52 National Sales Meeting Themes Actually Used In 2019

Need the best national sales meeting themes? Of course, you do, because the stakes are so high.

At your annual sales meeting you’ll have your entire high-powered sales force and senior management team all in one place. Likely making it the most visible event you’ll plan all year. But hey, no pressure!

We’re here to help you with proven sales meeting themes for today’s business reality. We’ve gathered 52 national sales meeting themes that were actually chosen by your peers in 2019. Themes that multi-billion dollar corporations have recently invested big money in.

3 Most-Searched Sales Meeting Theme Categories: Motivational, Funny, For Growth

When sales leaders go looking for sales meeting theme ideas, they usually turn to the internet (like you probably did). These sales leaders don’t just search for random theme ideas; they search for themes that are motivational, funny, or about growth.  Here’s the number of monthly searches for each:

Motivational themes are by far the most sought after (with 210 searches a month), with a tie between funny themes or themes for growth (with 110 searches each per month). However, these 3 theme categories were close, but not exactly what actually was implemented in 2019. Based on our new research, somewhere along the road to meeting implementation, “funny” got lost in sales meeting themes, replaced by … well, you’ll see in a little.

3 Most-Used Categories of Theme Ideas in 2019: Motivational, For Growth, And Team-Building

Unlike others, we decided not to simply provide you with a long list of rehashed sales meeting themes written by others from years gone by. That’s because we didn’t want to share with you a list of potentially outdated themes corporations no longer use.

Instead, we researched to see what corporations are using NOW to rally their sales teams: The themes they picked in 2019.

Why does that matter? Because today’s sales leaders are faced with different challenges than those 5 or 10 years ago:

• Economic cycle phase position
• Difficulty in hiring and retaining top talent
• Increasing influence of technology in buying, selling, and lead generation
• Customer expectation changes
• Shifting competitive landscape amidst digital disruption

Therefore, the themes corporations chose in 2019 reflect this new reality.

So, to find actual 2019 sales meeting themes, we scoured the web.  We searched for pictures, videos, apps, tweets, shares, posts, press releases – whatever we could find.  National sales meetings are simply not as well-promoted as corporations’ other events, yet there was proof out there.

In the end, we found 52 sales meeting themes that corporations, many publicly listed, used at their 2019 events.  You can see some of the pictures of their ball room stages, graphics, and theme identities in this blog post.

We also grouped their themes into 3 categories. However, these 3 theme categories had one big change: while funny themes were popular in internet searches, team-building themes were popular in the actual themes used.

And why team building? Likely because many corporations want to instill in their sales force how their success depends on how well sales works together and with others in their company.

Here’s how we categorized the 52 companies’ sales meeting themes actually used in 2019:

• Motivational sales meeting themes: 19
• Sales meeting themes for growth: 18
• Team building sales meeting themes: 15

Let’s take a look at the actual themes and which corporations used them, grouping them among our three categories.

19 Motivational Sales Meeting Themes Used In 2019

Motivational sales meeting themes are chosen to get the sales force fired up! Inspire them to burst out of the of the meeting rooms and storm the castle.

1. Activate — Samsung
2. All In — DJO Global and The Home Depot
3. Game On — BriovaRx
4. Grit & Passion — Intersect ENT
5. If you build it, Sales will come — ITW Global Brands
6. Ignite — Synnex
7. In It To Win It — Quincy Compressor
8. Maximum Velocity — Sherwin Williams – Performance Coatings Group
9. Momentum In The Mountains (in Park City, Utah) — AIA Corporation
10. No Limits — Occidental Petroleum
11. On Fire — Crane Worldwide Logistics
12. Play To Win — Smith and Nephew
13. Playing To Win — Behr Paint
14. Re!magine — Pearson
15. Rise Up — Sterling Computers
16. Run The Hunt — Tech Data
17. The Extra Mile — Henry Schein Medical
18. The Future Is Now — Employers Insurance
19. Where The Stars Align (event in Hollywood) — CDI

If you are looking to motivate your sales force attending your national sales meeting, you need to look at event gamification. Event gamification motivates your sales team to be more engaged and involved with your meeting content, so they better absorb and retain your key messages. Learn more about event gamification here.

18 Sales Meeting Themes For Growth Used In 2019

Sales meeting themes for growth focus on two kinds of growth: sales growth and personal growth.  This is where there is a strong overlap with motivational themes, as personal growth and motivation can be so similar.

20. #Smarter — Jack Henry & Associates
21. Be A Star — Lexis Nexis Risk Sales Meeting
22. be the SOLUTION — Spectrum
23. Building Your Business — DeRoyal
24. Commitment To Excellence — MicroCare
25. Digification — Pinnacle
26. Elevate Your Game — Allied Solutions
27. Empower Your Possibilities — Technologent
28. Expanding Success — Mitsubishi Electric
29. Expanding The Possibilities — School Health
30. Innovate — Infinex
31. Live On Purpose — TIDI
32. Make Your Mark — FootJoy
33. Next Level — Acelity
34. Perform Like A Champion — Vector Solutions
35. Stand Out — Essilor
36. Stronger — Phillips IGTD
37. Trained to Reign — Daltile

Want your sales meeting to instill within your team the skills to grow their sales? Our Attendee Participation Game will engage more of your sales force meeting attendees, and keep them engaged longer, with your growth-oriented meeting content. Learn more about our Attendee Participation Game here.

15 Team-Building Sales Meeting Themes Used In 2019

Team-building sales meeting themes are all about the collective power of the company.  Some companies even build their company name into the theme.  But most of all, the word “together” is the clue that this sales meeting theme is all about the team.

To be fair, there is a lot of overlap between motivational themes and growth themes – companies want to motivate their teams to grow sales, after all.  And, for many of the themes that included team building, there was a secondary aspect of motivation or growth as well.

38. From Many, Wex — WEX
39. It Starts With Us — National Safety Apparel
40. Leading The Way — Source Atlantic
41. On The Move Together — Hanover Insurance
42. One Nationwide, Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond — Nationwide
43. Pulling Together — EFCO
44. Reaching New Heights … Together — Tessco
45. Real Teams Win Together — Campbells Soups
46. TEAM — Merit Medical
47. The Power Of Us — Pierre Fabre Group
48. Transforming Care Together — Press Ganey
49. We Are One — Henry Schein
50. We Own It. — Quotient
51. Win As One — RF Technologies
52. Winning Together — Computacenter

A great annual sales meeting theme helps your sales team go home with an indelible memory of the single message you want them to retain. Yet, like a great Haiku poem, a great theme is open to multiple interpretations, so that you can attach many overlapping messages to it. We hope you found ideas and inspirations to help you choose the theme that best fits your company and meeting goals

If you’d like to learn how you can keep more of your attendees engaged in your event content throughout your entire sales or customer meeting, try our Sales Kickoff Sample Game.  We’ll help you more deeply engage and educate your attendees about your event content, and provide metrics to demonstrate how much learning they retained.