Planning for an effective sales kickoff during your busiest time of year

If you are not planning for your sales kickoff at least six months in advance, you are already behind schedule.
As the head of sales, it is your meeting – you set the agenda, theme and tone of the entire sales kickoff. While you may look to others for recommendations for what to include — “We’re rolling out this marketing campaign,” “We acquired a new company,” “We have this product launch” — as the CSO you determine the most-relevant and most-valuable content and the amount of time to spend on that content.
The tricky part that comes into play here is that virtually every company sells more in the fourth quarter than the rest of the year, often bringing in a third of their entire business in the fourth quarter – the seasonality spike. As a result, sales leadership is helping their team land sales, not plan a meeting for the next