Are You SKO Ready?
Creating Value Beyond the Hype
Discuss upcoming strategy, motivate the team, celebrate recent successes, reward teams for jobs well done, and ensure alignment on annual goals. Every CRO will share that the above agenda for the SKO is critical for team morale and retention.
"Doing what we did last year" isn't really an option for 2025. With the impending US elections this fall, continued inflation concerns, distributed workforces, global considerations, and a great deal of uncertainty, your SKO 2025 is incredibly important. If you are strategic, intentional, and innovative, the right design, development, and delivery could set the tone for a far greater impact.
So Are You SKO 2025 Ready?
Beyond a great event, how will you double down on:
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Creating and sustaining an engaged community
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Boosting morale while driving long-tail productivity
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Educating new and veteran teams to think and behave differently
Harnessing the power of your solution, unique data, and foray into AI, can help your clients build new digital businesses and fuel material enterprise growth.
If your solution is the key for them to outcompete, it will only achieve its transformative value when you set a clear strategy, align your culture, and elevate your capabilities to meet the execution, delivery challenges, and opportunities of 2025.
"Nour brings incredible insights to push you to think and lead differently."
KC CHOI, EVP AND HEAD OF GLOBAL B2B MOBILE
SAMSUNG
The Co-Create Effect
Balance and evolution in a world of macroeconomic headwinds and rapid AI-driven technology change hinge on co-creation and strategic collaborations. Rather than aiming to be the smartest, the key is innovative collaboration. Delve into the tools and processes of co-creation and recognize the significance of internal and external strategic relationships amidst disruption.
Outcome:
Master the art of building impactful lasting business relationships that drive revenue growth.
Curve Benders
Increasing competition, slowing sales cycles, and lower yield on traditional tactics all suggest that the future of work demands strategic relationships for non-linear growth. Understand the disruptive forces reshaping our work and life, and embrace the power of "Curve Benders" for transformative growth. Through this session, learn how to navigate challenges, understand role dynamics, and forge relationships that can redefine your growth trajectory.
Outcome:
Master the art of building impactful lasting business relationships that drive revenue growth.
Relationship Economics®
In a post-pandemic world with ongoing economic and geopolitical uncertainty, thriving means leveraging deep business relationships. Dive into Relationship Economics® and discover how to transform everyday contacts into valuable partnerships. You'll gain insights from two decades of research on fostering hybrid relationships and growth strategies, setting you apart in a relationship-focused business landscape.
Outcome:
Master the art of building impactful lasting business relationships that drive revenue growth.
Keynote Topics and Outcomes
Sample SKO Clients
There are several options for how we can work together to create an unforgettable SKO 2025 experience for you and your audience.
Each option includes our SmartContent+™, customizing our thought and practice leadership to the needs of the meeting owner and the audience.
We also work diligently with meeting planners to ensure a smooth and highly immersive experience for the SKO attendees.
1. SKO Keynote and Signed Books
60 minutes in duration, David Nour, best-selling author of Relationship Economics®, 3rd Edition (Wiley, 2023), Curve Benders (Wiley, 2021), and Co-Create (St. Martin's Press, 2017), will deliver a highly customized SKO keynote. Our team will create a custom landing page for your attendees to take a relevant content quiz, show the aggregate data in the keynote, and use an interactive polling tool to engage them during the presentation.
Each participant will receive a signed copy of any of Nour's books.
2. Keynote, Signed Books and Live Visuals
Option One above of an SKO Keynote and Signed Books, plus a member of our creative team to capture the keynote insights visually. This option is incredibly powerful for visual learners as we leave the large boards behind and share digital images for our clients to use however appropriate.
3. Keynote, Signed Books, Live Visuals and Moderated Panel
Option Two above expanded to include Nour moderating a panel of your customers, partners, company executives, or board members.
We've found panel discussions that are well designed, where each participant is prepped/coached in advance, conducted through a natural conversation, yet a commanding presence to be incredibly impactful.
The panel must address the questions or concerns of the audience members, often answering "What's in it for me?" Although meticulously planned, it should never be scripted and when possible include audience participation.
4. Keynote, Signed Books, Live Visuals and Breakout Session
An alternative to Option Three is to dive deeper into Nour's SKO Keynote content with a breakout session on his topics.
Whether Relationship Economics, Curve Benders, Co-Create, or a hybrid of his deep expertise in strategic relationships, a hands-on mini-workshop allows the audience to immerse themselves in individual and small team exercises.
A set of highly interactive personal development tips, techniques, and best practices bring Nour's content to life, making them uniquely relevant and applicable in the field, long after the SKO.
5. Keynote, Signed Books, Live Visuals and Webinar Series
An alternative to Option Three above expanded to include a series of six (6) webinars to help the attendees learn more about the relevant implications, internalize the content's impact in their respective roles, and embrace the fundamental changes in aligning buying and selling motions.
The webinar series can also be scheduled leading up to your event to give your attendees a taste and encourage them to amplify their curiosity in the event content.
BONUS: Post-SKO Leadership Debrief + Prioritized Pursuits
In our experience, the SKO planning leading up to the actual event, and the post-SKO team meetings make that week particularly stressful and all-encompassing.
A fantastic opportunity would be to re-engage the GTM leadership team with an intentional retreat to debrief what worked, what didn't, how will we improve, and our prioritized pursuits from the SKO.
