Competitive Team-Building Activities to Energize Your Sales Kickoff

Your sales kickoff is potentially the one time all year your whole revenue team is together. That’s a lot of competitive energy in one place. Our advice? Aim it at something fun for the whole group and ride that energy all the way into next quarter (or into the sunset).

We’ve built competitive team-building activities for companies of all sizes, from a week-long challenge for 3,000 LinkedIn employees at their company kickoff to a Survivor-inspired Field Day on the beach. Both got the energy flowing and gave teams something to compete for. Here’s how to pick the right format to energize your SKO, whatever your agenda looks like.

Why SKO Energy Matters

Kickoff energy pays off where it matters most. Gallup’s research across more than 180,000 teams found that the most engaged teams see 18% higher sales productivity than the least engaged.

The connections people build in person also have staying power. Atlassian found that intentional team gatherings raised team connection by 27%, and the boost lasted four to five months, with new hires seeing the biggest jump. For a kickoff, that’s a lift that carries your team through a full quarter.

The best format depends on your kickoff agenda schedule and where your team is located. Here are three common setups and what works for each.

The best format depends on your schedule and location. Here are four common setups we've seen work and tips for organizing each one.

#1 Got a Dedicated Time Block? Go Head-to-Head

If you have two to three hours, use them for one giant, all-hands competition.

This is the format that creates the the highest engagement and the most noise (figuratively and literally). Do it right, and you'll have the entire group buzzing when its over.

For head-to-head competitions, these three formats are surefire ways to get folks excited:

Format 1: Compete in a Scavenger Hunt

A corporate scavenger hunt is a high-energy, competition-fueled format for a 2 to 3-hour time block.

The great scavenger hunts offer a variety of puzzle and riddle types so everyone's brain can contribute, and lead teams to super cool hidden gems, like a mural you would have never known existed otherwise.

Great ones also prompt teams to complete fun photo and video challenges where you end up with blackmail... OOPS, we meant you end up with hilarious content like this:

The best scavenger hunts, especially for sales crews, are hosted in a snazzy app and feature a live leaderboard. That leaderboard will drive engagement until the very end as teams try to outdo each other!

Format 2: Organize a Themed Race

Want to go bigger? Give it a theme and required checkpoint challenges.

You can think about setting up roadblock challenges to emulate The Amazing Race or turn a campus into real-life Mario Kart.

At LinkedIn, we built Kartwheel, a race where 400 players flung digital items at coworkers through a custom app. What players remembered most was trading the lead with coworkers all the way to a sprint finish.

Format 3: Go Old-School With a Field Day

If there’s an open area at your location, whether it’s a beach, a park, or a literal field, take advantage of it with a Field Day. Yeah, that’s right. Your classic elementary school competition, adult-style.

Teams rotate through challenge stations and earn points as they go. Mix brain-heavy, physical, and creative challenges so your athlete, your puzzle solver, and your personality hire all get a turn to carry their team.

On the beaches of San José del Cabo, we built the Cabo Cup, a Survivor-style Field Day that Whitestone employees competed in for ultimate glory. One player called it “a lifelong memory.”

Optimizing Your Block of Time

Two hours is a sweet spot, long enough for the standings to swing a few times, and short enough that folks are energized rather than exhausted.

Our tips:

• Mix teams across regions and roles. Put AEs, SDRs, and sales engineers who rarely work together on the same team to foster connection.
• Write some challenges around the SKO story (not too many, just a few). Incorporate new messaging or product launches, so the competition reinforces what folks heard on the main stage.

#2 Packed Agenda? Run a Game in the Background

Some kickoffs don’t have a two-hour gap to give. When the schedule is wall-to-wall sessions, build a game that runs alongside the agenda throughout the week.

People can play between meetings, after dinner, or in the middle of the night, so the fun never competes with the programming, and it gives everyone something to talk about every time they cross paths.

See it in Action: For Northslope’s four-day offsite in Ireland, we placed a letter from The Colonel, a fictional, puzzle-obsessed eccentric, on every guest's pillow at check-in. Solving it unlocked a game hidden all over the hotel.

Portraits on the walls lit up when touched, a stack of books hid a peephole behind a magnetized spine, and a finale released 24 hours after the start led to a locked briefcase with a custom prize. People were playing at nearly every single hour of the day across the four days of the event!

