#We should have a low stress inside job whiteboard event

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Sometimes screencap redraws just,,, fall into your lap.

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Written by ZACH WATSON

The logic behind the sales contest is long overdue for an overhaul. The same could be said of the stereotype of the sales professional.Contests have long been a go-to tactic for sales managers because when these games work, they work well. Given that simply framing an activity as a game may have a positive effect on motivation and engagement, this logic is sound, if somewhat broad.However, what has not stood the test of time is the structure of these contests or the idea that pitting sales reps against one another is the ultimate method for driving results.

The traditional logic is to harness sales people’s “natural” competitive drive by using individual rankings to spur the entire team. In reality, only 25 percent of salespeople want to work in a very competitive environment, and a culture of cutthroat competition may actually be pushing the next generation toward different professions.

Case in point: Hiring candidates into technical sales and sales-management positions remains a mission-critical undertaking for many U.S. businesses, especially for software companies that need to navigate complex business-to-business sales cycles.

But young people are choosing other fields, citing too much risk and too much competition as deterrents to a sales job. A 2014 Harvard Business School report showed employers spent an average of 41 days trying to fill technical sales jobs, in contrast to the 33 day average for all jobs.

The sales contest has its place as a motivational tool, whether for driving revenue, encouraging a change in process, or engendering software adoption, as does the competition in the workplace. But managers need to look beyond the Glenngary Glen Ross paradigm and run contests that encourage collaboration and problem-solving. These characteristics better define the attitude of the modern sales representative as well as the way modern sales teams are structured.

Sales Contest Ideas That Work

To be clear, competition isn’t all bad; it just needs to be structured in a way that encourages team-building and collaboration. The goal should be to engage your entire team, not just the ones who always meet their numbers.

For example, home builder Clayton Homes experienced dramatic performance improvements using the Ambition software platform to create team-based contests styled after fantasy sports competitions.

Additional elements such as autonomy, surprise, and urgency can make your contest more successful by harnessing other motivational sources than the competition.

The following examples were provided by Ben Jackson, VP of sales at Voices.com, and each of his competitions features a mixture of game mechanics other than just competition. Let’s examine how he structured contests for Voices.com and why these sales contest ideas were successful.

1. The Yankee Gift Swap

Perhaps best represented in popular culture by The Office, this type of contest is also typically referred to as “Dirty Santa”. Jackson wanted to rule a contest during the holiday season to counteract the festive season slowdown that had become something of an unwelcome tradition.

The rules were simple: every time someone made a sale over a certain dollar amount, she could open a gift (no shaking allowed of course). Once the first gift was opened, anyone else who had made a sale over the predetermined amount could either open another package or steal one that had already been unwrapped.

“When designing the contest, we based the dollar amount on historical data and determined that we typically sell 30 deals a month over this determined price point,” explains Jackson.

The contest was so successful that the sales team had opened all 30 of the gifts in the first week, forcing the management team to restock with another 15. The end result was a 50 percent increase in larger than average deals.

Why This Contest Worked

This contest didn’t hold any particular team-based aspect, but it did allow salespeople a sense of autonomy in choosing which gift to open and whether or not to take someone else’s prize. This freedom of choice is motivating because humans want to control as much of their environment as possible. Not knowing what’s inside the presents is also a strong motivator because it creates a variable rewards scenario. The unpredictability of opening the present is thrilling.

 2. Visualizing Progress

 Although large deals can be advantageous, they aren’t always the most profitable in the end. Jackson wanted to change his team’s focus from the pure revenue numbers of each deal to the gross profit they brought in over an extended period.

To help the salespeople visualize this change in strategy, the management team bought a whiteboard, drew a grid on it, and invited each rep to record their sales. “On the board was the rep’s name, company, company or client name, revenue, and gross profit. We set monthly targets and totaled the gross profit column as we went along,” said Jackson.

This helped every rep visualize his gross profit in relation to revenue, creating a culture of accountability. At the end of the contest, the sales team commemorated the event with a photo and everyone celebrated with an off-site activity.

Why This Contest Worked

While this may initially seem strikingly like a leaderboard-style contest, the gross profit whiteboard actually functions as a medium for visualizing progress, rather than ranking participants by their individual achievements. 

It may seem simple, visualizing and emphasizing progress toward meaningful goals is one of the most powerful motivators at your disposal. Because it’s difficult to delineate progress without some type of visual element, charts and graphs that map headway made by salespeople have become common features in sales software.

