Most of us who have been in sales for any length of time have been involved in sales competitions of various sorts (either as a participant or as a sponsor-organiser).
To me the main benefit of running any sales competition is the opportunity to create a buzz based on friendly rivalry; to generate 'good news'. The competition, its rules, its prize(s) and its recognition of winners is simply the vehicle by which that buzz is created.
In my experience some competitions work and others don't - for a number of reasons. Here are some of them -
Reasons why some competitions don't work -
They have too many participants
If the pool of participants is too big and the opportunities to 'win' too small many if not most of the participants will lose interest very quickly. They will be turned off rather than turned on because they recognise the unlikelihood of them winning.
The competition is run over too long a time frame
A competition run over a year will fail to hold the interest of all but the top two or three participants. A competition run each month of a year will do a better job of holding participants' interest; it will produce a winner and the good news twelve times during the year rather than just once.
The winner(s) are easily predicted
If there is a superior performer in the sales group it's likely that that person will win every competition unless the competition rules are designed carefully. Some ways around this include basing results on percentage of budget achieved or number of orders from new customers. If the group has a number of 'old hands' and a number of 'newer hands' you may want to run your competition in two 'flights'.
The competition isn't 'talked up' by the sales manager
If you are the sales manager you need to take the opportunity as often as you reasonably can to talk up the competition and ask individual salespeople how they're progressing in it. If you show your interest they will become interested also; if you don't they won't.
Regular progress results aren't forthcoming
This goes back to the old adage - if we keep the score the score gets better. It's important to keep participants informed of the score.
Winning is made too difficult
It all goes back to the reasons behind the running of the competition. In my view the reasons for running a sales competition are (or should be) to
> Create some good news by recognising good sales performances
> Reward that performance; to foster a 'winning' culture in a sales group
> To provide another medium to publish sales results apart from the bare statistics generated by 'the system'
> To engage salespeople in friendly rivalry
People who feel good about themselves generally perform better. Sales competitions are about helping salespeople feel good about themselves.
(The up-coming post for Friday 6/3 is Telling ain't selling. It's reminder about another old truth in sales.)
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