The Weekly Kickoff

I schedule the weekly kickoff meeting on Mondays with the purpose of setting the tone for the week. That means giving reps a chance to:

• Celebrate their teammates 
• Build pride in the team
• Knowledge share
• Call their shots for the week
• Be supported in their goals

So, that becomes the agenda for this Monday meeting.

Celebrate their teammates

The best teams I’ve ever played on or worked in were the ones where my teammates and I cheered each other on abundantly. These were the teams where it didn’t matter who scored the most points – what mattered was that we recognized each other for all the moments leading to a score.

On sales teams, it’s no different.

The best teams I’ve been on as a sales professional are ones where team members share what’s working well for them, where they’re stumbling, and how they’ve overcome challenges other reps are facing. These are the teams where reps are inspired by the success of their teammates rather than threatened by it. 

Since I build “best teams”, I intentionally create moments where reps can celebrate and recognize their teammates and I’ve found that a weekly team kickoff meeting is a great meeting for this.

To facilitate:

• Have your reps, one by one, recognize one of their teammates for something that is behavior based from the week before, i.e. shared a template, practiced objections with me, showed me how to use a new tool, etc.
• Ask the rep to share what the impact was of that behavior and/or why it was important to them
• Once that rep is done, have them popcorn to the next person until everyone has done their shoutout

Build pride in the team

To build pride in the team, managers have to give the team something to be proud of. The way I do this is by contextualizing the team’s work. This can look like: 

• Highlight where we’re making progress
• Identify areas where we’re pacing ahead of plan
• Call attention to where our team sets the performance curve.

Knowledge share

Every manager and their mother is trying to figure out how to close the performance gap between their top performers and the rest of their team. 

What better way to break down the knowledge gap than by having your reps talk about what’s working for them? 

Here are some questions you can use to prompt a knowledge sharing session:

• What worked well last week?
• What held you back?
• What will you start, stop or continue going into this week?

Call their shots

The last thing to cover in Monday’s team meeting is calling shots. Hint: a “shot” is a leading indicator of rep performance, i.e. weekly opportunities created. 

This part of the meeting is a really easy, 2-step process:

Step 1: Ask each rep to call out their “shot” for the week, i.e. 2 opportunities created. 

Step 2: As each rep calls their “shot”, write it down where it’s visible to everyone on the team. 

It’s really that simple. 

Be supported in their goals

In sharing goals out loud in front of teammates, reps have the opportunity to feel less alone in accomplishing their goals. Also, teammates will now be in a position to cheer their peers on better since they’re aware of their weekly goals. 

Secondly, by having your reps call their “shots” for the week, managers can use one-on-one’s to discuss, ideate and/or coach on how reps can achieve their goal. For example, work with reps to:

• Identify high potential accounts and prospects
• Eliminate roadblocks inhibiting goal achievement
• Find resources to support efficiency gains
• Coach on specific skills needed to attain goal

Wrapping this puppy up

A well run weekly kickoff meeting sets the tone for the week, makes sure reps feel like they’re a part of something bigger, and gives everyone the opportunity to feel supported!
When people feel like their team and their coach is rooting for them, they’ll feel that they are much more capable of achieving their goals!