How to Plan a President’s Club Trip Program

by | Nov 9, 2026 | Event Planning | 0 comments

For Sales Leaders

How To Plan The Program For A President’s Club Trip.

Your top performers earned the trip. Here is how to build a program that rewards them without turning paradise into another sales meeting.

For Sales Leaders6 min readBy Chris Sund

A President’s Club trip has one job: make the people who carried the year feel seen, and make everyone who did not go want to be there next year. The program is where most companies get that wrong.

Where President’s Club programs go wrong

  • Too much agenda. Winners did not earn a resort so they could sit in a ballroom for six hours.
  • A forecast in disguise. Turning the recognition dinner into next year’s quota talk tells winners the trip was never about them.
  • Only the CEO on stage. Leadership should speak, but a room of top sellers also wants a perspective they cannot get internally.
  • Recognition that sounds generic. Reading a list of names is not recognition. Specific stories about how someone won are.

What a great program does instead

The best President’s Club programs keep the business content short and give winners something to take home besides a tan: a sharper sense of why they won, and a reason to raise their own ceiling next year. That usually means one strong session early in the trip, a recognition dinner built around stories, and a lot of unscheduled time.

The people who won the trip do not need to be motivated. They need a reason to go even higher.

How to build the program

Step 1

Protect the free time

Set the agenda first around rest and experiences, then fit business content into one or two short blocks.

Step 2

Put one keynote early

A session on the first full morning sets the tone for the trip and gives winners language to use the rest of the week.

Step 3

Build recognition around stories

Ask each winner’s leader for one specific moment that made the year. Read those, not just the numbers.

Step 4

Include partners and spouses on purpose

If guests are invited, choose content that works for them too. A talk about potential and growth lands with a mixed room; a pipeline review does not.

Step 5

Plan the follow-through

Send winners home with one idea to share with their team. That is how the trip pays off for people who were not on it.

Questions planners ask

When should the keynote happen on a President’s Club trip?
Early. The first full morning works best, while energy is high and before people settle into vacation mode.
How long should the business session be?
Sixty to ninety minutes is plenty. Anything longer competes with the reason people are there.
Should the speaker talk about sales?
Partly. Top sellers respond to a speaker who has carried a number and built a sales team, but the message should be about raising their own ceiling, not closing techniques.
Does the speaker have to travel to the resort?
For a destination trip, in person is best. Ask about travel early so it fits the group’s flights and schedule.

Chris Sund has spoken at the Definitive Healthcare Sales Kickoff and helped lead Uniti Med’s 10x revenue growth. See President’s Club speaker and sales keynote speaker.

Your best sellers already proved what they can do. Show them what else they are capable of.
Chris Sund

Chris Sund

President and COO of Uniti Med, GQR Healthcare and Nebula, and bestselling author of You Are Capable of More. He helped lead Uniti Med’s 10x revenue growth and has spoken at the Definitive Healthcare Sales Kickoff. Based in Nebraska. Thinkers360 ranks him a Top 100 Thought Leader in Sales and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Leadership.

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