Sales Gamification: Everything You Need To Know In 2024

It’s a challenging sales landscape out there in 2024. 

With many companies tightening the purse strings, sales team motivation is more crucial than ever. 

Yet many sales managers lack control of their team’s direction and performance, never being given vital training and insights when promoted from an individual contributor role.

Moreover, they spend 90% of their time running business-as-usual tasks and firefighting — leaving little time for proactivity. 

It’s here that sales gamification strategies can be a real game-changer. 

Sales gamification gives leaders the insights they need to focus their team on the important stuff while motivating reps to succeed in a highly challenging economy. 

In this guide, we’ll take you through the ins and outs of gamification, from the benefits and best practices to how to implement it and measure its impact.

Unpacking Sales Gamification

What is sales gamification?

Sales gamification applies the principles and mechanics of games to the sales process. 

This could include:

• Leaderboards
• Competitions
• Missions
• Challenges
• Levels
• Badges
• Celebrations
• Rewards

It is used in sales to more effectively motivate sales reps towards their goals and to encourage them to focus on the activities that matter most to leaders. 

Here’s one of the most common gamification examples in sales.

Decide on a goal you want your whole team to work towards. Set this goal on a leaderboard, and challenge your reps to be the first to hit it — with an attractive incentive attached. 

Now, display the real-time leaderboard in the office so the whole team can watch their progress and see how they compare to their peers. 

Six design principles for corporate gamification were determined in a 2022 study.

These were:

• Rapid feedback
• Team competition
• Clear rules
• Goal-oriented challenges
• Integration with training goals
• Freedom to fail

As an incredible motivational tool, gamification is now used across myriad industries and in both business and consumer-facing settings. 

But it works particularly well in sales. 

And here’s why. 

Gamification taps into the human desire for competition, achievement, and reward. 

Every time your sales reps hit a new milestone or meet their goal, their brains release dopamine. 

And there’s no feeling quite like it. 

This dopamine rush encourages reps to keep competing, chasing after the next reward. 

Sales is already an incredibly competitive profession — attracting individuals who live for the moment they bag a considerable deal and secure the commission attached. 

Through gamification, you can tap into these competitive tendencies and amplify the win, supercharging your team for success. 

This is why sales leaders harnessed some aspects of gamification before other industries jumped on the bandwagon. 

Remember the humble sales bell?

But with cutting-edge gamification tools available in 2024, it’s time to step it up. 

So, how does sales gamification software work?

With some of the best sales productivity tools like OneUp, you can quickly digitise your gamification efforts.

This sales gamification platform boasts capabilities including:

• Real-time leaderboards that can be shared with the whole team
• Custom sales dashboards for individual reps and teams that show progress towards targets.
• Leagues that show sales reps their progress against that of their peers
• Missions which display a team’s progress towards their target
• Personalised songs and automated broadcasts that help you celebrate a big win

The Evolution of Sales Gamification

We must journey back to prehistory to find out when humans first started gaming. 

The first pair of dice was carved out of bone over 5,000 years ago, while evidence of the ancient board game Senet was found in Egyptian burial sites dating back to 3500 BCE.

If you need proof that the desire to play games is baked into human DNA, there it is. 

But when did games leap into the business world?

In 1896, S&H Green Stamps distributed stamps as part of a loyalty programme, but it wasn’t until 2002 that designer Nick Pelling coined the term ‘gamification’. 

In 2010, gamification exploded in the corporate world, transforming sales strategies. 

And sales and gamification go hand-in-hand. 

Indeed, now that gamification was on the scene, sales leaders could transform dry, run-of-the-mill tasks into fun actions for reps. 

By focusing their team on the work that matters, they could better target the key goals and activities that are important to them. 

With the giant leaps in data science and technology that have occurred in the years since gamification burst onto the scene, this effect has only been amplified. 

Now, sales leaders are empowered to track reps’ progress toward goals accurately—there’s no room for guesswork anymore. 

And this data is democratised, with shareable real-time leaderboards that allow sales reps to track and take accountability for their results. 

Implementing Gamification in Your Sales Strategy

In 2024, we know that gamification is a highly effective tool for motivating sales teams.

How can you bring it into your sales strategy?

1. Consider Your Goals

Start with your goals. 

What activities do your sales reps need to complete to contribute to these goals? 

