We recently held a webinar on how to use sales gamification to improve sales performance, and you can watch a recording of it and get the slides here.

What is Sales Gamification?

To start to understand what exactly gamification in the area of sales is and how to best do it, let’s start by looking at what exactly gamification is. According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of gamification is:

The process of adding games or gamelike elements to something (such as a task) so as to encourage participation

With that being literally the textbook definition, we will simplify it to a more digestible concept by saying that it is simply the process of turning a task into a game.

 

How to Gamify

Here are some steps that you can go through to implement sales gamification.

Establish gameplay mindset
The first step in trying to gamify something is to simply adopt more of a gameplay mindset.

The opposite of a gameplay mindset would be just doing a task by working hard and using a natural approach. To switch to a gameplay mindset would be to realize and accept that a task can be viewed as a game and that there are ways to measure and perform the tasks that can make it very game-like.

Define target goals
The next step in sales gamification is to define the target goals. This step is usually already taken care of in sales, and this is most likely the sales quota for each salesperson.

Break goals down into objectives, tasks, and activities
One reason why gamification is needed and helpful is that many sales organizations just give each salesperson their sales quota and set them off with only that very large goal and objective. The problem with that is that there are a lot of smaller objectives, tasks, and activities that will need to be completed to reach the ultimate goal of hitting the sales quota, and without bringing more clarity to these, the salesperson might not either go in the right direction or make the needed amount of progress.

Measure performance – score, metrics
If you break down the sales quota into target objectives, tasks, and activities, you can then find a way to track how each salesperson is performing against these. If you are able to quantify the tasks and activities completed, you will then be able to provide a number of different metrics and performance data.

Provide data and visibility for performance
If you then have a lot of data around what each rep is doing and how they are performing, provide each rep with visibility to the data. This is where the real power of sales gamification will start to be realized, as this data will help reps to gain more of a feeling of accomplishment, increase their level of competitiveness, and see gaps where they need to change or improve what they are doing.