I'm about to say something that might get me kicked out of the revenue leader's club: Most Sales Kick-Offs are expensive theater that create zero lasting behavior change.
There. I said it.
We've all been there. The ballroom at the Vegas hotel. The motivational keynote speaker who's never sold software. The 47-slide product roadmap deck that everyone forgets by Thursday. The breakout sessions that feel more like detention than development. And somehow, we keep doing the same thing year after year, expecting different results.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: The traditional SKO model—fly everyone to a resort, blast them with information for three days, and hope something sticks—is fundamentally broken. It's optimized for the wrong metrics (attendance and "engagement" surveys) instead of what actually matters (skill development and revenue impact).
Why Most SKOs Fail: The Vegas Buffet Problem
Think about the last time you went to a Vegas buffet. You pile your plate high with everything that looks good—sushi, prime rib, pasta, maybe some crab legs. By the end, you're overwhelmed, slightly nauseous, and can't remember what actually tasted good.
That's exactly what we do to our sales teams at SKO. We try to cram a year's worth of training, alignment, product updates, and "culture building" into 72 hours. The result? Information overload, minimal retention, and a team that's exhausted rather than energized.
The research backs this up. Hermann Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve shows that people forget 50% of new information within an hour and 70% within 24 hours without reinforcement. Now multiply that by the 15 sessions your team sits through at SKO. You're essentially lighting money on fire.
The Three Jobs Your SKO Actually Needs to Do
After running SKOs at multiple high-growth companies and making plenty of expensive mistakes (ask me about the time we spent $50K on a "team building" exercise that everyone hated), I've distilled it down to three critical jobs:
1. Drive genuine connection - Not forced fun, but real human connection between people who share a mission
2. Build specific, applicable skills - Not awareness of concepts, but actual behavior change
3. Create visceral alignment - Not head-nodding agreement, but deep understanding of where we're going and why
Notice what's not on this list? Product feature walkthroughs. Company history presentations. Anything that could be effectively communicated via email or Loom.
Join Me to Redesign Your 2026 SKO
On September 4th, I'm joining Alexandra Yeaton (formerly Klaviyo, now EliseAI), Mercy Bell (Webflow) and Chris Knochel (Marco Experiences) for a deep dive on building high-impact SKOs that actually drive results. We're going to break down:
The specific session design principles that create lasting behavior change (hint: it's not what most enablement teams think)
How to engineer dopamine hits throughout your event to maintain engagement (yes, there's neuroscience behind great SKOs)
The measurement framework that tells you if your SKO actually worked or just felt good
Why the "restaurant model" of SKO planning beats the conference model every time
Alex is bringing perspective from both ends of the spectrum—from Klaviyo's massive Vegas productions to EliseAI's scrappy quarterly sprints. Mercy has produced some of the most engaging sales events I've seen, treating them like blockbuster films rather than corporate obligations.
We're not going to give you a template to copy. Every company is different, every team has unique needs, and what works at a 1,000-person org will fail at a 50-person startup. Instead, we're sharing the principles and frameworks you can adapt to your context.
The Bottom Line
Your next SKO is either going to be an expensive party that people forget by February, or it's going to be the catalyst that drives real behavior change and revenue impact. The difference isn't budget; it's design philosophy.
Stop trying to do everything. Start doing the few things that matter, and do them exceptionally well.
Register for the webinar here - September 4th at 1EST/10pST.
And if you're planning a 2026 SKO, this might be the most valuable hour you invest in making it actually matter.
See you there,
Kyle
P.S. - If you've ever sat through a 90-minute product roadmap presentation at SKO and thought "this could have been an email," you're not alone. We're going to talk about that too.