Simple Sales Contests

Last week a new vendor visited our office for the first time. One of his first questions was, ” How many people work here ? ” As resident smartass, if felt it my duty to say, ” About half of ‘em ! ”

It wasn’t true, of course, but it’s a good lead-in to what I want to share with you today.

It’s true that a lot of salespeople don’t work as hard as they can at all times. I know I don’t. I spend a lot of time….er, thinking ! Yeah, that’s it ! Looking at the big picture !

The world is awash in averageness and mediocrity. I’ve done posts about average and in case you missed them, let me give you my thoughts on being average.

One way to get your salesforce working agian is a Sales Contest.

Sales contests are a good thing for several reasons, that I can think of. Here’s my short list :

1. Humans would rather play than work.

2. Humans will play harder than they’ll work.

3. Men/women are kids at heart. and love prizes.

4. It changes up the routine and gets salespeople out of their monotony.

5. Most of us like a good fight and will try like heck to win one.

6. You can use it to reward an employee that goes ‘over and above’ on a regular basis.

7. It normally increases sales for most of it’s duration.

Next, we’ll look at each of those 7 points and try to come up with a scenario that proves each one is true.

Rather than have me do all 7, maybe you guys can help me out and leave a comment that proves a point listed above.

Help ol’ Mike out and do all the work…I mean, leave a comment with your thoughts.