30 Minutes to President's Club · 29 Sep 2026 · From the week of 28 September
#612: Sales Kickoff Masterclass: The Ultimate Planning Guide
These are notes on the conversation, checked against its transcript. The episode itself has the full discussion.
In brief
Host Armand Farrokh interviews enablement leader Kayde Givens, who has planned 16+ sales and revenue kickoffs, including Carta's first revenue kickoff, and events of a thousand-plus attendees. She lays out five goals for a kickoff (culture building, inspiration, education, celebration, jumpstarting the year) and four theme buckets tied to the business situation. Using a sales-motion-change kickoff as the example, she walks through each part of the agenda: night of arrival, general sessions, customer and board panels, breakouts, QBRs and the closing celebration. She then gives planning timelines for venue, theme, travel, communications, executive rehearsals and the post-event retro. Her central argument is that a kickoff should not be two days of nonstop training: teach one concept in depth, make it interactive, and have reps leave with their quarter plan already built.
For founders
- Kayde Givens says a kickoff has five goals (culture building, inspiration, education, celebration, jumpstarting the year), and she warns that turning the whole event into education fails because reps won't remember it.
- She says to choose the theme from the company's real situation (product change, sales motion change, not winning, winning), and she and Armand Farrokh warn that a rah-rah theme when reps aren't getting paid comes off as tone-deaf.
- She says to put customers and late-stage prospects on stage and ask them not to sugarcoat their buying experience; in her experience the prospects always end up sold.
- She budgets travel and lodging at roughly 40% of kickoff cost when booked 3–4 months out, rising toward 60% when booked only 1.5–2 months out.
- She says to keep evenings structured and together, for example a hotel speakeasy from 8 to 11pm, both to build culture and because people get fired at kickoffs.
For revenue leaders
- Kayde Givens teaches one concept per kickoff (only 'why change' out of a four-part why change/why company/why now/why pay motion) over roughly four interactive hours, then has reps apply it in role-specific breakouts.
- She has reps deliver their first QBR at kickoff: a retrospective, their number and gap, 3–5 very specific goals, and account plans for their top 3–5 deals, so they start the year without a kickoff hangover.
- She gives every breakout an enablement partner plus a function leader and has them prepare at least two weeks before the event.
- She keeps club announcements to rapid-fire slides with stats, and holds special awards like rep of the year at a separate awards night or at the start of team breakouts, never at the closing party.
- She starts planning early: walk the venue 9–12 months out, take 3–4 theme options to leadership by the second week of August for a January kickoff, send QBR decks four weeks out, and set exec deck deadlines in early December.
What was said 30, most useful first
Kayde Givens picks a kickoff theme from one of four situations (product changing, sales motion changing, not winning, winning) and gave a past example for each. Listen
Product change: after an acquisition and a move to a multi-product platform sale, she ran a 'Team One' sporting-event theme to teach team selling with CSMs and solutions engineers. Sales motion change: after mapping the customer journey and changing stages and handoffs, she used 'Breaking Barriers' with a Maverick theme, including a showing of the film. Not winning: 'True Grit' with a country western vibe, focused on perseverance and removing barriers. Winning: 'Launch', with things like glow-in-the-dark airbrushed space tattoos at the closing party.
“the one thing that I've seen fit and I've actually learned this from another any woman leader was true grit a Country Western vibe”
Kayde Givens teaches only the first part of a new sales methodology at kickoff and spends about four hours on it. Listen
The new motion, called Govology, followed a why change, why company, why now, why pay structure, mapped to the customer journey. Because reps wouldn't remember all of it, she focused only on 'why change'. Armand notes the sessions on that one concept ran from about 10am through an activity after lunch.
“we're not going to teach all of that a kickoff. They won't remember it. Let's focus on why change.”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
Kayde Givens puts late-stage prospects alongside customers on a kickoff panel and says the prospects always end up sold. Listen
She works with reps to find later-stage prospects facing problems similar to the customers on the panel. She preps panelists beforehand and pairs a CS leader or strong CSM with a rep as moderators, and always opens up Q&A. She asks panelists not to sugarcoat, for example saying if the sales process was too long or procurement was never discussed, so the team learns how the experience could have been better. Customers and prospects have stayed for closing night parties.
