Do competitions work in the workplace?
The short answer? Yes. Yes, they do.
If set up and run correctly, sales contests are a great way to drive performance on key targets and introduce a little friendly competition into the workplace. Since an inner desire for improvement drives most people, it only makes sense that competitions push them to perform better. Additionally, it makes routine work tasks more enjoyable and incentivizes completing important activities that build pipeline.
But don’t just take our word for it. In this article, we’ll give you the four main reasons why competitions actually work in the workplace. And, as a bonus, we’ll give you our best tips for turning your team’s sales blitz into a competitive marathon.
4 Reasons Why Competitions Work in the Workplace
We could go on and on about the many benefits of bringing competition into the workplace (and we would!), but let’s sum things up into a smaller package to drive our point home. Here are the top four reasons why sales competitions are so effective:
1. Competitions are customizable
Running standard sales competitions is fine, but they can only be so effective when left in this cookie-cutter format. Your organization and your employees are unique, so why shouldn’t your contests reflect that? Customizing competitions to your specific needs is much more likely to positively affect and drive the right behavior.
For example, maybe you have several different departments or offices that you want to run competitions between. Or maybe one of your sales reps wants to challenge another rep 1-on-1. The fact that you can cater to your exact needs makes competitions much more valuable.
2. Competitions inspire creativity and innovation
When people have a tangible goal to work towards, it causes them to perform better and do everything they can in order to achieve that goal. It inspires creativity and innovation because they tend to explore various solutions that will lead to performing well in the competition.
“In the long run, competition makes us better... it drives innovation.” – Dennis Muilenburg
In addition, team competitions are an excellent way to encourage collaboration, which leads to openness and knowledge sharing. Say you are a software company running a team competition amongst your developers. Perhaps Jim is particularly skilled at Visual Studio Code and shares some useful tips with his team that they were previously unaware of. Now Stanley and Dwight have added a new skill to their toolbox that will ultimately lead to better performance in the future–and they have an advantage in the competition as well.
3. Competitions challenge people
To understand how competitions can successfully challenge people, it’ll help to learn what extrinsic and intrinsic motivation means. Extrinsic motivation “occurs when we are motivated to perform a behavior or engage in an activity to earn a reward or avoid punishment.” Intrinsic motivation “involves engaging in a behavior because it is personally rewarding; essentially, performing an activity for its own sake rather than the desire for some external reward.”
The great thing about workplace competitions is that they can involve both types of motivation–extrinsic because it generally involves some type of reward and intrinsic because people can also want to perform well at their jobs. After all, it is personally satisfying to them. Sales competitions are so effective because they cater to both motivation types, and they challenge your employees to work harder, whether intrinsically or extrinsically motivated.
For instance, Michael might perform better in a week when his office is running a competition because he wants to win the top prize of an extra vacation day. Pam might perform better during that week because she genuinely loves succeeding at her job and enjoys the personal satisfaction of seeing her name at the top of the leaderboard.
4. Competitions are fun!
A cliché, we know. But hear us out!
It may seem overly simple, but competitions are so effective in the workplace because they are fun. Especially when the daily grind of boring data reporting and repetitive tasks starts to wear down your employees, competitions are an excellent way to introduce a sense of fun and excitement back into the office.
How to Turn Your Sales Blitz Into a Competitive Marathon
Sales blitzes are proven to help sales teams stay motivated through competitive camaraderie on the sales floor but maintaining the same interpersonal dynamics on a digital sales floor can be a hurdle for team engagement. But remote working isn't slowing down, a recent McKinsey & Co. study found that nearly 50% of US executives who have never worked from home now plan to do so more frequently. This has left many CROs trying to keep up that pace, prioritizing engagement and transforming how they measure performance.
So, what can sales leaders do to turn a remote blitz into a marathon of engagement? Look no further than the world’s toughest endurance races — whether it’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, an Ironman Triathlon, or the Tour de France.
These incredible demonstrations of performance and willpower provide unique inspiration for modern sales leaders. Each competition relies on a gritty team bond that enables them to push the limit of every detail within their process, execution, and measurement. Sales leaders can build the same level of performance-based competition to speed up productivity and motivate sellers with the long-lasting pride of winning.
But what do those endurance races have to do with sales? Here are three takeaways that will boost team engagement and power competitions long through the finish line:
1. It isn’t about participation, it’s about team pride
Tom Kristenson is a 9-time champion of 24 Hours of Le Mans, a grueling day-long race in France that has been touted as the ultimate test of a car’s efficiency between speed and reliability. When asked what keeps him motivated, he responded, “Le Mans is such a great race because you can never do anything alone. You have to work as a team member. And being a team member makes you a better person.” Sales leaders can evoke this level of passion during their next sales competition by demonstrating that it’s not about crossing the finish line; it’s about creating a long-term attitude towards teamwide success.
Well-planned competitions allow sales executives to empower their teams with intensely spirited challenges that focus on achieving company-wide goals and metrics or encourage individuals to push each other with head-to-head Battles. SalesScreen’s platform creates a unified engagement that keeps the team motivated and accountable throughout the entire event. Plus, the ability to add layers of personalization to a sales blitz boosts excitement across the organization.
2. Family, friends, and supporters dominate the leaderboard
No other sport highlights the performance-boosting effect that encouragement has on an athlete more than competing in Triathlons, Spartan Races, and the Tour De France. These competitions are as much between the athletes as it is between the loyalty of non-competing supporters. Their team of loyal family, friends, trainers, and competition will cheer them along with every physical step and provide inspiration with every social post — from preparation to photo-finish.
Using competition leaderboards help sales organizations activate similar camaraderie and competitive kinship by highlighting top performers in real-time and providing transparency for others to strive for. With a sale gamification platform-connected TV (and, better yet, a mobile app), sales leaders can easily extend any competition into a remote work environment to help build company culture and bring attention to every major achievement—around the clock and across the globe!
3. KPI-driven sales technology is the ultimate fuel for performance
It’s no surprise that many of the most groundbreaking automotive innovations have originated from Formula One. That’s because both teams and drivers use incredibly advanced technology and data to perfect every millisecond of performance they get out of their car. The key to success isn’t just the car’s speed, though. It’s the speed of optimizations and development cycles for key parts — whether in the factory or on the track. Similarly, with complete transparency and visibility, sales teams aligned on goals and KPIs have the best setup for a hot lap around the Outbound Grand Prix.
Visualization puts the power of visual data onto every employee’s dashboard—whether in-office or remote — providing them with every opportunity to optimize their sales blitz tactics in real time and discover universal best practices that boost performance for the whole team. Sales leaders can then rapidly customize goals, better understand results and predict outcomes. The result? A 2019 study of SalesScreen’s 6,000+ client campaigns showed an average of 58% uplift in performance across key KPIs like meetings, calls, offers, and closed deals.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, competition is an effective way for leaders to rally the troops and boost productivity. Sales competitions are a fun approach to encourage employees to push themselves to meet challenging goals while fostering healthy competition.
As a bonus, having contests at work is a great way to get people excited about coming to work again. With this, sales managers can use a similar sort of performance-based competition to boost output and inspire their teams.
