When it comes to sales, everyone is always looking for that extra edge that will help them close more deals and make more money. Sales contests can be an effective way to motivate your team and increase revenue. We’ve put together this list of different sales contests ideas, ranging from simple to complex. Whether you’re looking for something quick and easy or more involved, you’ll find an idea that fits your business type and budget.

Sales Contests Ideas

There are a few different sales contests ideas that you could try out to increase motivation and productivity among your sales team.

Prizes

While rewarding your top salespeople makes sense, it’s only natural to incentivize your sales team. However, this incentive program has flaws.

While leaderboards keep top-performing reps engaged, they don’t motivate other team members who don’t see themselves at the top of the board.

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By offering sales contests, you can motivate your team by awarding prizes for various actions that help your business grow. This will increase the confidence of your sales reps and encourage them to reevaluate their impact.

By incentivizing different sales metrics, you can boost the confidence of your reps and encourage them to reevaluate their approach to the game. This healthy competitive environment will translate to better results in the contests and an overall increase in team morale.

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This healthy, competitive environment will boost the productivity of the entire sales team. It’ll remind the team that there are many different ways to be productive, not just through selling. This is important because an engaged, happy team is much more likely to succeed.

It’s important to remember that individual goals shouldn’t be prioritized over team ones. By hosting contests that reward the team, you can encourage your team to work toward a collective goal of improving the company’s bottom line.

Holding daily sales contests may seem pointless, but it’s a great way to keep your sales team engaged and focused. Your salespeople will be driven to do their best by holding frequent, smaller competitions. This also helps to build a sense of comradery between team members.

Since the prize is given out every day, the leaderboard is refreshed, so there will be a wider selection of potential prize winners.

Raffles are a great way to motivate your sales reps to reach their sales quotas. By offering a larger, more enticing prize for hitting their quota, your sales team will be more likely to hit their targets!

Reps are given raffle tickets when they meet specific goals, and these prizes are usually only given out after long-term periods have passed.

It’s important to ensure that everyone participating in the contest has a clear, achievable way to win. That way, no one feels left out!

A customer reviews campaign requires some upfront work from your company’s end. There needs to be a way for your sales reps to obtain positive or negative reviews easily.

The easiest way is to set up or utilize a customer or client feedback form.

A customer reviews campaign involves some upfront effort from the rep’s end. There needs to be an easy way to obtain reviews, whether they’re positive or negative.

The easiest way is to set up or utilize a customer or client feedback form.

This contest is a great way to motivate the whole team by encouraging them to get customer feedback. Not only does it give them the chance to receive recognition from management, but it also helps them improve their selling skills.

This contest is run often, and the winner is usually the rep with the most sales.

Just because the contest is called “Classic” doesn’t mean the entry has to be a classic item either.

Think outside the box and come up with a unique goal such as the most “No’s” and the most “Yes”s.

The best sales reps are always recognized and celebrated. Having their names and photos on the sales leaderboard for a month is a great way to boost morale and encourage everyone to do their best.

A winners’ choice is a fun way to motivate your team. The winning team member gets to choose which prize they want, either for themselves or the following month. This is a great idea to keep employees engaged and working hard.

It’s easy to motivate your team, and you won’t have to worry about anyone complaining about your prize.

Sales Contests Benefits

Humans have an instinct to compete. This comes from our long history of fighting for resources and social standing.

Because of our competitive nature, we compete on almost every single level, whether for grades, sports, at work or for who has the best lawn in the neighbourhood. This competition gives us purpose and pride.

Sales competitions can be an excellent way for sales managers to capitalize on human tendencies and increase individual performance, team activity, and morale. By setting goals for the competition, sales managers can ensure that everyone is working towards a common goal and that the competition is helping to improve overall performance.

3 Types of Sales Competitions

A business can use three types of sales competitions:

• Direct Competition: Direct Competition is when managers create contests for team members to challenge one another. Direct competitions usually have one winner who is based on their sales results.

• Team Competition: team competition is where team members work together, and management bases their rewards on how well the team performs. Each team member may be responsible for their sales duties, but management may combine their sales results at the competition’s end.

• A goal competition: Management rewards team members who achieve individual goals. They can set them themselves, or the management can decide what goals they should reach. A goal competition is less competitive. Instead of competing against their colleagues, salespeople are trying to beat their previous goals.

How to Create a Fun and Engaging Competition for Your Team

It takes planning and consideration to incentivize your team through a contest properly. It is challenging to strike the right balance between a contest which encourages friendly rivalry and one that creates an antagonistic, competitive environment within the team.

These key best practices will help you create a sales contest that encourages participation and increases engagement without breeding contempt.

• Reward reps who use a mixture of metrics, KPIs and front-end activity. Each team member has unique strengths, so contests that revolve around a single performance indicator (such as the number of sales made) aren’t always the best. For instance, newer reps may be better at booking initial meetings, but they may not be around long enough to close a deal. If you only judged the contestant on deal closure, the newer sales rep wouldn’t feel encouraged or engaged. Try mixing things up with metrics like number of meetings and your KPI (the percentage of closed won opportunities).
• Combine luck and competition: You can create a sense of surprise and equal opportunity by combining luck and competitive performance. Reps can win raffle tickets for every achievement or accomplishment during a specified period. They can then submit their raffle tickets to be entered into a drawing for a chance at a grand prize. This approach ensures that everyone on the team has a chance to win, not just your top performers. It keeps team members engaged and competitive at all levels.
• Ask your staff to participate in the creation of a sales contest. This will ensure that your team is interested in participating. Collecting input from employees will help leaders understand their team’s priorities and what motivates them to work towards them.
• Create opportunities to grow: Building a team can be a great way to foster collaboration and open up opportunities for your team members to learn from one another. When forming your team, it’s a good idea to include both seasoned SDRs and some rookies. This will encourage your veterans to share their best practices and help your younger employees learn the ropes.
• Celebrate success: Recognizing your sales team’s achievements throughout a sales incentive program will keep them engaged and motivated. Be sure to recognize all victories, even the small ones, so that no one feels left out.

Conclusion

Through incentives and rewards, competitions can help increase individual and organizational performance. These sales contests ideas can help you improve your sales metrics and operations. You can increase team motivation by properly structuring your sales contests.