How to Boost Your Sales Team with Gamification

Just because you can’t find a word in your printed dictionary doesn’t mean it’s not worth knowing. Gamification (or gamify for the verb) essentially means to add a game-like dimension to a process, providing a competitive angle for people to play against one another to win.

Website owners and online marketers are using this strategy as a great way to get people motivated and involved in your cause though encouraging competitive streaks. The same system can be used with your salespeople to generate healthy one-upmanship competition. Let’s take a look at how this works.

Leave Both the Carrot and the Stick at Home

Business owners and sales managers all over the world develop ingenious ways of using the carrot and stick method. You don’t need either. Let’s say you tell Robert he needs to make 20 phone calls within the day; you could even hint that there’s an ‘or else’ attached to your request. Your salesperson knows you want him to make these calls to improve the averages of him getting an appointment, or even a sale, and he’ll (hopefully) aim for 20 calls.

However, after receiving a points score update showing Robert his arch sales nemesis is ahead of him by 20 calls, you can bet he’ll be looking at the clock to figure out how soon he can fit in another 40.

This is the power of gamification. With your salespeople held accountable for their results, rather than seeing the Friday afternoon slump in sales activity, your team will be voluntarily pushing harder to get ahead of their peers in a last-minute dash to win the game.

Assigning a Points Value

Assigning a points value for sales activity will work differently for different companies and it will depend on your conversion rates and general sales processes, so experimentation may be needed. As an example, a possible points value may be as follows.

1. Phone call: 1 point

2. Appointment booked: 10 points

3. Face to face meeting attending: 30 points

4. Sale closed: 60 points

Many organizations say to their sales people they must make 100 phone calls in a day. However, spamming through phone calls to hit arbitrary targets can create activity without focus on results. If your salespeople are competing for points and they know they can get a significant competitive advantage by booking an appointment, later traveling to meet that client and pushing harder for a sale, you’re going to find your sales force engaging more of the kinds of activities which are closer to closing a lead down.

Statistical Analysis

Gamifying your processes makes it easier to manage the averages and monitor ratios of sales activity produced to sales closed. If you have a salesperson who’s enthusiastically working his way through activities but not generating sales, you can identify places where more training may be needed and shore up the gaps, eliminating unnecessary spinning of his or her wheels.

The result is salespeople with more sales which means happier salespeople with more commission which means even more sales, thus compounding the effect.

You Need Real-time Scoring or It Won’t Work

Finally is a point on the points. You wouldn’t watch a football game or play a video game without keeping at least half an eye on the scores. Scores of your sales game must be known in real-time for the process to be effective and there are several methods to do it.

A team text message with up-to-date results is an ideal method so send out points scored once or twice a day to provide milestones for your team to work towards. Best of luck.

Gamification is a powerful strategy that can be used to motivate salespeople and increase sales. By assigning points to different sales activities and creating a competitive environment, sales teams are incentivized to focus on the activities that lead to closing more deals. Real-time scoring is essential for the gamification strategy to work effectively, and it can provide insights for managers to identify areas where more training is needed. Overall, incorporating gamification into sales processes can create a positive feedback loop, leading to happier salespeople, increased commission, and more sales.