Have You Tied March Madness to your Inside Sales Team Contests Yet?
I’m going to be honest, I never really get into March Madness. Sometimes I’ll fill out a bracket, picking teams based on which color uniform I like better of course. This year I didn’t have a big interest in it – that is until I saw an email come through my inbox about our first ever 2013 BDR March Madness Tournament. Our contest development team really outdid themselves with this contest and their creativeness led to such great adoption across the company that I felt compelled to share (thanks guys!).
The premise of the contest was that the BDR’s went head to head against one another and the BDR with the highest number of points moved on to the next round. Points were earned by having quality conversations (1pt) or passing qualified leads (4pts). The BDR’s were seeded 1-8 based on last month’s quota results and placed into four regions. There were four rounds scheduled, with each round lasting 2 hours and the winner taking home $200.
Below are some of the results we saw from the contest and why it worked:
It increased the amount of live connects reps were having. There was a 16% increase in the amount of live connects had when comparing activity to a typical week.
It increased the amount of qualified leads passed. When comparing the amount of leads passed the week of the contest (held during the first week of the month) to a typical first week of a month, there was a 25% increase in lead volume! We are always trying to find ways to increase the amount of leads passed at the beginning of the month to create more consistency across the month, and this type of contest is a great way to drive that behavior.
It created positive energy. It’s not always easy to get buy in from everyone on the team when rolling out new contests. This was a contest that was tied to something everyone can relate to; whether you are a fan of basketball or not, March Madness talk is everywhere and you can’t help but to stay in tune with how it all works. The idea of a bracket – especially when displayed on a huge white board across the office – really gets rep’s competitiveness going. You could just feel the buzz around the office during the two hour intervals. A little friendly competition never hurts.
We’re constantly talking about more innovative ways to motivate our teams and this contest was really worthy of sharing. It’s not always easy to develop SPIFFS and I hope that this one can be added to your repertoire of team contest ideas! What other contests can you share that have worked well at increasing productivity with your inside sales team?