Our tips:

• Start on arrival night. Razzle-dazzle employees well before the programming starts by setting up teams ahead of time and putting the first clue in the welcome packet. Hook, line, sinker.
• Hide content in common areas, like the bar, the lobby, and the outdoor patios, so playing brings people together. Props hidden in plain sight can pique curiosity.
• Release the game in stages to keep momentum going across every day of the kickoff. During Northslope's event, we saw a huge engagement spike on day 2 as word of mouth spread.

#3 Hybrid Team? Compete Across Offices

If your team is a mix of regional hubs and remote reps, run similar scavenger hunts everywhere at the same time.

Office teams play in person in their city, while remote players join from wherever they are, and everyone competes on the same leaderboard. The key is to make the puzzles and riddles in the different locations as similar as possilbe.

For Vimeo's 1,100 employees, we ran six simultaneous Hunts around the world, both in-offices and remotely, so no one was left out. As their CEO put it, “The office is buzzing!”

Our tips:

• Two words: Global. Leaderboard. Obviously, we're big fans of a leaderboard. 🤓 If your SKO is hybrid or remote, setting up score tracking across all players is a fantastic way to connect folks no matter where they're tuning in from.
• Get leadership in the game. We've seen leadership involvement boost engagement. Once the CRO is in on the competition, everyone wants in.
• It works the other way too! When leaders see how many employees are playing, they tend to carve out time to jump in themselves – a huge win for you as the planner.

#4 Fully Remote? A Week-Long Game Anyone Can Join

Run a single competition that everyone plays from wherever they are, with daily challenges and a leaderboard that ranks teams across every region.

Remote reps and any in-person attendees play on their own time. Tie the challenges to each day’s keynotes to keep everyone engaged with the content, even from home!

See it in action: At LinkedIn’s mostly remote global kickoff, 3,000 employees completed 2,120 challenges in a week, including a squat challenge where they lifted the equivalent of 22.5 baby elephants. Participation grew each day on word of mouth alone.

Our tips:

• Play fair across time zones. Keep the game open for the same amount of time across regions.
• Make the fun visible. Create a dedicated Slack channel where folks can share their best photos and videos as they go. Half the entertainment is watching other teams’ submissions roll in (and roasting them a little).

However You Play, Crown a Champion

A competition is only as good as its finish.

Save the final standings for the closing dinner or awards show, and treat it like President’s Club by announcing winners on the main stage, doling out prizes, and giving the champs a moment in the spotlight.

Make sure to chant “speech, speech, speech” at the winners and have them say a few words. Our favorite prompt is, “Now that you’re champions, the children of today will be looking up to you as role models. What advice do you have to share with them?”

Be ready to record!

Plan Your Kickoff

Ready to put your sales team on the starting line? Get a quote with your headcount, dates, and city, and we’ll design a competition around your team and your agenda.

Interested in a Hunt specifically? Check out our cost guide for our corporate scavenger hunts for more.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best sales team-building activities?

Competitive ones. Sales teams light up when there's something to win, so race-style scavenger hunt, games that run across a multi-day kickoff, and Field Day competitions all tend to land best.

What are fun sales kickoff ideas?

Tie the fun to the kickoff itself. Start a game on arrival night, build challenges around this year's product launches, mix teams across regions, put a live leaderboard on the main stage screens, and crown winners in a President's Club-style ceremony on the last night.

How long should a sales team-building activity be?

At the very least, a capstone activity should be two hours of play, plus time for the briefing and awards. If your agenda is packed or you want a throghline, a game that runs every day in the background lets people play between sessions instead.

How much does a sales kickoff activity cost?

Handstand Hunts start at $1,500 for up to 30 people, and larger groups and custom builds scale from there. Our cost guide has worked examples by group size, and a quote gets you an exact number.

Can remote or international sales teams take part?

Yes. For LinkedIn's global kickoff, 3,000 employees around the world competed in the same week-long challenge through a mobile platform. We've also run a unified global competition across six time zones during the Vimeo Hunt.

How far ahead should we book?

Typically, for a groupsof 200+ or a fully custom experience, give it six to eight weeks. If you're looking at a Handstand event, we can work fast, but reach out as early as possible so we can make all your dreams come true.