“pro tip, put customers No matter what happens, that prospect always gets old. I've never had a situation where you put a prospect on stage and they're like, eh”
Kayde Givens has reps deliver their first QBR at kickoff so they leave with their quarter, territory and account plans already built. Listen
Each rep presents to peers and managers: a retrospective on last quarter, the three biggest lessons (or a start/stop/continue), this quarter's number and gap, and three to five very specific goals in the form 'X calls by X date to X customer'. Then comes in-depth account planning on their top three to five deals, with suggestions from peers and pushback from the manager. Armand says this avoids the post-kickoff delay because the theme is fresh and reps are fired up and undistracted. The QBR deck is sent four weeks before kickoff.
“they're leaving kickoff with their plan for the quarter, their territory plan, their account plans and understanding, here's my number and here's what I need to do to hit it.”
Travel and lodging is typically about 40% of the kickoff budget when booked 3–4 months out, and closer to 60% when booked 1.5–2 months out. Listen
She treats three to four months before the event as the sweet spot for flight prices. Booking late, she says, crowds out spending on the fun parts of the event.
“travel and lodging in general is typically a solid 40 % of your kickoff budget. Be smart about it. If you're booking travel two months, even a month and a half, it's going to get closer to a 60 %”
Kayde Givens uses a staged communication cadence to attendees: six months, two months, six weeks and four weeks out, then weekly, then every other day in the final week. Listen
Six months: date, location and theme if known, mainly so people can plan around family trips. Two months: high-level program outline. Six weeks: reveal some details, such as a space-themed closing party. Four weeks: the QBR deck to prepare and a detailed agenda. After that, a weekly drip answering expected questions (dress code, weather, airport transport, a Slack channel), ending with a checklist the day before covering registration, schedule and pre-work reminders.
“Four weeks out is like buckle up. Here is your QBR deck. Get prepped. We want them delivered at kickoff.”
Kayde Givens sets a hard December 1 deck deadline for executives knowing it will slip, and admits using 'negotiation theatrics' to get decks done. Listen
For a January kickoff she holds a high-level session with speakers in November and requires draft decks the first week of December, which she says never happens. In mid-December she checks in, claiming the production company needs the deck to lock everything, which she admits isn't true. She leaves people alone over Christmas and starts calling and texting on December 27. Because execs change decks until the last minute, she reserves a 7–8am window with a locked stage door for final edits and practice.
“First week of December, I require them to have their decks done in a draft form. It never happens.”
Many planners skip the post-event retro, which should include a line-by-line audit of the hotel contract and a delayed review of session surveys. Listen
She says post-kickoff hotel contracts run around 198 pages and must be checked line by line for charges you shouldn't pay. She collects feedback via a QR code survey at the end of each session. She waits about a week and a half before reading it because organizers aren't emotionally ready sooner, then runs a retro to decide changes for the next kickoff.
“You're not emotionally stable enough to go through them the week after kickoff. Give it a week and a half, and then do a retro”
Most sales kickoffs waste time and money because they become 48 hours of training that reps don't remember. Listen
He frames the typical kickoff as a trainer talking at reps for two days. In his view that costs an entire week of selling time and hundreds of thousands of dollars while producing little retention.
“Most revenue or sales kickoffs are a complete waste of time and money for your sales organization, because a sales trainer will show up, spout out your reps for 48 hours, and then you don't remember a damn thing”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
A kickoff has five goals (culture building, inspiration, education, celebration and jumpstarting the year), with culture building the most important. Listen
Culture building means reps leave working together and inspired by one another. Inspiration means they are pumped to tackle the market. Celebration marks the year's effort, whether the team won or lost, before moving on. Jumpstart means doing real work at kickoff so reps are running by the following week in January.
“There are five goals to an RKO. Yeah, I'm going to start with what I think is the most important one, which is culture building”
Enablement leaders often overcorrect by making the whole kickoff about education, which reps won't retain. Listen
She says education is part of a kickoff but should not be all of it, because people do not remember everything they hear in a two-day period.
“this is a lot of times where enablement leaders will overcorrect and the whole event will be about education... no one's going to remember at all”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
Armand Farrokh calls bringing together people from different offices, who would otherwise never share a room, one of the most underrated purposes of a kickoff. Listen
At Carta there were offices in New York, Salt Lake City and San Francisco, plus remote workers, and relations between offices weren't always good. The kickoff is often the only time in the year the entire company is together.
“one of the most underrated purposes of an RKO is to just get all of these people who wouldn't normally be in a room together for 72 hours. get them in a room together.”