This contest also reinforced the team aspect of the competition by taking everyone out for an off-site event once the program finished.

3. The Flash Contest

It’s undeniable: Everyone loves to leave early on Fridays. Because this reward is so powerful, Jackson uses it as an incentive to intermittently boost his team’s numbers at the end of the month.

The timing of this contest is strategically important as well as motivating. Jackson noticed that inside sales reps had a bad habit of rationing deals in the later stretches of the month to steal a march on their quotas for the next cycle. By spontaneously announcing that meeting a certain quota in the last few days would mean every leaves early on Friday, Jackson was able to significantly increase the team’s output.

Jackson elaborates: “Every time we’ve done this, we’ve seen deals appear out of nowhere, and the entire team come together to get each other to the goal. We have seen reps help each other work through deals and give advice on the best way to create urgency and close deals.”

Why This Contest Worked

The key to this type of contest is the spontaneity and time limit. By surprising the entire team with a very desirable reward that must be achieved within a narrow time frame, Jackson created urgency, which is an excellent motivator. The pressure to reach the goal was so great that it encouraged the sales reps to work together and magnificently eliminated the rationing behavior in order to drive higher numbers and build better team chemistry.

Our own L&D Manager, Angelo Picucci, suggests these two sales contests from his extensive sales experience from real estate, sports entertainment, and inbound sales.

4. Sales Poker 

Goal: To incentivize individuals to hit small goals daily during a five-day workweek.

Why this works: If/when they achieve that predetermined goal, they select a card out of a 52-card deck.  There are bonus card selections available throughout the week that serve as “wild” cards to make the best five-card hand possible, based on mutually agreed upon rules.

Example: You sell multiple hardware products with different margins. You pick a number that serves as the minimum threshold for each product (printers on Monday, mouses on Tuesday, monitors on Wednesday, etc.), allowing sales reps to pick a card.  When team members ink those orders, they pick cards appropriately. The highest winning hand at the end of the week gets a prize, PTO, cash, etc.

  5. Snooze Buttons

Goal: To urge proper behavior on high-volume days so team members or teams can receive a “snooze” button for a late start on low-volume days.

Why this works: This is a solid incentive that doesn’t cost the company any dollars up-front, outside of the opportunity cost for employees to receive off time that doesn’t impact their PTO balance. Use this type of incentive strategically so your teams can snooze on those low volume days instead of when you need them there the most.

Example: You sell full season hockey tickets in the off-season, and every Thursday, there’s a team quota for tickets. When you hit that ticket/revenue figure, you can exit for the day and arrive the next day at 10:00 a.m. instead of 8:00 a.m.

Picucci also offers this advice for setting expectations with your team prior to the sales contest:

“Expectations need to be set up-front for any sales related contest. I use SMART goal criteria when I set goals. I brought everyone into conversations when formulating the goals and the incentive plan (for buy-in), and had everyone sign-off on the program so I knew they fully understood the ask.”

6. Pair Selling

Match high and low performers and stress sharing ideas among teammates. The pair with the highest sales/contacts/wins at the end of the time period wins.

Why this works: Pairing team members toward a common goal helps introduce one-on-one coaching and mentorship. Individuals can share what works for them, and overall performance for the team goes up.

7. Random Daily Prize

Build a store of prizes of different value, then every day’s sales or goal leader gets to choose a prize. Some teams use envelopes to choose from a board or balloons with the prize inside for the winner to pop at the end of the day.

Why this works: Random incentives mean high engagement. Most folks will get smaller prizes, but the thrill of the choice (and what is left undiscovered) drives daily goals. Reset the counter each day. Because each day has a prize, keep most of the prizes small or free. Advertise the bigger prizes: “The Friday off is still up for grabs!” or “That $50 gift card is still out there!”

8. Raffle

This is good for longer-term sales periods. Individuals get tickets in exchange for desired behaviors or outcomes, with a drawing at the end of the period. Mix it up between one big prize and several smaller prizes.

Why this works: Drive sales goals for a longer selling period with the payoff of a bigger chance to win at the end. You can also build engagement by varying the size of the goal, per ticket.

9. Bracket

Use a sports-style bracket to pit reps against each other for daily or weekly goals. The winner moves on to the next round. Consider adding an honorable mention prize for those who don’t make it all the way but continue to perform well throughout the bracket.

Why this Works: You can drive higher individual performance and use competition to increase sales. Because you reduce the competing pool by half each round, consider building a losers bracket to keep the contest going longer.

