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For sales kickoff facilitators

Sales kickoff icebreakers

An SKO is two days, a hundred-plus reps, a hotel ballroom or a Zoom grid, and a stack of slides somebody worked on for six weeks. The icebreaker is the difference between the room being on board by 9:30 and being on their phones by 9:30. These are warmups for that first hour, not for the whole event.

Why most SKO icebreakers waste the room

The familiar pattern is a name-and-fun-fact round that takes 45 minutes for 80 people and produces nothing the room remembers by lunch. It also tends to be designed by extroverts for extroverts, so the people who already speak up speak up more, and the rest watch. A vote-based or quick-quiz format gives every rep something to do in the first ten minutes without putting anyone on a stage they didn't sign up for.

Recommended games

Quick QuizTrivia round on the company's quarter, the product, or the competitive landscape. The SKO favorite when there's time to prep questions.5m2+This or ThatTwo-card vote at scale. Works for a full room because nobody speaks; everyone clicks. Three rounds, under five minutes.5m2+Team SpectrumPlot the room on a relevant spectrum (e.g. confidence in the new pricing). Doubles as a temperature read for the leadership session that follows.5m3–10Fill in the Blank GameCaption-and-vote game. Better as a closer than an opener. Useful for the late-afternoon slot where the room needs energy back.10m3–12Guess the Emoji GameRace-to-type guessing. No turn order, no microphone, no stage.10m2–12

Common questions

How do I run it from the stage?
A room holds up to 20, so open one room per group of up to 20 and put each room's join link or QR code on the opening slide. Say "scan your group's code, first ten minutes are a quick quiz." Run a Quick Quiz on the quarter or a This or That vote, have each group read out its result, and use it as the handoff into the leadership session. Nobody has to come up or speak.
How big a group can an SKO icebreaker handle?
This or That and Quick Quiz work up to a room's limit of 20. For a bigger kickoff, split into breakouts of up to 20, one room each.
Should the icebreaker be tied to the SKO theme?
When there's time, yes. A trivia round on this year's product launches outperforms a generic warmup by a wide margin. When there isn't, a vote-based game is the right default. Forced theme-icebreakers feel worse than no theme at all.
When should I skip the opener?
When the SKO opens on a tough number and the room already knows it. A trivia round ahead of a missed-target reckoning reads as oblivious. Open with the result, then earn the lighter moment later in the day.
Where does the rest of the kickoff facilitation happen?
We build GroupMap for the brainstorming, voting and breakout-discussion parts of an SKO. Run the warmup here; use GroupMap when you need the room to converge on priorities, plays or territory plans.

Plays in your video tool

Zoom Icebreaker GamesFor ZoomMicrosoft Teams Icebreaker GamesFor Microsoft Teams

Other meetings these games suit

Icebreakers for All-Hands MeetingsFor larger groupsConference IcebreakersFor conference organizersIcebreakers for Team OffsitesFor offsite organizers

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