A celebratory rah-rah kickoff in a down market comes off as tone-deaf, and Kayde Givens says reps can feel the gap. Listen
Armand says that after the economy flipped in 2022, a massive celebration as if nothing was wrong came off badly. He prefers a 'chip on our shoulder, we're going to get this done' tone that still celebrates individual successes. Kayde says reps notice a fake winning theme when they aren't winning. She favors an honest conversation about why, using a breakout or general session so reps feel heard about what's in their way.
“especially when in 2022 like the economy flipped It always came off as extremely tone -deaf if we plan this like massive rah -rah Celebration as if nothing was going wrong”
The night of arrival should already feel like the theme and focus purely on connection, not 'check in and see you tomorrow'. Listen
She says telling people to just drop their bags removes the chance to build culture immediately. Before one kickoff she had received feedback that leadership lacked transparency, so the arrival night was a leadership happy hour with every executive answering questions over appetizers and music. Another year she ran a carnival with stilt walkers and tarot card readers. The night includes no learning.
“we had gotten a lot of feedback before this kickoff that there wasn't a lot of leadership transparency. And so we had a leadership happy hour. We had every executive in the room answering questions”
A well-produced arrival night tells reps how seriously to take the rest of the event. Listen
He compares it to dressing up for a black tie event. Telling reps to check in and grab a beer signals a low level of structure, while visible thought put into the first night signals that they should take the kickoff seriously.
“when you just say, hey, check in your hotel room, grab a beer with your friends, that is the level of structure that you are telling your reps you're going to have”
To serve a protein breakfast rather than a continental one and keep coffee available all day. Listen
She estimates protein costs possibly $8 more per person and calls it a great investment for energy and engagement through the four to five hours before lunch. She says people fed croissants and cantaloupe are asleep by 10am. She also says not to remove coffee after breakfast on the heavy general session day.
“Just give them some protein. It's possibly eight dollars more per person and it is a great investment, I promise.”
Kayde Givens opens the general session with full stage production and executives giving a look back at last year followed by the target for next year. Listen
She uses a big logo, bright lights and music regardless of whether the room holds 100 or 1,000 people. Executives such as the CRO, CEO and CFO cover what the team hit, the biggest logos won, and videos and stories, then the coming number and how to get there. Armand recalls Carta's CFO presenting in jorts for 30–45 minutes, after which he felt Carta was the only company in the world that mattered. The next session covered what it would take to grow into those expectations.
“We want to talk about what the numbers were, what we hit, some of the biggest logos we brought in, amazing videos and stories from the team. And then we want to talk about where we need to go in the next year.”
Kayde Givens makes general sessions interactive even with 1,100 reps by having them build a message step by step in notebooks, pairs and tables. Listen
To teach why-change messaging, reps drew a stick figure of the 'hero' (the prospect or customer, in her case government) and wrote the problems the hero faces and what blocks solving them. After each step they wrote in their notebook, presented to the person next to them, then discussed it with their table. Leaders then asked tables what their hero needed and why they would change, and picked the answers apart live.
“they literally drew a stick figure of said hero in their notebook... they'd turn to the person next to them and they'd actually present what they had. Then they'd turn to their table”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
Kayde Givens runs an investor and board panel at kickoff, prepared through the CEO, CRO and executive assistants. Listen
The panel gives reps contact with people they rarely see, covering the board's vision and what they care about as shareholders. She says this panel tends to give reps a big-picture view that makes them feel they chose the right company. The CEO and CRO help get board members there, and their EAs advise on how each member digests information. Armand notes having the CEO as the end-of-day anchor lets even tired reps perk up.
“This one does take a little bit of tricky planning depending on your board or depending on your investor and their willingness to always partner with your CEO and CRO.”
Kayde Givens keeps attendees together in the evenings with a hosted hotel speakeasy, partly because people get fired at kickoffs. Listen
Her speakeasy ran every night from 8 to 11pm in a rented part of the hotel, with poker tables, music, snacks, games, couches and executives present. She says it became her most popular event, so she kept it at her last company. She says keeping people together, even just in hotel restaurants, both builds culture and reduces bad decisions.
“Let's be honest, people get fired at RKOs. A little bit of its our job to make sure that that doesn't happen by creating spaces where they can still interact together without making bad decisions.”