10. Service Award

Track individual metrics from your customer feedback surveys for a specific period of time; the team member with the best ratings wins. Use the percentage of positive reviews, best individual review, or best review improvement as metrics.

Why this works: Drive customer service goals and gain insight into the behaviors that impact customer satisfaction across your teams. Use what you learn to build better service goals and implement new best practices that work for your customers.

11. Creative Pitching

Have team members share their favorite creative pitches anonymously, then have the team vote on the best one. This tactic can also be used for cold emails and cold calling cadences.

Why this works: While this is a short-term contest, it gets team members to share ideas and communicate with one another about what works. This goes a long way toward building good communication habits and creative thinking with a competitive edge. The best part? You can repeat it over and over.

* * *

Many of these sales contests used mechanics and psychological triggers other than pure competition. If you want to keep your contests fresh and effective, look past the basic competition and add some other dimensions.

Go to our website:   www.ncmalliance.com

11 Creative Sales Contest Ideas and Why They Work Written by ZACH WATSON

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The 21 Best PPC Marketing Articles Of Year

It is the end of the year as it is known by us, and we’re feeling alright. Why? Because this season we read — and fell in love with — some articles about all things PPC.

Actually, what you are going to see are my picks. These articles are the unicorns which were able to stick out from a sea of posts.

Here is a look back at the very best of the content this season on search, remarketing, conversion optimization, and paid societal.

Paid Search, Case Studies & Research

When Google changed its layout PPC marketers freaked out and warned the end was close for many people. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t, as I revealed in this article. While CPCs stayed static visitors and cTRs improved.

Takeaway: Don’t worry a change is made by Google to even the SERPs or AdWords. Patiently collect and analyze your data so you can respond sensibly.

Talking of gathering and assessing data, the colorful Frederick Vallaeys of Optmyzer studied 1.2 million advertisements after AdWords began rolling out Expanded Text Advertising (ETAs). He wanted to figure out what all the top acting ETAs needed in common.

Takeaway: Only as I suspected, it’s time to split up using dynamic keyword research (DKI)! Also, don’t fret a lot about headline span; stress more about writing good headlines (psychological triggers FTW!)) .

We can not leave the subject of ETAs earlier checking in using Mark Irvine (not once, not twice, but THRICE). To start, our data scientist appeared at info that was aggregated from WordStream customer accounts to assess the performance. And the winner was… Bing Advertising:

Takeaway advertisers receive higher CTRs and prices from Bing Ads when they can do on AdWords. Don’t overlook Bing.

Up, Irvine wanted to see the way CTR was being impacted by the change from yellow to green advertisement labels. After studying nearly 3,000 WordStream customer accounts: the amount and caliber of advertisement clicks what he discovered had improved considerably.

Takeaway: Test in times of uncertainty. You will almost always find the answer you seek in your information.

Our Mark Irvine trilogy concludes with a look at rates, cost-per-click, conversion rates, and cost-per-action with industry. Truly awesome stuff here:

Takeaway: Unless you are a unicorn, there’s always room. Use these benchmarks to find out if you are on the low end or roughly average for your industry — and if so, attempt to transcend these benchmarks and become a unicorn.

This article by Frederik Hyldig highlighted some jewels that serious PPC marketers should check out. Shortcodes for replicate keywords or ads inside their advertisement groups, hiding types and more intelligent edits are particular worth a browse.

Takeaway: AdWords Editor has attributes, however not all of them are obvious. Always be educating yourself about the tools you use so it is possible to make something that good that far better.

Do you know how to modify broad match? Or having one keyword each ad group can improve your ranking? Or just how to enable campaigns? If not, you’re going to want to have a look at this article from Todd Saunders.

Takeaway: As Saunders puts it, employing these hacks will “maintain your account thin, precisely targeted and improved optimized to drive high-quality results”

Remarketing & RLSA

In this fascinating article, Johnathan Dane stocks 33 types of campaigns that are remarketing and the way to make the most of those. He covers so many amazing types of remarketing: from CRM, to cellular app retargeting, to content, to search.

Takeaway: Remarketing can outperform any other marketing channel and is an incredibly powerful tool.

Larry Kim (hello — that’s me!) Says you should break up using unbranded vanilla search advertisements and just do RLSA. Why? RLSA provides you folks who convert at triple the speed, and will click through at the speed, for half the prices. Really, you’d be better off with the power of networking advertisements to begin making individuals aware of and familiar with your brand.

