We have all been part of incentive schemes where we know who the winner will be even before we begin to compete—the one with the most sales and it’s always one of three in the team. But we’ve changed the game. We compete based on activities.
“Happiness is a state of activity.”— Aristotle
If you want to take your team to the world cup, you can’t do it without commitment and some pain. Success is not compulsory; it’s something that you need to strive for, and then work for.
But if you know where you are heading and what you need to do to get there, it makes getting there much more accessible and almost guarantees arrival.
The whole strategy behind the Sales Game Model is to enhance the motivation of the team based on everyday activities.
We have your sales teams compete using those same activities they do every day, to score in the game. They are not just competing based on sales-target performance. In the Sales Game, we give that one or two members in the team who are working hard but just not quite there yet an equal chance to prove their worth. Everyone, therefore, competes based on what they do in the sales process.
The tournament that you conceive must have a prize that will stimulate the participation and motivation of the team. Please give your team members a goal and lead them to achieve it!
The Game Plan Setup
We start here, on our journey to exceed sales targets and to compete based on activities. If you aim low, you will hit it every time, but not having an aim at all is worse. You have to have a game plan; the players need to know what the expectations of the coach are and also what the expectations are of them in terms of practice and exercise in the entire sales process.
The first step is to get something measurable, define expectations and activities that need to be achieved, without being unrealistic and demotivating your team in the process. Get consensus on the activity levels to be delivered. How else are you going to build a team that will qualify to go to the world cup?
In this step, we set up the expected activity targets, and scores to be achieve in the sales game. The scoring lets each salesperson in your business compete fairly; on a level playing field.
Monitor, Coach and compete based on activities
The next step is to start monitoring the actual activities against the goals. Work out your ratios and begin coaching the individual on the outcomes. Remember, the focus is on coaching and not managing. Please read our article on coaching here.
Setting these targets based on activities can create fear in your team, if not approached correctly. It has to be positioned towards helping the individual improve performance. Don’t be too hard in driving targets and performance in the beginning. Get everyone established at their level, and only after everyone is comfortable with the new way of doing things you can step up the game.
It is important to start focussing on the process and let the sales follow. Your staff churn will decrease, and customer relationships will gain momentum. Remember, you can only “coach” what you can measure.
Rewarding the winner
Have an announce-the-winner ceremony, make something of the prize-giving and inspire the rest of the team with something motivational during the celebrations. You can do this monthly or quarterly.
If you have a sales management system, implement these steps and start to know your numbers. If you don’t have a sales management system or just a CRM system without decent activity management, feel free to contact us.
Everything is integrated into our system to run your scorecard based on system usage, no additional work, but just doing what we do every day!
