Borg Vanden Berghe came across Kahoot! when he was looking for new ways to make Hologic’s training more interactive. Since then, Kahoot! became their go-to tool for small sessions and large, international events alike, giving trainers a way to make their educational sessions stand out and get everyone focused on the most relevant information.

According to Borg, one of the main reasons why Kahoot! became a perfect match for their needs is the competition. As he and his colleagues train commercial teams, who are mostly very competitive people, Kahoot! does keep them on their toes! Recently, they used it in their annual sales kick-off – and the competition allowed them to deliver long-lasting engagement and impact.

Competing at an Olympic scale

Borg and team hosted Hologic’s annual sales kick-off event in October. Previously, they used to share product launches and updates there, but this time, they decided to focus on ramping up the energy and engagement, and set the stage well for 2020. Here’s how Borg described their new approach:

“We were about to launch a new revolution of our stellar platform to further differentiate from our competitors and were keen to generate excitement as well as ensure strong product knowledge.

We managed the event with two tracks – the first one team-based, the second individual. Since our meeting took place in Athens, Greece, we decided to go with an Olympics games theme for the teams! Several regional sales teams from Europe and Canada competed against each other.”

The team competition in the event was built around live case scenarios in product strategy, encouraging participants to reflect on opportunities. Each country team received a country relevant scenario and a list with 9 questions, with one hour to prepare. After that, they played a kahoot to assess how well they prepared.

According to Borg, there was a lot of discussion around the live cases in different teams – not only was this format engaging, but also thought-provoking, and Kahoot! took it even further with the competitive element. Not only do you need to know the answer, but be quick! It was a tough competition, and, of course, as always in the Olympics, winners were awarded with medals.

Instruct and demystify through games

Borg also shared how they used Kahoot! to demystify info about Hologic’s competitors:

“After the team activity we hosted another game where participants competed individually with a “Mythbusters” theme. The goal was to dispel myths around our competitors, as well as tease the teams about new product updates. Warmed up by now, participants were ready to dive into a new kahoot right away. After each question, we added an explanatory slide to reinforce the content and main messages from each question, as well as explain some gray areas.”

Engagement that lasts

Borg emphasized that, as a trainer, he appreciates that Kahoot! allows trainers to track how every participant is doing and identify questions that were the most difficult. But, what’s even more important, it creates interest and engagement that lasts beyond the actual session. They learned from several of Hologic’s sales reps that after the kahoot games, they wanted to follow up with their sales managers to discuss certain topics in their country meetings. For example, some of them took the critical case they were looking into as a team and discussed further steps.