When it comes to the world of sales, every team is driven by rewards. From financial rewards like quarterly bonuses to bragging rights from events like sales competitions, these rewards are oftentimes the only things that drive results. But every sales team is different, and each team is comprised of unique personality types. To really get the most out of your team, you first need to get to know exactly who is on your team and then drill into what motivates them to work to their true potential. Of course, if you are trying to motivate your entire sales team efficiently without breaking your budget, sales gamification is one of the most tried and true tactics. Here are a few tips on discovering what personality types make up your team and what rewards motivate them.
Bartle’s Player Types
When studying personality types in game players, renowned psychologist Richard Bartle found that people fell into four main personality types: killers, achievers, explorers, and socializers. Killers are your traditionally successful sales rep. They are competitive, focused, driven, and love winning sales competitions. But here’s the big thing, killers only make up about ~5% of the population. The other 95% of your sales team is made up of achievers who love setting and accomplishing goals, explorers who love finding the next industry and the next big client to target, and socializers who live for recognition. Gamification builds in incentives for your entire team, not just the top 2-3 reps, which in turn keeps your entire team engaged, motivated, and working smarter.
Killers
As we mentioned earlier, killers are the quintessentially successful sales rep. They wake up every day with a fire under them to close sales and make calls. So, what rewards do your killers want to work for? The reality is that killers are oftentimes the most simplistic people to motivate. They love to win competitions, want to earn some extra money for their hard work, and will oftentimes go well above and beyond the call of duty just to close one more deal than their competitors. For killers, we recommend opening the data so that your killers see how they stack up against the entire company, not just their one isolated sales team. This allows them access to new potential competitors who can potentially drive them to new heights. Make sure that you also send out quarterly or annual surveys to your sales team to ensure that you are offering the kinds of rewards that they want. After all, even the best sales rep won’t work hard for a great bottle of wine if they are 5 years sober!
Achievers
Achievers are much more goal-oriented than killers and are oftentimes driven the most by priorities they have set for themselves. Achievers want more than just quarterly bonuses; they want to be recognized and rewarded for the work they put in towards the goals they have set for themselves. This can be extremely difficult for most sales teams as it requires an extremely dedicated and plugged-in manager to achieve. With gamification, you can set up pre-programmed achievements that pop up whenever one of your reps hits a target, achieves a personal milestone, or any other achievement. This gives achievers the incentives they need by giving them something to work towards while rewarding them. With the recognition they deserve for that hard work.
Explorers
Explorers are a crucial part of any sales team, but their work has traditionally gone unrewarded and unnoticed. Explorers are the reps that research the next big industry and clients to target, discovering potential revenue in previously unexplored spaces. Explorers, of course, love the traditional rewards of bonuses and monetary gains, but the work they enjoy the most is rarely going to land them at the top of the leaderboard. Instead, try rewarding your explorers with recognition for their dedication! A simple shoutout from the VP of Sales or even a manager is oftentimes enough to motivate explorers for months.
Socializers
Socializers are driven by much collaboration and a sense of community. They love working together, achieving a common goal, and competing together instead of against each other. Want to know the wildest part? Socializers make up 80% of people. That’s right, 80% of your sales team is made up of socializers, and chances are high that you aren’t motivating them to their potential. Socializers love to be rewarded with recognition, either from coworkers or management, so giving them a social feed or a company-wide chat where those wins can be celebrated is crucial.
No matter what personalities are on your sales team, one tool is universal: Gamification. Sales gamification gives you access to all the tools, tricks, and insights into your data to motivate your entire team.
