Are you looking for ways to increase motivation in your sales team? Keep reading to learn about 10 sales contest ideas that provide the right dose of motivation to keep your sales reps meeting—and exceeding—their targets.
10 Sales Contest Examples
The following ten sales contest examples are just the thing to introduce a little friendly competition and help make tedious day-to-day sales tasks more fun. We’ve chosen these sales contest ideas for their ability to motivate the entire team—not just reward your top performers, so everyone has a chance to win!
Sales contests that focus on top-of-funnel activity (e.g., number of demos booked, calls made) are proven to push everyone to outperform their targets, while rewarding the hard work and perseverance that pay long-term dividends for the entire team.
The following ten sales incentive ideas are highly engaging, easy to run, deliver outstanding ROI, and have been shown to deliver impressive results.
Organizationally-Based Sales Contest IdeasÂ
Let’s get the ball rolling with three sales contest ideas that are based on common organizational structures within sales teams. These three sales contest examples are the most traditional of the bunch, and they’re designed to promote competition between individual reps and combine team efforts to see who can achieve the most!
1. Head-to-Head Sales CompetitionsÂ
In a head-to-head sales competition, sales reps compete 1:1 to see who will prevail. Most sales departments organize these types of competitions around individual sales KPIs (e.g., meetings/demos booked, phone calls made, closed deal value).
2. Team Sales Contests
This one comes in two varieties. The first is a contest in which all team members compete against one another for the top spot. The second version sets a team goal toward which everyone’s efforts count—if the team meets the goal, everyone shares the prize. Like head-to-head sales competitions, these contests are often tied to KPIs. Team competitions are a great way to fill the funnel by incentivizing things like the number of leads generated, outbound calls made, and meetings scheduled.
3. Team vs. Team Sales CompetitionsÂ
Team vs. team sales competitions are a fantastic option for teams sitting in different locations. In these contests, teams compete against one another to win a shared prize, like a pizza party or a bowling night. This type of competition is particularly effective around the end of quarter or end of fiscal year, when targets have the spotlight. These team-level contests are usually tied to fiscal goals, like the highest total sales during the competition period.
An alternative version of this competition pairs an experienced rep with a less-experienced rep. These teams compete against each other while the experienced reps teach their partners some tips and tricks. This is an excellent way to get new hires quickly up to speed while having a bit of fun.
Fun Sales Contest Ideas
While sales contests’ main objective is to drive business-related performance, to reap their full potential they have to be fun. Here are seven sales contest ideas that are sure to keep your sales reps achieving their goals like never before!
1. Pop-Up Sales Contests
Pop-up sales contests are a weapon you’ll want in your arsenal because they’re a perfect way to drive quick, targeted results. Pick an underperforming metric (e.g., calls made, demos booked, emails sent) and announce the competition in the morning. Whoever achieves the best results around the chosen metric by the end of the day wins a mystery prize—vary the value and type of the prize to keep people guessing!
2. The “Biggest Loser” Wins Contest
It might seem counterproductive to reward “losing” behavior, but this out of the box sales contest idea drives activity-based performance. Whoever gets the most “no’s” wins, so the more contacts a rep makes, the higher their chances of winning deals—or your “biggest loser wins” sales contest.
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3. Sales Pitch Contest
The art of the sales pitch is a crucial part of the job, and this is an opportunity for everyone on the team to show their chops and pick up some new ideas. Set aside time for each rep to deliver their sales pitch to the team. Once everyone has pitched, put it to a vote to see who had the best pitch.
4. Raffle Tickets
This is a fun ongoing sales contest idea that can be run weekly, monthly, or even quarterly. It awards a raffle ticket for each desired activity the rep completes (e.g., booked demo, offer sent)—some managers choose to award multiple tickets for high-value activities, such as closed sales. At the end of the contest period, draw a winner for one big prize or multiple winners for smaller prizes.
5. Cold-Calling Race
Most reps will agree that cold-calling is one of the least enjoyable parts of their job. Unfortunately, it’s the bread and butter of most sales operations. This sales incentive idea adds an element of fun to this tiresome activity by setting an “answered call” quota and awarding a prize to the first rep to hit the quota. Letting the winner leave for the day as soon as they’ve hit the quota is a surefire way to get your reps dialing!
6. Sales Bingo
Distribute bingo cards pre-printed with sales goals, specific types of sales (e.g., specific values/ products), high-yield sales activities—or a combination of all three. The first rep to fill their card wins a prize. Vary the card content based on your immediate business goals and run this game regularly for maximum results.
7. Sales Scavenger Hunt
Make a list of your company’s most difficult to sell products—or your department’s most difficult to achieve sales activities. The first rep to check everything off the list wins. This is a fun way to get everyone reaching for the stars.
Tee Up Motivation with This Sales Contest Board Idea
Sales contest boards are a powerful motivation tool that shows how each rep is performing against their goals—and others in the department. It’s the perfect way to track progress toward goals as part of a bigger sales competition. You can create a sales contest board manually using a whiteboard or using a digital tool, like Plecto, to display real-time progress relative to goals or KPIs. To get the most out of a sales contest board idea like this one, we suggest using it in conjunction with some of the sales contest ideas we’ve shared above.
Take These Sales Incentive Ideas a Step Further with Visualization
We’ve given you ten sales incentive ideas that are sure to boost performance. Many companies find that visualizing performance and sharing progress data on dashboards or sales contest boards makes them even more effective.
Plecto integrates with most major sales-tracking software and offers almost unlimited options for customizing your KPIs and data visualization. Plecto also includes built-in performance-driving features like leaderboards, contests, and instant notifications that provide real-time competition status tracking to keep everyone engaged and motivated.
Sign up for a free 14-day trial and see how these tools can help drive sales to the next level.