For example, if one of your goals is to bring in [£X amount] of revenue from new clients in 2024, you may set each sales rep to make 20 business development calls per week throughout the year. 

If you’ve just launched a new product, and your goal is to generate [£Y amount] of revenue from this product within its first quarter on the market, you may challenge each rep to sell [Z units] within that period. 

If they all hit the target, you’ll hit your goals. 

And there you have it — you’ve used gamification to increase sales.

Remember to ensure you are setting SMART goals. 

These are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time Bound 

Start by applying gamification principles to your most pressing goal. 

Once you’ve honed your gamification tactics, you can roll out this strategy for other goals. 

2. Select Your Sales Gamification Platform

In 2024, gamification is supported by real-time data and intuitive visualisations. 

This requires investment in some of the best sales gamification software. 

When choosing your software, consider the following:

• Does it use real-time data?
• Can you use it to create custom dashboards, leagues and leaderboards?
• Does it include real-time celebrations?
• Does it have automation capabilities?
• How will it help you achieve your goals?
• Will your team be able to use the software easily?
• How does it visualise your data?
• Does it integrate with your current tech stack?

3. Set Up Your First Game 

You’ve chosen the goal to target, your top sales gamification software is up and running — it’s time to launch your first game. 

First, set up your sales contest on a public leaderboard on your gamification tool and display it on a prominent screen in your office. 

Where relevant, you can set up a custom sales gamification dashboard so reps can drill down more into their data. 

Now, bring in some automation.

Automate reports around sales contests so they are sent to you and your team every morning. 

Ask your team for their favourite songs, and set them up as celebration anthems that automatically trigger when a rep hits a goal. 

Consider recording a fun broadcast message that will also play at that point. 

4. Launch Your Competition 

Now it’s time to announce your competition to your team.

It’s super important to be extremely clear. 

Communicate the competition's parameters, such as the goal, incentive, and time scale, and why you have chosen this goal as a priority. 

Explain why the goal is essential to the broader company and the potential effect of failing to hit this target on the business. 

Reinforce the importance of this competition — and clear up any burning questions — in one-to-ones. 

5. Review and Improve Your Gamification Tactics

Once your competition is complete and the winner has been crowned, take some time to reflect. 

How did your first foray into gamification go?

What impact did it have on your team?

How much faster did you hit your goal compared to past non-gamified situations?

Is there anything you would change next time? 

Now, consider what other goals you would like to apply the principles of gamification to.

And they’re off (again)! 

Best Practices for Successful Gamification Adoption 

Make sure you follow these best practices to help your team embrace gamification and begin to thrive. 

• Train your team to help them easily navigate your chosen gamification software.
• Display leaderboards and leagues prominently in the office to drive healthy competition and ensure your goals are always in sight.
• Use intuitive visualisations that show progress within your gamification software — a handy motivational technique.
• Keep the lines of communication open. Check in with your sales reps regularly to see how they feel about the competition and if they need support to hit their goals.
• Base team meetings and one-to-ones around your dashboards. Frequently provide updates on how the competition is progressing in both team meetings and one-to-ones using your dashboards.
• Automate reports to ensure sales reps are regularly updated on their progress, even if they have yet to check the tool that day.

Innovative Sales Gamification Strategies and Ideas

There are so many different ways to gamify your sales strategy. 

So, how to use gamification to increase sales?

The proper gamification method varies, depending on your goals and the motivational styles of your participants. 

Here are some creative sales gamification ideas that inspire and engage. 

• Launch a call blitz. Get your reps slamming the phone with two-hour call blitzes, which feature a real-time leaderboard that tracks who has booked the most meetings or brought in the most revenue.
• Celebrate when a deal is closed. From fancy dinners and social events on the company card to a good old bell ring, make a big deal when a rep closes one.
• Use a leaderboard for competitions between individuals or groups to drive competition and teamwork.
• Establish a big billers club where those at the top of the revenue leaderboard are treated to an expensive lunch or dinner, taken care of by the company.
• Launch a huge incentive. Monetary bonuses are huge in sales, so whether you want to up the ante with a giant bonus for the competition winner or go for a headline-grabbing team holiday — it’s worth investing in incentives to see results.
• Use OneUp’s ‘Missions’ functionality to encourage sales reps to work towards personal goals such as pay raises or promotions.
• Focus on problem areas. Gamification enables leaders to focus their teams’ attention, so why not direct it towards those problem areas you know need tackling?

