our new messaging into their regular sales calls.

Weave Your Goals Through Your Event Like a Red Thread

Before making any decisions about your event, you should clearly identify and align upon your KNOW, FEEL and DO statements. These statements will them become a north star to direct your decision making and keep all the different stakeholders in the process working in the same direction. Here are some ways that your defined outcomes can ground you:

• Agenda design
  Your agenda should center your goals. Instead of approaching the event as an opportunity to push out leader or project updates, design your agenda with your outcomes as your anchors. Any content or activities that don’t directly support your KNOW, FEEL, and/or DO statements should be eliminated. Also, pay attention to the balance of time spent in plenary sessions vs. breakouts, and how much of your agenda is interactive vs. passive. (Even highly engaging and effective keynote speakers are functionally delivering passive experiences). Read more about our POV on agenda design here.

• Event runtime
  We work with so many clients who simply rinse and repeat the format from last year without thinking specifically about what this SKO—this year, with these objectives—needs to be successful. Don’t just go with what you’ve done before. Ask yourself how much time you actually need to accomplish your goals. 

• Attendees
  Again, don’t just go with last year’s attendee list. Think about what you're hoping to accomplish and who you need in the room to make it happen. We often see clients coming up with SKO goals after they’ve decided who will be there, but this is backwards logic. The goals should define the attendees. That said, if you have a diverse group of people attending SKO with a variety of needs, define goals for each sub-group, and arrange breakouts or other activities that will allow for a more tailored experience.

• Conference theme and branding
  Your theme and branding set the tone for the event. Your attendees see it before they show up, and if you do your job right, it should cohesively connect everything about the event together. Your FEEL statement will play a large part in driving your theme and the next several decisions. 

• Venue and location
  The space you choose dramatically influences the kinds of interactions people will have and the energetic vibe. Some venues have a sense of formality, some are cozy and intimate.

• Extra-curricular activities
  The components of the event that are not related to content can be instrumental in helping you achieve your FEEL statement. Choices like food and drinks, music, social events, and even how people move between locations will impact how people feel and the conversations they have. Be sure to thoughtfully brainstorm the types of activities that will serve your goals.

• And more!

When you start your SKO planning by defining clear goals, you give yourself a compass that can guide all decision-making as you work toward the event. This not only sets you up for a much higher-quality event, it will get you a lot closer to measuring in concrete ways the success of your event—and ultimately justifying the investment with a measurable return.

Are you interested in how you can apply these concepts to your next event? Join us on August 14th, 2025 for a webinar, Is Your Sales Kick Off (or other internal conference) Worth It? In it we will discuss how to clarify your event’s desired outcomes and plan an event reliably that achieves them.