Request demo

Fun and Exciting Virtual Sales Kickoff Contest Ideas

7 minutes read

Sales Teams are virtual this year too. This means that the virtual sales kickoffs are going to be the flavor of this season as well. I’m sure the virtual kickoff looks and feels very different than the in-person SKO even to your audience. They might feel that your virtual SKO lacks the fun, excitement, and the celebratory environment that they get to experience in the in-person SKO event.

This year, prove them wrong by incorporating these amazing contests in your virtual SKO event. These contests are sure to excite, engage and motivate your audience who are attending your SKO event remotely.


1. Pitch Perfect Champion

Goal: The goal here is to get your teams excited about the kickoff! Ask your sales teams from various regions to create a video on your company, brand, or product. This video can be used to kickstart the event.

Duration: Announce this contest a couple of weeks before the kickoff event.

How to run this contest? What can be a better way to kickstart your annual sales kickoff event than by showing a beautiful video on your company? In order to make the event exciting for your sales reps, you can have them create this video.

So, a couple of weeks before the contest, encourage your sales teams from each region to create a video about any of the following and submit it.

  • A commercial about the company
  • A company music video
  • A video about a day in the life of a salesperson etc

Rewards: Select some of the best videos and reward the team that created it. You can get teams to vote on the best video as well!


2. Request for Themes for the Kickoff

Goal: The goal of this contest is also to get your reps excited about the kickoff event. Invite your reps to suggest an exciting theme for the event

Duration: Announce this contest 2 weeks before the SKO event

Points: Award the points in the following way:

  • 100 points for submitting the theme suggestion
  • 200 points for the selection of the theme

How to run this contest? Ask your reps to email you their theme idea(s) for the event in 3 words or less. Also, ask them to include a short explanation about why they are proposing a particular theme. Encourage the use of graphics, images or photos to better describe their ideas. Then select the theme that best fits your SKO event for that year.

Rewards The winner will be featured during the kick-off opening to share his/ her idea on the proposed theme. Token of appreciation will also be provided.


3. Star of the Show

Goal: To reward the person who has performed extremely well in all the activities that are conducted throughout the kickoff event

Duration: Throughout the event

Points: Various scores are assigned based on a rep’s performance in various events. At the end of the event, the total score earned by a rep in all the activities is calculated in order to determine the winner

How to run the contest? Run this contest and monitor the performance of each one of the reps participating in various activities of the kickoff events like,

  • Polls and surveys
  • Assessments
  • Training activities
  • And Games

Track scores of the participants on a live leaderboard. At the end of the event, reward the person who has consistently performed well and scored well in all the activities.


4. Meet and Greet

Goal: To encourage your reps to meet people and form new connections during the breakout sessions that’ll lead to mentorships, informal peer training, friendships, and collaborations

Prize: Reward all the people who submit their exciting meet-up stories

How to run this contest? The annual kickoff events provide a good opportunity for sales reps to expand their network which in turn helps them to grow as professionals. So, organize this contest and encourage your reps to try and meet new people and make new connections during the break sessions in the virtual break-out rooms.

At the end of the event, ask everyone who attended the kickoff event to write a summary of

  • Who all have they met
  • And what new have they learned from them

Rewards: Reward everybody who submits their meet-up stories with exciting prizes.


5. The Applause Virtual Shark Tank

Goal: To encourage your teams to come up with innovative ideas to pitch to the team

Duration: Start the contest about 3 weeks before the kickoff

How to run this contest? Invite innovative pitching ideas from the team. Finalize top 3. The top 3 finalists talk about their interesting ideas during the kickoff. Timebox it to make it fun and engaging.

At the end of the event, select the best idea

Rewards: Reward the finalist of the top 3 with badges or some other prizes. And reward the person who presented the best idea with a huge cash bonus.


6. Fun Quizzes

Goal: To make the kickoff fun and engaging

Duration: Send some of these fun quizzes all throughout the event

Ideas of fun quizzes: Organize the following fun quizzes

  • Fastest Finger First: Give prizes to the winners who answer maximum questions correctly in the shortest amount of time. Topics can be about the company, products, brand, and more

  • Know your Applause-ians challenge: Ask fun questions about team members

  • Guess who: If some of your team members are ready to share their childhood photos, you can create a “Guess Who” contest to correctly identify them!

Points: 5 points per correct answer

Rewards: Reward all the people who score highest in each of these quizzes


7. King/ Queen of fun activities

Goal: To encourage your reps to actively participate and win in all the fun activities that are organized throughout the sales kickoff event

Duration: Throughout the kickoff event

Points: Assign points in the following way:

  • 500 points for coming in first place in a fun activity
  • 200 points for coming in the second place
  • 100 points for coming in the third place
  • 50 points for participating in an activity

How to run this contest? Organize this contest and encourage your reps to actively participate in all the fun activities in the kickoff event and try to win in all those activities. Assign points to the participants as mentioned above. At the end of the kickoff event, select the top 3 people with the highest score and reward them with exciting prizes. Also, make sure that you present smaller gifts to all the people who have actively participated in all the events. This way when everyone gets to win something, it encourages active participation from everyone.


Looking for sales contest ideas for different months? Check out this below:

January - 7 Sales Contest Ideas for January

February - 7 Sales Contest Ideas for February

March - 8 Sales Contest Ideas for March

April - 7 Sales Contest Ideas for April

May - 8 Sales Contest Ideas for May

June - 8 Sales Contest Ideas for June

July - 8 Sales Contest Ideas for July

August - 7 Sales Contest Ideas for August

September - 8 Sales Contest Ideas for September

October - 8 Sales Contests For October

November - 8 Sales Contests for November

December - 7 fun sales contests for December


Looking for more Seasonal Sales Contest Ideas?

5 Sales Contest for Summer

5 Sales Contests for Winter

7 Fun Sales Contest Ideas to Motivate your Team for Thanksgiving and Black Friday


Want to give cool and creative names for your sales contests? Get naming ideas from this blog below:

Top 20 Sales Contest Names


Want to give creative and funny names for your sales team? Get ideas from these articles below:

25 Creative Sales Team Names

34 Funny Sales Team Names


How will you communicate the contests that you organize to your participants?

Once you have a perfect contest idea and a suitable name for it, focus on communicating it effectively to your participants. Follow our sales contest communication template to announce your contest.


Looking for award names and prizing ideas to give out to your contest winners? Read these articles below:

Creative employee recognition awards.

23 Sales incentive ideas to keep your sales team motivated

Published on Wed Jan 19 2022

Boost Sales by 60% through SmartWinnr Gamified Sales Contests

Learn More

Ready to double your sales numbers?

Schedule a demo with our team to see how SmartWinnr can drive sales productivity in your organization. Or talk to us about your challenges and if SmartWinnr can help.

Request demo Free Consultation