Increase Sales Productivity and Job Satisfaction With Race Cars and Chocolate Bars

Sometimes increasing job satisfaction and sales productivity is as easy as rewarding your inside sales reps with remote-control cars and chocolate bars.toycars

At least that’s what Taft Rasmussen, XANT manager of business development, did to create a record-setting week.

The challenge

Last month, Taft’s team was struggling. He had a small group, comprised mostly of new hires, and they all needed to make a big push to improve results. To make things tougher, they only had a week to pull it off. Not one to back down from a challenge, Taft came up with a plan to get his sales reps’ productivity back on track.

The solution

Taft’s plan to boost sales productivity required only three things: his team sitting together, four remote-control cars and mounds of chocolate bars.

That may seem like an odd combination, but Taft’s solution was relatively simple. His top-performing inside sales reps, based on how many qualified appointments they set, would get to race one of the four remote-control cars right after the 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Power Hour. It proved effective because reps worked harder knowing there was an immediate incentive.

Immediately the team saw an increase in job satisfaction and in the number of totally qualified opportunities, or TQOs.

But the fun didn’t stop there. With only a few days left in the month, Taft and his team were still coming up short. This time, Taft used chocolate bars as a reward for every TQO set throughout the day. It worked again. In just one week, his team beat the previous TQO record by more than 58 percent.

Key takeaways

Taft’s successful experiment is a striking example of how injecting gamification into sales activities can fuel productivity.

The secret ingredient wasn’t the cars or chocolate. His team’s success can be attributed to teamwork, competition and rewards.

I asked Taft how he plans on replicating his success. His answer was simple. He’s yielding power to his reps. They know better than anyone else what motivates them.

His team has already taken charge and started creating challenges among themselves, like being the first one to set an appointment in the morning.

Taft believes – and I agree — that neither sales productivity nor job satisfaction can exist without the other. That’s why Taft is so intent on creating a fun sales environment where people love to work. Challenges, rewards and leaderboards all play a part in this.

You can feel the positive energy of an excited team. They don’t dread work, but instead strive to perform at the highest level.

To learn more ways of building a top-performing sales team, get the free ebook below.

How to Build a World-Class Sales Development Team

Free eBook: How to Build a World-Class Sales Development Team

Discover how to recruit, hire, compensate and coach a sales development team that will increase lead conversion rates and lower total sales costs.

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Image credit: Gal

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