26 Sales Contest Ideas to Motivate Your Sales Team in 2023

It‘s no secret that salespeople are competitive by nature. They‘re driven to win – to close the most deals, bring in the most revenue, and outsell their peers. Smart sales leaders harness that competitive fire with well-designed sales contests.

After all, sales contests have been shown to drive a 10-20% increase in sales performance, according to the Harvard Business Review. And with 85% of workers worldwide not engaged at work, an extra dose of motivation can make a huge impact.

But in 2023, with economic headwinds and burnout on the rise, the same old sales contest formats may not cut it. You need fresh ideas that will energize your team and drive the right behaviors. Read on for 26 creative and effective contest ideas you can use to hit your goals this year.

Individual Sales Contest Ideas

1. Top Performer Leaderboard: Run a contest where reps earn points for key activities and outcomes, like calls made, meetings booked, or revenue closed. Maintain a leaderboard showing the rankings in your office or virtually. Offer tiered prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place to keep people engaged even if they‘re not in the #1 spot.

2. Beat Your Best: In this contest, reps compete not against each other, but against their own personal records. The goal is to beat their personal best in a key metric, like demos booked in a week or deals closed in a month. This type of contest is especially motivating for more experienced reps who may be hard to beat in a traditional leaderboard format.

3. Consistency Contest: Reward the rep who has the most consistent performance over a period of time, like the most consecutive weeks of hitting quota or booking over X meetings. This contest emphasizes the importance of showing up and putting in effort day after day.

4. Efficiency Contest: The winner is the rep who generates the most revenue with the fewest number of calls, emails, or meetings. This contest incentivizes reps to work smarter, not just harder, and focus on high-value activities. It‘s a great choice for busy times of year like the end of quarter.

5. Objection Handling Champion: Tally up which rep successfully overcomes the most objections on calls over the contest period. Share their winning techniques with the team afterward so everyone can learn from the master.

6. Prospecting Pro: Reward the rep who secures the most new meetings with qualified leads. This puts the focus on filling the top of the funnel and building pipeline for the future.

Team Sales Contest Ideas

7. Team Leaderboard: Aggregate points from all the reps on each team to see which group comes out on top. Foster some friendly rivalry between teams with a traveling trophy or virtual badges.

8. Team Relay: In this contest, each team has to collectively hit a certain number of activities (like 500 calls) or outcomes (like $10,000 in revenue) before the next team can start. The first team to the final milestone wins. It‘s a great way to build camaraderie and collaboration.

9. Shark Tank Pitch Contest: Have teams work together to develop and pitch a new product, service, or process improvement to leadership, like a sales version of the TV show Shark Tank. The winning team gets their idea implemented and a prize.

10. Mentor Match-Up: Pair a high-performing rep with a newer or lower-performing rep on each team. The duo works together to hit a shared goal. This contest taps into the power of peer coaching and raises the bar for the whole team.

11. Film Festival: Have teams produce short videos highlighting customer success stories, their favorite sales techniques, or a day in the life of a rep. Host a viewing party where everyone watches the videos and votes for their favorites. The winners get a prize and the videos become great training and marketing assets.

Skills-Based Sales Contest Ideas

12. Discovery Call MVP: Record discovery calls and have managers rate them on key criteria like rapport-building, needs assessment, and qualifying. The rep with the highest average score wins. This contest hones a crucial skill that impacts the whole sales cycle.

13. Demo Master: Similar to the discovery call contest, this one focuses on perfecting the demo. Rate reps on how well they showcase value, handle questions, and create urgency. The winner gets bragging rights and the chance to share their tips.

14. Email Ninja: Have reps submit their most effective prospecting or follow-up emails. A panel of judges rates them on creativity, personalization, and results. Compile the winning emails into a library the whole team can draw from.

15. Social Selling Star: Run a contest for the rep who gets the most RSVPs to an event, webinar sign-ups, or content downloads solely through social media outreach. This highlights the importance of building a strong online presence and engaging with prospects where they already spend time.

16. Referral Rainmaker: Reward the rep who brings in the most qualified referrals from current customers or partners. Referrals convert at a much higher rate, so this contest delivers outsized revenue impact.

Fun Sales Contest Ideas

17. March Madness Bracket: During the NCAA basketball tournament, have reps fill out brackets with sales predictions instead of game winners. They might predict the rep who will close the biggest deal that week or the team who will have the highest call volume. Keep score and updated the brackets as the tournament progresses.

18. Sales Bingo: Create bingo cards with sales accomplishments like "left a voicemail for a VP" or "booked 5 meetings in a day". Reps mark off squares as they complete each one. The first to get bingo wins a prize.

19. Price Is Right: Put reps‘ product and market knowledge to the test with a sales version of the classic game show. The rep who can come closest to guessing the actual price of your product or service without going over is the winner.

20. Karaoke Contest: Have each rep choose a classic song and rewrite the lyrics to be about your product or industry. Then host a karaoke party where everyone performs their song. The rep who gets the most applause is the winner. It‘s a silly way to reinforce key messaging!

21. Spirit Week: Have a different theme each day of the week, like Crazy Hat Day or Sports Jersey Day. Reps can earn points for participating in each theme, and the one with the most total points at the end wins. It‘s an easy way to liven up the daily grind.

22. Wellness Challenge: Host a steps challenge, hydration challenge, or mindfulness minutes contest to promote physical and mental well-being. Healthier, less stressed reps are more productive reps!

Putting It All Together

Choosing the right contests for your team starts with knowing what makes them tick. Survey reps on what kinds of prizes and recognition they find most motivating. Look at past performance data to see where you need to focus your efforts, whether that‘s top of funnel activity or closing deals.

Don‘t forget to consider the logistics too. How geographically dispersed is your team? You may need to opt for more virtual-friendly contests. What systems will you use to track results and progress? Ideally you can use your CRM or gamification software to automate scorekeeping.

Set clear rules around eligibility, timing, and scoring. Share them in writing and verbally so there‘s no confusion. Get leadership bought in and have them help promote the contests.

When it‘s time to launch, go big! Build excitement with a kickoff event, flyers, countdown emails, or whatever else fits your team‘s vibe. Keep the energy up with regular status updates and mini-celebrations for people making progress.

After each contest wraps, be sure to survey participants on what they liked and what could be improved for next time. Review the quantitative results too so you can double down on the contests that deliver the best return.

A thriving sales contest culture takes some trial and error to build. But when you invest the time to design competitions that resonate with your team and align with your goals, the payoff is huge – for performance, morale, and retention.

So, ready to rev up your revenue engine this year? Pick a few of these fresh sales contest ideas to try out with your team. Make a little friendly competition your secret weapon for success in 2023!