Gamification in sales development is not a new topic.

Yet we see so little of how businesses gamify their sales process for SDRs.

There’s plenty of content out there that explains the psychology behind gamification.

But we wanted to lead with some examples of gamification in sales campaigns that got our salespeople motivated.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• The benefits of a gamification strategy
• 3 examples of gamification projects we ran throughout 2023
• Some quick takeaways

What is gamification in sales?

Gamification is a formula to make work fun. Gamification in sales is the process of motivating SDRs with competition.

In other words, a selling contest.

Sales gamification gives reps incentives outside of their usual commissions.

It creates a game out of their daily work of prospecting and messaging to help them reach sales goals.

The winners take home both extra rewards and experience.

Benefits of sales gamification

Done right, the obvious benefit of sales gamification is an increase in closed sales and greater revenue.

In sales development, sales gamification can result in a full pipeline of opportunities.

Other benefits include:

• Increased SDR motivation
• A measurable sample of performance to benchmark against
• Improved job satisfaction across participating teams
• Stronger collaboration among reps
• Better overall sales performance

From the top down, everyone wins under a well-implemented system of gamification.

How Sellerate uses gamification

At the start of 2023, Sellerate launched its first sales contest.

The idea was to kick off the new year with a fun new initiative to motivate our SDRs.

It was so successful we followed up with two more gamification campaigns later that year.

Below are the details of each you can use as inspiration for your own sales gamification ideas.

Q1 at the Races

Sellerate hit the year running in 2023.

Our first-ever sales competition was designed as a race that took place throughout all of Q1.

Organized as a derby, SDRs acted as horse jockeys, spurring their horses to the finish line by meeting specific achievements.

For every achievement met, a horse jumped over a fence. Whoever had the most fences jumped by the end of Q1 won.

Some achievements were worth more fences, such as scheduling a meeting via LinkedIn voice note.

There were three main ways SDRs could jump fences:

• Kudos: any positive feedback from clients or managers
• KPIs / Quota: SDRs could advance by attending Learning & Development Sessions and earning a top 5 email reply rate, in addition to hitting their usual KPIs
• Meetings: SDRs won by scheduling meetings, with special consideration given to those who scheduled the first one of the month or used alternative methods like LinkedIn voice note or video

In the end, rewards were given out to the top 5 finalists who finished Q1 with the greatest number of fences jumped.

Outside of a major cash bonus, prizes included two nights at a five-star hotel, a spa day, and a 55-inch TV, to name a few.

As an extra bonus, the best horse name also won a prize.

It just so happened the champion SDR jockey also had the best horse name in this year’s race.

Sellerate’s Got Talent

To keep SDRs on their toes, Sellerate followed up the first gamification success with a different kind of contest.

This time SDRs would be judged on their unique writing talents.

A sales rep has a lot of responsibilities but none quite as important as writing a message.

Introducing: Sellerate’s Got Talent!

This premier talent show, the first of its kind, would select a winner on each of the following four categories:

• Best Email Under 50 Words
• Best Message Handling RBOs (reflex response, brush-off, or objection)
• BUM (Best Unique Message)
• Best Message That Converted to Meeting

The best messages were chosen by our panel of judges including both Co-founders, our Learning & Development Manager, and a special guest Co-Founder at Lavender, Will Allred.

Sellerate judges selected the top three messages for the first three categories while Will selected his own.

The final category – the one directly responsible for a landing meeting – had four selections.

Without a doubt, this game brought out the most creativity from our salespeople.

Sellerate World Cup 2023

To wrap up the year, Sellerate held its own World Cup in honor of the one Argentina won this time in 2022.

Since the majority of our SDRs are football/soccer fans, the rules of the game were easy to understand.

1 meeting = 1 goal

In keeping with the spirit of the team sport, the SDRs were placed on teams.

Whichever team scored the most goals won.

To make it even easier, the tournament followed similar rules to the international one:

• 2 groups with 8 teams each
• 2 teams from each group play in a semi-final
• The final is a 10-day marathon between the top 2 teams of the tournament

Just like a real national team, each team in the Sellerate World Cup came with a manager to oversee performance and adjust strategy.

It was just a matter of time before Sellerate held its own football-themed game.

What we learned + key takeaways

What did we learn from our Sellerate gamification initiatives?

Here are some quick takeaways:

• The extra motivation paid off as it got all teams involved
• Sellerate’s Got Talent not only gave SDRs another reason to write their best message, but it also provided the overall team with excellent messaging examples to learn from
• During the Sellerate World Cup 2023, we found the psychology of playing for a team of colleagues was yet another motivating factor

There’s no one secret to sales success.

Sales reps and managers have to experiment and discover new processes that deliver opportunities.

Gamification in sales is a way for teams to experiment with games in the sales environment.

It’s a proven method to enhance sales productivity with an unconventional means of engendering positive reinforcement.

It’s also another way to retain SDRs and top sales talent.

If they’re looking for better performance out of their SDRs, sales leaders should take note and their flex creative side.