According to careerexplorer.com, sales representatives report 2.5 out of 5 stars when asked about job satisfaction which puts sales in the lowest 5% for overall career satisfaction. These metrics aren’t difficult to explain for a position that often includes cold calling and hearing a lot more nos than yesses. Even more explainable for entry-level salespeople who work in industries with long sales cycles; many months may go by before they get to celebrate with their first commission check.
As a result, more and more companies are adopting this idea of Gamification within the culture of their sales teams.
Just as is true in education, when participants are more engaged in their day-to-day activities, more experiential learning happens and more progress is made. If an employee is having fun, they’re not only going to have a positive view of the company as a whole, but they’ll work harder for the company as well. Therefore the employee sticks around longer, reducing turnover.
It’s a win-win situation.
By turning some of the daily pipeline tasks into games, the sales team can experience a myriad benefits including:
Sales professionals who feel in control. When deals fall through or industries experience financial shifts, it’s easy for sales representatives to feel completely out of control of their own career and their own finances. Giving them opportunities to meet smaller, more frequent goals and experience rewards, even non-monetary ones, puts individuals back in the driver seat.
Sales professionals that can quantify their progress. Success isn’t as black and white of whether or not you hit your quota. Think about it like a character leveling up in a game. The closer you get to achieving the next level, the more effort you want to put into achieving that level up. And nothing feels better than when you can look back and see how far you’ve come.
Sales professionals with a clear path to success. Knowing the goal and having mile markers along the way gives an employee something tangible they can refer to when it comes to metrics. Instead of being confused as to what to do next, the employee can be empowered to achieve their goals and/or create a game plan for reaching them more independently.
Sales professionals that feel their efforts are recognized. It never feels good to have hard work go unnoticed, or credit taken by someone else. But the gamification process intrinsically creates rewards that employees ‘unlock’. They are frequently recognized for achieving these goals, which positively enforces employee efforts and motivates them to achieve bigger and better rewards!
Sales professionals that feel like part of a team. As a company, you’re all in this together. When people feel they have a support system, they’re more confident and willing to go the extra mile because everyone has each other’s back. Similarly, when employees are playing a game together, though there may be some friendly competition, it fosters a sense of teamwork by allowing them to help each other achieve their next ‘level up’ and vice versa.
Sales professionals with increased job satisfaction. There’s a reason both sports and video games are such popular forms of entertainment on a global scale. Athletes don’t quit when things get hard and gamers don’t give up when they run out of lives. The psychology of gamification brings that level of competition with one’s self, or intrinsic motivation, into salespeople’s every day and allows them to maintain positivity even on hard days.
This is the foundation for the type of company culture that people dream of. When sales representatives and sales leadership work for and with each other, success comes naturally. Sales professionals who have typically bounced from one job to the next looking for a higher paycheck can finally find a landing place within a team that motivates their individual success on a daily basis.
Is Gamification a Viable Long-Term Technique for Sales?
Looking at the aforementioned benefits, it’s easy to see how gamification could foster initial excitement within a sales organization. But a natural next question is, but for how long? We’ve seen plenty of trends rise and fall to dive too deep too quickly into a fad that doesn’t have a promise of return.
Let’s take a look at how Gamification has come into play in other industries. Consider the Fantasy League. From Fantasy Football to Baseball to The Bachelor, the psychology of ‘winning’ even in a game that you aren’t in control of has taken consumers by storm.
The fantasy sports industry has experienced $2 billion in growth in the past year making it an excellent use case for both the effectiveness and the stickiness of gamification. Do you participate in a fantasy league? If so, are you still willing to play next season even if you didn’t win last season?
Sales professionals are driven by results and have to be in an industry where on average 40% of your income is based on your self-driven results. But if you rely on only a done-deal to motivate your sales team with nothing else but roadblocks and dead-ends to fill their day, your organization will suffer from that high-churn rate that sales leaders are all too familiar with.
There are a few ways you can ensure that Gamification is implemented within your organization in an effective and long-lasting way. Here are a few simple steps you can take to start to see the benefits of gamification and retention for your sales team.
- Set clear company priorities. Small goals should build towards bigger goals without veering off in a different direction.
- Reward behavior over numbers. Individuals can control their own behaviors more than they can control specific numbers.
- Unify teams. Competition can be healthy but a sense of team will propel your organization further.
- Build momentum. Don’t introduce too many incentives at once, start small and see what works best.
- Celebrate openly. Rewards should be visible and newsworthy. Make individual progress a big deal.
The Closer’s App is a game changer
The Closer’s App allows sales leaders to motivate, challenge and reward their sales organization with proven game theory and mechanics that drive results. 90% of sales managers surveyed state that sales output increased when gamification was applied to their operations, Our gamification platform has proven to increase productivity, boost performance and create a friendly competitive environment for sales team of all sizes.
Closer’s has a sophisticated rating system to help quantify the work attributes of your sales reps, allowing managers to better coach and asses their team. Closer’s has a sophisticated rating system to help quantify the work attributes of your sales reps, allowing managers to better coach and asses their team. Research shows that gamification and friendly competition can drive team morale and comradery.
Download The Closer’s App now and take your team to the next level!
