(Updated: Originally posted March 14, 2018)
“As leaders of salespeople, we are constantly looking for creative ways to improve KPIs. I’ll quickly cover one of the best sales contests that you will ever run for your team.”
Before getting into the contest itself, I would like to take a brief moment to discuss why contests and deploying gamified experiences within your sales operations can be critical to your sales team. I’ll also give a few items to consider when deciding on the features to include with your game program that will help you maximize its effectiveness. Bear in mind that if you find value in the information below, make sure you download our free white paper The Ultimate Guide to Gamifying Your Sales Team.
Prior to my role as CEO of Outfield, I’ve worked in a variety of professions related to sales – the Associate, Management, Operations, etc. One of the things that was constant among myself and my colleagues was the need for accomplishment, desire for recognition, and inherent competitive drive. Even more, was the disdain for shirking, being perceived as a slacker, or not receiving due acknowledgment for a job well done. Pay was usually a byproduct, but in many cases, not the defining attribute responsible for top salespeople to be their best. Generally speaking, I would imagine that work professionals from all walks of life can identify with this psychology to some degree. One of the unique characteristics with sales is the transparency associated with effort, performance, and overall execution. The best sales managers take it a step further by acknowledging an individual’s special performances among the group and use those as opportunities to compare against the performances of others on the team. This has been a tactic used to boost overall performance for many many years.
Proven to work by playing on intrinsic motivations associated with being a red-blooded human being (i.e. narcissism, desire for respect, recognition, pride etc.), contests are embraced in order to drive higher performances among sales reps by tapping into their competitive nature. The desire of being top-dog is a position that everyone enjoys during their stint as number 1, and it isn’t a position they are quickly willing to give up even in the face of colleagues seeking to knock them off the throne. A sales manager’s goal should be to take advantage of human nature in order to drive the company towards it objectives.
The biggest thing when employing gamified experiences among your team is to consider the overall outcome you’re aiming for and to protect against unintended consequences – the bad behaviors that can manifest themselves. Additionally, be mindful of other attributes that impact the success of your program:
Timeliness: Does your program coincide with some world event (i.e. March Madness)?
Duration: A contest shouldn’t be so long that your team can’t see a finish line or so short that adequate KPI accumulation isn’t realistic.
Legality: The rules of engagement should be transparent to all parties
Goals: Measured KPIs should be obtainable
Prize: Have some reward that victors can receive in order to incentivize participants along the way.
Enjoyment: The contest program should be fun and inspire the best behaviors from your employees. This might the most important feature for proper engagement and team morale.
Now onto the Tournament…
With the NCAA tournament around the corner, everyone’s preparing for the madness. Bracket’s get busted, dramatic upsets are bound, and buzzer beaters shock fans around the country. This is certainly one of the best times of the year in sports, and interestingly enough one of the best sales contests that managers can leverage to drive performance results for their company. Allow me to elaborate. As leaders of salespeople, we are constantly looking for creative ways to improve KPIs. I’ll quickly cover one of the best sales contests that you will ever run for your team.
- Putting Together the Right Squads
Break your teams into pairs of two. Each team should be somewhat (but not totally) random and set to face another team in traditional tournament bracket fashion. If you have 8 sales reps, then the bracket should appear as such:
How you pair teams up should be creative and should have some underlying reasoning. For example, you can pair your veterans with your rookies as a way to establish better mentorship relationships within your team. These relationships will last way beyond the length of the contest and contribute largely to the growth of the individual participants. The veterans will develop their leadership abilities. Meanwhile, the rookies will learn how to better execute at their jobs.
- Determine Your Goals
Running a sales contest is only as effective as the goals you set. Determine which metrics are most important to your company’s success. Whatever you decide will drive the behavior of your team, and the agenda they will be seeking to execute. Every time a team member achieves one of the KPIs you have set, they get a point. This sets the stage for how the sales contest will run, and ultimately who the winners will be. As you’ve probably guessed, the team with the highest combined score at the end of each round is the winner. Make sure the tournament winners have a special prize they are able to claim at victory – one that really incentivizes them along the way.
- The Result
When I ran this program, the impact was phenomenal! The KPIs we were aiming for increased by over 300% in aggregate relative to other months. Let me repeat, the results improved by 3x. Moreover, was the positive impact the sales contest had on my team’s relationships with one another. Team morale went up significantly. Each sales rep was put into a team, which meant they were dependent upon their partner in order to compete effectively. This forced them to communicate, learn from each other, and strategize together. Also, they were accountable for someone other than themselves, which added motivation. The event was competitive and fun. I strongly suggest any sales manager looking to improve results to employ gamified experiences for his or her team. In my long existing career as a leader of people, this has been, by far, the most fun and best of all the sales contests I have ever run.
If you have any great ideas for best sales contests, feel free to share in the comments section. We would love to hear from you!
Cheers!
