Your Annual Sales Meeting is NOT Sales Training | Sales DUMPSTER FIRE #5

Most sales kickoff meetings are a massive waste of time and money — and worst of all, they’re not actually training your team. Kelly breaks down why we keep getting it wrong and what sales leaders can do to finally make these meetings matter.

Sales kickoff meetings have become a staple in the corporate world — packed hotel ballrooms, slick presentations, motivational speakers, product updates... but very little actual sales development. In this episode, Kelly calls out the elephant in the room: these meetings are often a “sales dumpster fire,” with little thought given to real learning, retention, or performance improvement.

Kelly shares personal stories from his early days in sales that show just how little real training takes place — and how easy it is to confuse product knowledge with sales skills. He challenges sales leaders to stop patting themselves on the back for content crammed agendas and start asking the hard questions: What are we trying to achieve? Where’s the actual skill development? Why is there no plan before or after the event?

But this isn’t just a rant. Kelly offers a practical, high-impact strategy: bring in your top reps to share real success stories — complete with Q&A — so the entire team learns from the field, not just the front of the room. You’ll walk away with a simple but powerful idea that can instantly upgrade your next kickoff meeting and actually move the needle on sales performance.

Follow the audio podcast and watch OR listen wherever you are: https://linktr.ee/salesuntraining   Kelly Riggs is an author, speaker, and business consultant for executives and companies throughout the United States and Canada. He has written two books: 1-on-1 Management: What Every Great Manager Knows That You Don’t and Quit Whining and Start SELLING! A Step-by-Step Guide to a Hall of Fame Career in Sales. 

Get more Kelly: www.BizLockerRoom.com. 

Widely recognized as a powerful speaker and performance coach in the areas of sales, management leadership, and strategic planning, Kelly is a former sales executive, a two-time national Salesperson-of-the-Year, a business owner, and a member of the Forbes’ Coaches Council since 2019. 

Music and Editing by Pod About It Productions @dougbranson