Over the past two decades, the traditional sales process has been completely transformed. Today’s marketplace is global and complex, and yet buyers are increasingly savvy and informed—even without the help of salespeople. The number of decision-makers on complex purchases has increased. Sales cycles are longer. Prices are more volatile. In light of all these challenges, many argue that annual sales meetings are more important than ever—which is why companies now spend millions on splashy, high-profile sales kickoffs. But what’s the true ROI on SKOs?

Less and less, I fear.  

Despite everyone’s best efforts to create SKOs that drive true, lasting change, it seems like all the learning, ambition and enthusiasm evaporates almost immediately after the events end. Exciting product developments, dazzling keynotes, lavish buffets...none of it seems to budge rep behaviors, at least not long-term. Meanwhile, the C-suite constantly ups the ante by demanding better performance, more accountability and bigger sales quotas. It’s a recipe for frustration—and the fundamental reason why so many managers are starting to question the value of the same ol’, same ol’ SKO.

They’re right, of course. The “same ol'" doesn’t cut it any more. But that doesn’t mean it’s time for you to give up. Quite the contrary. As a sales/marketing leader, now’s the time for you to dig in and disrupt. You need to redesign your SKO and build one that is more than pep-talks and contests. You need an event that serves as a lightning rod for enduring change, accountability and impact. In short, you need gamification.   

What is gamification? Gamification is a data-driven motivation strategy that taps into your reps’ intrinsic motivators, engaging them in activities, content and systems that are meaningful to their productivity and your business success. It starts by inspiring active participation through a well-designed engagement platform. Then, it monitors results, measures business impacts and supports perpetual learning and improvement.  

Gamification systematically engages your sales reps wherever they are, whenever they’re ready—on desktops, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, etc.—and it continually adds data to your systems to you can continually learn about your business and drive meaningful change. Remember, it’s not a game, and it’s not a contest. It’s gamification...and leading companies throughout the world have proven it works. Here’s a small sampling:

A Fortune 500 multi-national IT company created an engaging environment within salesforce.com to onboard a new inside sales team, encourage best practices and proficiency.  Not only did they see a 65 percent increase in weekly users of salesforce.com, but average days-to-close dropped 54 percent while the rate at which opportunities converted to closed or won increased by 14 percent—all within one month.

In another example, managers at a major manufacturer wanted to improve the effectiveness of training resources and drive informal learning for sales and service reps across 450 store locations. To do so, they integrated gamification into their Learning Management System so sales and service reps could work toward individual and team goals, compete with other locations and receive real-time feedback as they engaged in desired behaviors.

As a result, site usage increased 417 percent versus the same period the previous year. Engagement and volunteer learning rose dramatically, too, with many participants completing courses above and beyond the requirements for annual certification. In addition, the company found a positive correlation between engagement and key performance measures—the top 10 percent of those who participated in the gamification program saw a 15-18 percent increase in in-quarter sales, and also improved customer satisfaction metrics.  

Finally, another global company with a large, distributed sales force gamified the experience of learning in an internal sales event designed to train reps on its complex product price book. Sales reps were motivated to progressively understand and master this vital sales tool, and the results were nothing short of astounding.

After gamifying the training environment, users became so proficient at using the price book that the company recognized an additional $1 million in profit in a single day. Then, over the next seven weeks, the company recognized an additional $8 million in profit. That’s $9 million in newly recognized profit in just two months, directly from gamification. What’s more, the cost of training plummeted by more than half because the gamified learning experience required fewer people to manage price book learning. Talk about ROI.

When is the last time your SKO drove those kinds of results? If this answer is “rarely,” “never,” or “I don’t know,” perhaps now is the time to look at a gamification platform, and to start planning your SKO to build meaningful sales motivation.

About the Author

Widely recognized as the father of gamification, Rajat Paharia is founder and chief products officer at Bunchball, the market leader and visionary in gamification for the enterprise. He is also the best-selling author of Loyalty 3.0 - How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification. 

To learn more about simplifying the modern sales cycle, visit salesforce.com, or download the free e-book.