Kayde Givens ran breakouts as a bracket competition in which reps delivered the new 'why change' story, and the top three presented at the celebration dinner. Listen
Reps were bracketed with people from other segments to deliver the full why-change story they had built in the general session. She calls it the best and most impactful format. Armand describes the breakouts as where the concept becomes role-specific: SDRs weave it into cold call scripts, AEs into discovery talk tracks, and SEs and CSMs into their own work.
“we'd bracket it out so that by the time we got to that celebration party at the dinner, the top three people presented.”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
Kayde Givens assigns every breakout an enablement partner and a function leader, and has them prepare at least two weeks before the event. Listen
Even non-sales teams such as HR had an enablement partner helping them design sessions for adult learning and behavior change. A leader from the function, for example SDR leadership, tailored the session and bracket to that audience. Presenters knew their sessions two weeks ahead rather than being handed a role the morning of.
“every breakout room has an enablement partner... It wasn't like, here's your role the morning of. It was like two weeks prior to this, you knew your session”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
To keep President's Club announcements short and rapid-fire after one closing party where each qualifier spoke for about 30 minutes. Listen
In that case both non-qualifiers and qualifiers found it embarrassing and wanted to go party. She now uses a slide per person with their stats, rapid-fire, and trains executives to move quickly, never letting it run two hours. Armand describes Carta's approach for roughly 40 qualifiers: the two most senior revenue leaders alternated naming one person at a time, who ran up, got cheered and got off.
“keep it short keep it sweet If we're going to go through everyone one by one, have like a slide, have their stats and just rapid fire through”
Listen to the episode Sales team, hiring & comp Link to this
Kayde Givens never gives special awards like rep of the year at the closing night party, and instead uses a separate awards night or the start of team breakouts. Listen
She has done it two ways. One is a dedicated awards night on the first night, with awards like rep of the year by segment. The other is opening each team's breakout with its awards, such as SDR of the year or rookie of the year. She says the winners still get a special moment without a long public ceremony taking up valuable time when people have been flown in.
“I will never do them at a closing night party. And if we're a company that really likes to do special awards, then we will do them like add an awards night”
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Kayde Givens always walks a venue before signing, after two sight-unseen contracts both went badly, and books venues 9–12 months out. Listen
In one case all breakout rooms were on a second floor reachable only by one elevator on the far side of the building, and everyone got lost. She says booking a year ahead isn't always necessary, since prices often improve closer to the event, but 9–12 months is typically the sweet spot.
“I have sight unseen, signed a contract for a venue twice in my career. Both situations were atrocious”
Kayde Givens brings leadership three to four theme options by the second week of August for a January kickoff, because open brainstorms never work. Listen
She schedules the meeting as a 'compelling event'. She also tells finance when spending will start to hit, using a budget built the year before. Her main argument for starting early is cost: lead times of up to 12 weeks for swag, notebooks and printed materials mean rushing in October gets expensive.
“just an open brainstorm. It never works. Come with three to four options based on what you know.”
Executive assistants are a kickoff planner's best friend. Listen
She sets up exec rehearsal times with the production team and the EAs, who make sure executives show up. She credits them with making the event possible and gives them massages at the end of every kickoff.
“Executive assistants are your best friend. Give them massages at the end of kickoff. I do that every time because none of this would be possible without them.”
Kayde Givens arrives one to three days before attendees, depending on event size, with emergency contact cards and a hidden comm center already set up. Listen
Before others arrive, the registration desk is up, the general session space has been walked and AV has rehearsed. Everyone working the event carries a card listing whom to contact for food problems or emergencies. A comm center office, usually hidden behind registration, serves as the team's base.
“You're typically arriving depending on the size of the event two days to a day before everyone else sometimes three days”
To use the kickoff as the starting point for the year's key training, not as the place to do all of it. Listen
Leaders often already know the keys to success for the coming year. He says the kickoff can start that education and set the tone, acting as the momentum starter for the rest of the year.
“You don't want to literally train Do all of the training for the year in RKO, but you can use RKO as your kickoff point or your literal momentum starter”
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Kayde Givens puts more than one person on stage for teaching sessions so reps hear different points of view. Listen
For the methodology introduction, she, the CRO and the CMO taught together. She says this exposes reps to different perspectives and avoids an enablement person droning on forever.
“I think it's super important to have more than one person on stage during teaching moments. They get to hear different points of view.”
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