7 Tips for Designing the Ultimate Sales Team Leaderboard

Sales roles aren’t for the faint of heart. Aggressive targets and an increasingly crowded market are only two of the obstacles your sales team has to overcome to reach their personal goals and push the company forward. It’s no secret that sales professionals are some of the most competitive and driven people on the planet. Gamification takes that inherent motivation to succeed and gives it an extra nudge. 

Sales leaderboards are the ideal tool for fostering healthy competition and engagement with your sales team, but only if you design them to meet the needs of a modern sales team. It begins with choosing the right metrics to align with your top-level business goals and then using that data to drive the behaviors you want to see from your sales team. Here are a few tips for building effective sales team leaderboards into your gamification strategy. 

Connect leaderboards to your CRM

To be truly successful, gamification must not only offer the right information but also make it easily accessible. By integrating your sales team leaderboard with your CRM, your team will have the latest performance and sales data at their fingertips so that they can drive toward their goals. 

If you’re looking for new ways to drive your sales team to update data in your CRM, gamification and leaderboards are an excellent way to drive employee behaviors and ensure that crucial data is always up to date.

Track multiple KPIs

Many organizations make the mistake of limiting their leaderboards to only one view of their team’s performance. If you only measure success on one metric, you’ll run the risk of applauding the same sales reps every time and overlooking others who may be high performers in other key metrics. 

Decide which metrics matter most to the success of your sales team and track them on a single leaderboard to shine a spotlight on as many team members as possible. You’ll gain a more accurate picture of overall performance and increase team morale in the process.

Make it obvious

If your leaderboards aren’t easily accessible to your team, they’ll never bother to look for them. Instead of burying gamification inside a desktop application, make it visible to everyone in the organization. Display your leaderboards on TVs in your office. Include the information on a mobile app so they can check progress when they’re in the field. When leaderboards are at your team’s fingertips, it’s much easier for your reps to remain engaged with and focused on their goals.

Offer the right rewards

Whether it’s President’s Club or simple bragging rights, your first order of business before creating incentives is to ask what your team really wants. Are they motivated by quota retirement? By monetary rewards? By extra time off? Don’t assume that money is always the top motivation for sales team behaviors. Take the time to find out what drives your team, and after you know the answer, socialize rewards and make them visible to keep your team’s eye on the prize.

Celebrate–don’t punish

While leaderboards may be an easy way to identify coaching opportunities for team members who aren’t performing well, be mindful of how you display scores. Gamification loses its impact once it’s used as “public shaming” for those who are falling behind. Celebrate the success of high performers in public, but keep the scores of your lowest performers confined to private coaching sessions. In doing so, you’ll retain the excitement and competitive spirit of your gamification program without discouraging or belittling team members who need some extra help.

Compare “apples to apples”

If you have multiple office locations or segmented teams, consider creating a separate leaderboard for each group. Your team will work hardest when they compare themselves to their peers they work alongside every day. To increase buy-in and promote participation, promote friendly competition within distinct teams or regions. 

Integrate gamification with your brand

Your leaderboards should feel like a natural extension of your culture and brand. Choose a gamification platform with the ability to embed your company style, messaging and content. In doing so, you’ll create a more “natural” atmosphere for your team to engage with leaderboards instead of treating it like just another disjointed sales tool. When gamification is a pervasive part of your team’s everyday lives, they will be more likely to embrace it as a benefit instead of an obligation.

Ready to get started?

If you’re ready to take your gamification strategy to the next level, Spinify can help with customizable leaderboards that will motivate your team to continually improve. With customizable layouts, themes, and challenges, Spinify is designed to keep your team focused, and engaged with your business. Contact us today to start your free trial.