Gamification Beyond Sales: Training and Enablement

Gamification also has its uses outside the sales process. 

Indeed, embedding gamification in sales training and enablement is also highly beneficial.

Sales training gamification facilitates more lifelike job simulations, increases knowledge retention, and makes training more engaging and fun. 

It allows sales reps to role-play real-world scenarios, enabling them to hone their skills in a supportive but lifelike environment. 

Furthermore, sales enablement gamification demands logical reasoning and critical thinking from participants — both invaluable when dealing with complex customer enquiries. 

A more immersive type of learning, training gamification platforms also empower leaders to keep track of reps’ progress with clear, accurate data on their performance. 

Leaders should employ gamification beyond the sales process to tackle problem areas and hit their goals faster.

Here’s an example. 

Your team needs help to win pitches. 

You decide to use gamified training to elevate your skills around pitching. 

Each member of your team brings their ten-minute pitch and presents it, role-playing their presentation in a supportive environment. 

They then field questions from you. 

After each pitch, the other team members score it from one to ten, with one meaning they definitely wouldn’t buy and ten meaning they definitely would. 

These scores are entered into a leaderboard, allowing the team to see in real-time who is winning. 

A collaborative feedback session following the presentations highlights the bits people found the most persuasive and any sections they can lose. 

It also highlights any red flags in their pitch that are bound to deter customers. 

Then, the winner takes home an incentive, such as a restaurant voucher or a food hamper. 

Schedule the same session the following week and watch your team honing and tightening their pitches to move higher up the leaderboard. 

Repeat as often as necessary. 

When Sales Gamification Is Not the Best Option

Gamification is incredibly effective when it comes to motivating your team. 

But you don’t want them to be so keen to bag that incentive that they inadvertently negatively impact your business. 

If you push your team too hard — they may push their leads and clients too hard. 

In this era of soft selling, you’re likely to lose qualified leads and long-standing clients who now feel undervalued or even harassed. 

When participating in gamification, it's important to remind your team that leads are human beings, not merely numbers. 

You can combat this negative effect by targeting meetings booked or revenue generated in a call blitz rather than the number of calls made. 

Another scenario in which gamification may not be the best option is if there are already noticeable tensions or intense rivalries between sales reps in your office. 

When used correctly, gamification can help foster healthy competition and collaboration within your team.

But if established rivalries are waiting to bubble over, implementing gamification could make your office less pleasant for all your workers. 

Repairing relationships and dealing with rivalries is crucial before rolling this out. 

Furthermore, lead by example when it comes to supporting sales reps who could be performing better than their colleagues. 

Make it clear to your team that there is no space for nastiness about game results, and consider incentivising more experienced reps to mentor or coach greener hires. 

You can also encourage teamwork and collaboration by setting team-wide goals or splitting the group into pairs to work towards a target. 

Navigating the Challenges of Sales Gamification

Sales gamification should give your team a clear path to success. 

But to reap the myriad benefits of gamification, sales leaders must navigate several challenges. 

1. Alignment With Goals 

In all the excitement to kick off your gamification strategy, you can lose sight of your goals. 

But there’s little point in pursuing sales gamification if you don’t start with your goals. 

Sure, your team might achieve the targets you’ve set — but are those targets relevant to what you’re trying to accomplish as a team and as a broader business?

You can use gamification to solve immediate problems and achieve short-term goals, but you’ll see the most significant changes when implementing this technique around your long-term goals. 

Start with the business roadmap. 

What are you working towards as a business, and how does sales activity feed into this?

Think about your goals for getting the business where it needs to be.

Now, what does your team need to do to get you there?

And how can you gamify these elements?

2. Feedback and Recognition

Many gamification tools have built-in celebrations. 

OneUp, for example, facilitates personalised celebration anthems for each rep and automated broadcasts that play when they hit milestones. 

However, don’t discount the power of a managerial pat on the back or public praise for your sales rep’s achievements. 

Automated celebrations are a lot of fun and support your efforts to make a big deal out of a noteworthy professional achievement. 

But make sure you make time to publicly and privately congratulate your rep. 

This positive reinforcement will help them stay motivated, and it likely means more than you realise! 