By giving the leadership team the time and space to soak in their personal perspectives, and team input, this leadership retreat can be particularly impactful in setting the tone for revenue execution in 2025.
Our contribution? Nour can moderate this retreat in similar format to our annual Relationship Economics Summit.
SKO Offerings
Empowering Transformative Impactful
David Nour has been guiding organizations to harness the power of strategic business relationships for two decades.
As a trusted advisor, bestselling author of 12 books, and thought leader who has delved deep into the essence of relationship-centric growth, he believes it's not sufficient to just build connections. Revenue teams need the insight, understanding, and actionable strategies to transform everyday contacts into lasting, impactful business relationships.
FROM 2012 TO 2024
Keynotes
Moderated panels of customers, partners, execs, boards and investors.
Breakout sessions and mini workshops.
Estimated audience members - from ballrooms to boardrooms!
Book Nour. Plan your customized keynote to energize your team and impact your strategy and results!
Chat with Nour to discuss your specific goals, areas of focus for customized keynote.
Complete the form to request a call with David Nour.
Nour Looks Forward to Working with You!
Through Nour's impactful talks and bestselling books, he has guided countless professionals in technology, professional services, hospitality, insurance, financial services, and other industries to foster deeper relationships and achieve sustainable growth in their markets.
In a technology-driven world where transactional interactions have become the norm, true success lies in the depth, not breadth, of our relationships.
Leaders, it's time to refocus: Nour's insights will guide your teams to nurture genuine connections, shifting from fleeting interactions to lasting, strategic relationships in this age of hybrid relationships.
Before
1. Confusing Vision & Direction: Misaligned Initiatives / Strategic Priorities - Lack of clarity and inconsistent efforts often lead to Go-To-Market (GTM) inefficiencies in resource misallocation and delayed decision-making.
2. Lack of Clarity on Bi-Directional Purpose! - Inconsistent messaging, and product and service misalignment degrade the customer experience, delay revenue growth, and erode margins.
3. Too Many Thinkers Without Understandings of the Needs of the Doers! - Unrealistic plans, and lack of feasibility often driven by unrealistic or impractical considerations for in-the-field realities cause frustration and disconnect.
During
4. Confusing Motivation with Inspiration! - Motivation is fundamentally intrinsic, driven by specific needs, goals, or desires to achieve external rewards. Typically action-oriented it's often temporary and requires constant reinforcement to maintain. Conversely, inspiration is an emotional upliftment or experience triggered by external factors. This sense of awakening to new possibilities can have an enduring impact.
5. 100 lbs. Bag of Content into a 1 lb. Box - No Connective Tissue! - Participants become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information, leading to cognitive fatigue and reduced retention of critical points. Without clear connections between agenda items, the event feels disjointed, fragmented, and ineffective.
6. Create an Event (vs. a Development Process) - Most SKOs are typically intensive learning events where participants are exposed to new concepts, skills, or information with short-term exposure. Behavior changes and material impact on the business come from a development process focused on adaptability, mastery, and long-term growth.
7. Content is Not Actionable (Elevator Ride!) - Lack of practical application of shared ideas creates frustrated and disengaged audiences. The perceived wasted time and missed opportunities reduce impact, decrease credibility and trust, and limit learning and growth.
After
8. No Follow Through - Process vs. Follow-Up - a Transaction! - Transactional follow-up is short-term, task-oriented, and limited in its scope. Follow through, often a long-term commitment, is holistic and process-oriented to ensure continuous improvement, sustained results, and material impact.
9. No Real or Material Metrics or Milestones - Return on Objectives! - Ambiguity caused by undefined or opaque metrics and milestones conveys a lack of focus, unclear objectives, and mixed messages. Lack of accountability, challenges in "single source of the truth" tracking, no performance benchmarks, or the ability to identify gaps reduce motivation and engagement.
10. Impact from the Application of the SKO Content - Lack of sales performance, no lasting enhancement in sales skills and knowledge, misalignment of strategic priorities, decreased motivation and morale, degraded customer relationships, and lack of any measurable business outcomes often prove the SKO less than efficient or effective in its desired impact on the business.
Implications on Enterprise Relationships
Positive Consequences.
Negative Consequences.
Leadership Strategies.
Published in 2000 by political scientist Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, explored the decline of social capital in the US over the last several decades of the 20th century. Using a variety of data sources and sociological research, Putnam argued that American social life is marked by a significant reduction in all forms of in-person social interactions. From the pressures of time and money to mobility and sprawl, technology and mass media, and generational changes all contributed to this decline.
The integration of AI into enterprise environments has profound implications for business relationships, including those with customers, employees, suppliers, partners, investors, and the market at large. Positive consequences include enhanced customer experiences, operational efficiencies, data-driven insights, improved communications, and innovative net new market opportunities.
Negative consequences encompass accelerated skill gaps, job displacement, accelerated loss of personal touch, privacy and trust degradation, ethical and bias concerns, and an over-dependency on technology.
As such astute leaders must bring a balanced approach combining AI capabilities with human insights, transparent communication, ethical AI use, employee training and development, and regular review and adjustments.
Book Nour. Plan your customized keynote to energize your team and impact your strategy and results!
Chat with Nour to discuss your specific goals, areas of focus for customized keynote.