11 Sales Contest Ideas and Why They Work

11 Sales Contest IdeasAnd Why They Work

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While individual rankings can tap in tonatural competitive instincts, this can feeloverwhelming to some reps.

Competitive sales competitions can include teamwork and mutual support while still driving revenue growth.

The overall goal of any sales contest is to engage your entire team, not just the ones who always meet their numbers.

1. The Yankee Gift Swap

When a rep closes a deal over a certain dollar amount, she gets to open a gift. The next rep who closes can either steal the 1st rep’s gift, or open her own.

Continue until all gifts have been opened.

Goal: push for high-revenue sales.

Why it worksWhy It Works

Autonomy: the reps could choose their gift or steal someone else’s, but that choice makes us feel powerful in its own way.

Variable Rewards: not knowing what’s in the wrapped gift means they could get something they don’t want. It ups the feeling of chance, and therefore excitement that the next box will hold something even more awesome.

2. Visualizing Progress

Reps write down individual total sales as theyprogress over time, focusing the team on:

Individual contributions compared to revenue



Overall progress toward gross revenue goal



Overall progress toward gross revenue goal

Celebrate success with full-team offsite activity



Visualization helps teams emphasize progress toward meaningful goals.

A full-team event builds rapport between individual reps.

Establishes accountability through visual records,but stays away from de-motivating ranking andrating systems.

3. Flash Contest

To keep reps from rationing their deals late in the month (with the purpose of getting ahead on their next-cycle quotas), spontaneously announce a quota-based contest with the prize of leaving early on Friday.


Creates urgency, spontaneity, and teamwork toreach the shared goal

Urgency: The contest is only open for a limited amount of time.

Spontaneity: The contest isn’t planned or expected by the team.

Teamwork: The goal is desireable enough for everyone to want to partake and go home early!

4. Sales Poker

Five days in a workweek, five cards in a poker hand. Coincidence?

Sales Poker has reps meet attainable daily sales goals to choose a card and build their poker hand. The rep with the best hand at the end of the week wins a prize.

Sprinkle in some wild cards and bonus opportunities to spice things up.


Combine chance, skill, and all the positivegoal-oriented behaviors to achieve revenue goals.

This long-term goal motivates individuals toachieve to gain cards and eventually build theirhand. A minimum threshold goal (rather than ahigh and unattainable one) will keep more repsinvolved.

5. Snooze Buttons

Snooze

Offer a “snooze” button for a late start onlow-volume days to drive engagement and outcomes on particularly high-volume days.

Example: The team hits their weekly salesquota by EOD Thursday. They can come in at10am Friday rather than 8am.


It’s free (!!) but there’s an opportunity cost for employees to receive time off that won’t impact their PTO balance.

$

Use strategically to snooze on low volume days and save some steam for high volume push periods.

6. Pair Selling

Match high and low performers and stress the importance of sharing ideas among teammates.

Set your goal and remind teams that their standing in the contest depends on their combined performance.


Introduces one-on-one coaching and mentorship.


Promotes internal communication and idea sharing.


Promotes internal communication and idea sharing.

Boosts overall team performance

7. Random Daily Prize

Build a store of prizes of different values. Every day’s sales or goal leader gets to choosea prize.

Use envelopes to choose from a board or balloons with the prize inside for the winner to pop at the end of the day.


Random incentives boost engagement.While most folks receive small prizes, the thrillof choice and possibility drives participation.

8. Raffle

Use this one for long-term sales periods. Give tickets to individuals in exchange for desired behaviors or outcomes.

Try:

Try:

Weekly customer service goals

Try:


Daily revenue goals

Try:


Daily revenue goals

Weekly pairs or small-team goals

Payout at raffle is one (highly desireable) grand prize and several smaller prizes.


This contest thinks long-term to drive sales goals for an extended period. Build engagement by varying the size of the sales goal per ticket.

9. Bracket

A sports-style bracket to pit reps against each other for daily or weekly goals. Winner moves on to the next round.


Use competition to increase sales and drive higher individual performance.

Consider a losers’ bracket (probably re-think that name, though) to keep the game going longer.

10. Service Award

Track individual customer feedback metrics for a set amount of time. The team member with the best rating wins.

Use: percentage positive reviews, best individual review, best review improvement as metrics.


Reduce churn, drive customer service goals, gain insight into behaviors that impact customer success.

Use what you learn to build better service goals and best practices.

11. Creative Pitching

Have team members submit and vote anonymously on their favorite creative pitches.

Can also extend to cold emails and calling pitches.


Team members can share ideas and communicate what works. Use these contests to build creative thinking and team communication.

Conclusion

Use the elements of surprise, urgency, andcollaboration to drive growth and teamworkoutside of simple one-on-one competition.

These dimensions add engagement and communication to sales teams that mightbecome overly-focused on simple KPIs.

Ben Jackson, VP of Sales at Voices.com

Our Experts

Ben Jackson, VP of Sales at Voices.com

Angelo Picucci, L&D Manager at TechnologyAdvice

Our Experts