Why I Do a Virtual Sales Kickoff Every Year

Five years ago, I found myself in a large hotel conference room somewhere in Florida. It had to be up North, because I remember it not being very warm, even for January. There were 1,000 salespeople in attendance, all of them there for an entire week. I estimated the price tag for this event to be something close to $4,000,000. While I was sitting there, I was struck by the realization that only the smallest percentage of salespeople ever attend a sales kickoff meeting, least of all one with big name speakers.

I went out to Hover.com, the site where I buy domain names, and I bought virtualsaleskickoff.com. Later that week, I had a call with Jeb Blount, Mike Weinberg, and Mark Hunter and pitched them the idea of a virtual sales kickoff meeting. I suggested that we do something for the salespeople and sales organizations that don’t have a sales kickoff. How cool it would be to give them access to the sales speakers and ideas that big companies have access to because of their size and their ability to shell out tons of cash!

The first year, we had no real time to spread the word, and we ended up with 2,000 people. The second year, that number doubled to just over 4,000 people. I can’t recall what the number was the third year, but in 2018, we had something close to 8,800 people register, and many more watched the replay.

On March 14th at 11AM ET, I will be hosting the 2019 Virtual Sales Kickoff with my good friends, Mike Weinberg, Mark Hunter, and Jeb Blount. This year’s VSKO is titled: Rain Makers vs. Rain Barrels (REGISTER HERE), because we all believe—and witness—the power of outbound sales, targeting your dream clients, proactively calling the people and companies you can help, and creating opportunities to make a difference for them.

The reason my friends and I do this is because we want to make a difference. We want to make sure that the salespeople and companies that want to improve their sales have access to the strategies and ideas they need to succeed.