RLSA campaigns have potential when coupled with a marketing plan. By increasing the total size of your cookie cutters, you will be given the ability you need to make the most of RLSA.

Many PPC plans concentrate on the purchase phase of the conversion funnel. But inside this outstanding edition of Whiteboard Friday, Samantha Noble shares some excellent strategies about how you can use paid press at the devotion and advocacy phases.

Takeaway: Get greater life value out of your current customers with the help of remarketing lists (to bidding on competitors titles, offer unique discounts, and cross-sell or upsell). It is much less expensive than acquiring new customers.

Maddie Cary does a wonderful job of breaking down the remarketing crowds you should be targeting with the stage they are at right now, while it’s analysis.

Takeaway: PPC doesn’t stop using a conversion. Go beyond obtaining new customers and find methods using PPC to create continued dedication and lifetime revenue from your consumer base.

Landing Pages & CRO

Boosting lead generation by 290 percent with conversion speed and 9x? Yes, please. Andy Beohar shows us the way he helped one customer by PPC optimization and landing page best practices.

Never settle for ordinary. You can always turn your PPC donkeys into unicorns in case you do the Job

Jacob Baadsgaard asks an essential question: are you currently monitoring your conversions all. After studying over 2,000 accounts that he found that 42 percent of advertisers didn’t monitor some conversions — and only half of those advertisers who were monitoring conversions were just monitoring some of possible conversion activities. These advertisers have no idea if their campaigns have been unicorns or donkeys.

Takeaway: Establish conversion monitoring (duh!)) .

CRO efforts focus on elements. But if you would like to radically increase conversions, then you are better off doing what I do: focus on increasing brand awareness and creating your offer far more compelling.

Takeaway: Start biasing individuals on your brand using remarketing social networking advertisements, RLSA, and advertisements. As for your offer, it must be vastly different from what your competitors are offering and valuable. Then they are more likely to convert if you can get people excited enough to click on your deal!

Why are Google Analytics than your Facebook? Simply, the way Facebook and report positions differ. But Cassie Oumedian describes how it is possible to close the gap in this post.

Takeaway: Figure out Facebook and Google Analytics monitor and record conversions so you don’t end up comparing apples and oranges. (P.S., PPC Hero stones — Thank you for all the amazing PPC content this season!)

Facebook Advertising

Facebook ad is equally extensive and complex. There is a lot in the event that you really want reach your intended audience to be aware of. Fortunately, WordStream assembled an epic infographic (reported on by Danny Goodwin) that will help you do just that.

Takeaway: Use this infographic or cheat sheet when you are planning your FB advertising plan.

If you would like to have more involvement and brand recall, then Facebook video advertisements are just one method to receive it (and also for cheap!) — as long as you are posting content. Mari Smith shares information on how it is possible to make Facebook video advertisements.

Takeaway: You can’t which one of your Facebook movies will wind up a unicorn, so be sure any movies you do upload have terrific visuals, a great headline, a few personality, and a compelling offer.

Facebook advertisements must be applicable; you should use text on pictures; it’s far better to show people instead of goods or objects; grinning women are guys; together with your logo is poor; and straightforward images work. Fact or fiction? This report reveals some unexpected truths.

Takeaway: Do research, analyzing everything, and collect actual data. Never assume that “best practices” will get the job done for you.

Will there be a method it’s possible to produce? Jon Loomer stocks and absolutely — a process you can implement in this wonderful article.

Takeaway: By simply producing a few website custom viewers that are smart, and targeting those audiences at the time intervals, you can do things to help promote your product.

Twitter Advertising

Is Twitter an effective channel for influencing the conversion speed? A list of leads ran an interesting experiment splitting one which saw remarketing advertisements on Twitter to find out. She discovered that the group converted into customers 64 percent greater.

Takeaway: Twitter remarketing works. There are many reasons to enjoy remarketing leads and conversions visitor engagement, and enhanced brand recall, to name a few. (Also, have a look at my article on the way to conduct an Twitter lead generation effort.)

What causes a successful Twitter Ad? Andrew Tate analyzed nearly 8,000 advertisements to answer that query, looking at use of words, figures and hashtags elements like text duration, as well as sentiment.

Takeaway: a lot are boring donkeys, although a picture was featured by 90 percent of the tweets in this research. Be sure to utilize a picture that stands out. Be the unicorn!

What’s your favourite PPC marketing article from 2016?  

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