5 Best Ways to Stimulate Productivity with Sales Leaderboards

As far as gamification for sales teams goes, leaderboards are one of the best ways to stimulate productivity.

They encourage healthy competition and improve employee engagement. All of this is an excellent concoction for improved productivity.

However, while the feature itself has numerous benefits, there are some practices that work like a charm. And others, which are not so successful.

In this post, we’ll cover the five best sales leaderboard practices to boost productivity and skyrocket our revenue.

1. Focus on Actions (Not Dollars)

We’re all thinking about money, but the value of the deal (they’ve lost) isn’t going to motivate our sales teams. It may matter to us, but to them, it doesn’t show what they’re doing right. Instead, sales leaderboards should be used to motivate with positive examples.

This reinforces positive behaviors that lead to results, and when they’re highlighted with sales leaderboards displaying the number of actions a top performer has taken, they can serve as an example to the rest of the team.

Additionally, focusing on actions takes away the negative effects of loss aversion which can occur when a deal is lost.

It’s also much easier to learn from them.

If we highlight the number of follow-up calls, the quality of answers, and other qualitative factors, we’ll be more successful at using sales leaderboards to motivate our teams.

2. Boost Productivity by Choosing the Right Metrics

Some leaderboards only track the quarter targets (typically expressed in the number of deals or money the employee has won the company). These aren’t very effective at boosting productivity for one very simple reason: They don’t identify the success formula. And every sales representative has one.

Whether it’s the number of follow-ups or their ability to sell to demanding clients, everyone has unique strengths.

So by focusing on very simplified metrics, the only thing we can gauge is the progress. We can’t understand how it was achieved.

Consequently, this type of sales leaderboard means very little to the employee. They aren’t motivated to achieve more as it’s just a number (remember: factors, not numbers).

If we choose leaderboards like the ones Spinify offers, on the other hand, we can track a variety of metrics across different goals.

This allows us to understand how an employee’s performance changes, and they can understand their progress, as well.

It’s a win-win.

3. Displaying Leaderboards on Office TVs

If we want a sales leaderboard to be effective, salespeople have to be able to see it. This is why some companies integrate their sales leaderboard software with their CRM. Others, however, opt for a more obvious approach: they display the leaderboard on office TVs.

This doesn’t just have benefits for transparency. It also makes the competition feel like playing a video game with their friends.

Who can get there sooner? Who can do more, and who can do better?

When there are quips about it, and when employees can see who’s above them, they’re more likely to keep their eyes on the prize.

Quite literally.

4. Motivating Low Performers to Perform Better

One of the big no-nos when it comes to sales leaderboards are practices that stigmatize employees who don’t perform as well.This may go without saying, but the best sales leaderboards are the best because they encourage. They create a map to success that employees can take. Tier by tier, level by level.

Just like in the case of Clayton Homes, the best performers should be celebrated, but the worst performers shouldn’t be called out. If anything, the sales leaderboards should be there to make them even more engaged, and help them understand their individual metrics. This may mean that they take a longer time, but close more deals.

Maybe they even know how to handle the worst clients with thousands of questions.

Whatever it is, we have to include them in the process and celebrate their achievements. They equally contribute to the success of our companies. Even if their style is different.

5. Real-Time Updates

Finally, we all know sales are a very dynamic field. There’s nothing like upping the ante with real-time updates. For example, Spinify leaderboards send out
notifications when a sales representative is overtaken by another. This makes them work even harder towards achieving their goal and positioning themselves as number one.

However, real-time updates can also alert managers to especially good practices which are usually hard to track.

Who knows, maybe our sales team’s success lies in the fact that every time they need to close a deal, they make a wish.

Or maybe it’s Spinify.