3. Managing Competition vs Teamwork 

As any sales leader knows, it is challenging to balance driving competition while allowing space for teamwork.

Too much competition and your office becomes unpleasant, sales reps become disengaged and disconnected, and employee retention drops. 

However, too much teamwork can cause you to lose that competitive edge that helps you hit your goals. 

And with sales gamification, you’re pushing that competitive angle, which can amplify any existing tensions on your team. 

Much of the work around ensuring competition stays healthy will be done in one-to-ones and team meetings. 

Team bonding sessions, social events, and inter-team mentoring schemes can all foster positive connections between your sales reps. 

But when any semblance of teamwork has gone, you can also harness the power of gamification to tackle this problem. 

Instead of head-to-head competitions between sales reps, give your team an overall goal to work towards. 

If they hit it, they receive a significant group incentive such as a social event or even a group trip, cultivating more team bonding time. 

However, keep a close eye on team dynamics while this mission is playing out — it’s vital to ensure high-performing team members don’t become resentful of those who are not contributing as much. 

Measuring the Success of Your Gamification Efforts

The KPIs and key metrics you use to measure the success of your gamification strategy will vary depending on the goals you’ve gamified or which issues you’ve used gamification to solve.

Here are some of the most commonly used KPIs and metrics to assess the effectiveness of sales gamification.

• Sales rep engagement
• Sales rep adoption
• Productivity
• Team morale
• Number of goals hit
• Time to reach goals
• Completion rates
• Time spent on gamification platform
• Sales rep feedback
• ROI

After setting your goals for gamification, but before launching your competition, you must thoughtfully select the KPIs and metrics you will use.

Ensure you track these KPIs and metrics from the beginning of the process. 

This might mean setting up a custom dashboard that tracks productivity or goals hit or adding a comments section onto your gamification platform to gather qualitative feedback. 

For most metrics, you can then watch the impact of your gamification strategy in real-time. 

This empowers you to refine and improve your gamification tactics in real-time and adapt your technique for the next round of gamification.

Final Thoughts

Sales gamification plays a critical role in enhancing team performance and motivation. 

Why?

Put simply — it works. 

In the tough sales landscape of 2024, leaders can’t afford not to use tools to supercharge their sales teams. 

When implementing sales gamification, remember:

• Align your gamification strategy with your goals
• Set up your metrics before launch
• Choose a sales gamification tool that works for your purposes
• Carefully navigate the line between competition and teamwork
• Constantly refer back to your gamification dashboards in team meetings and one-to-ones
• Get creative with your games and incentives
• Bring gamification into training and enablement as well as sales activity
• Don’t forget to privately and publicly congratulate the success
• Use data to hone your strategy

OneUp can revolutionise your sales gamification efforts with its comprehensive tools and features, from custom dashboards and beautiful visualisations to motivational leagues and celebratory anthems. 

Ready to find out more about the go-to solution for sales leaders looking to boost their team’s performance and engagement?

Book your demo here today.

FAQs

How Do You Gamify Sales Performance? 

So, what is gamification in sales?

When embarking on the gamification of sales, start by setting a goal or target. This could be a team target such as ‘generate £X revenue this month’ or an individual target such as ‘make Y number of calls this month.’ 

Next, incentivise this target. 

Now, you’ll use gaming elements — such as badges, milestones, points, or levels — to engage sales reps in the process of working towards this goal. 

The easiest way to do this is to invest in sales gamification tools like OneUp. This software allows you to set up real-time leaderboards that track reps' progress towards their goals against that of their colleagues.

Which Sales Behaviour is Rewarded in Gamification? 

The behaviour rewarded in gamification for sales teams entirely depends on the goals the team’s manager sets. 

Typically, gamification will reward sales behaviour that contributes towards overall team goals or individual targets. 

For example, if a team goal is to bring in [£X revenue] from new business this month, a sales rep might be rewarded for making [Y number] of calls within that same period. 

What is the Use of Gamification in Sales?

How does sales gamification work?

Sales team gamification is used to motivate reps and ramp up performance. 

It achieves this by driving competition in sales reps and increasing the pay-off when they hit goals and targets. 

The gamification process also transforms dull, run-of-the-mill sales tasks into engaging, fun games, making the working day much more enjoyable and productive.