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Hi Community members,

 

Hope you’re having a fantastic week.

 

Have you thought about organizing an internal competition amongst your Sales Navigator users to increase product adoption and drive engagement? This is a great way to incentivize your teams to use Sales Navigator, but, more importantly, to track the success they're having by using this tool.

 

Today I want to share with you how you can do it!

 

Organizing an internal competition

 

Here are a couple of details you need to consider when organizing a competition:

 

  • Title: Choose a title for the competition. Try using a catchy name so that users can remember it easily
  • Duration: Talk to the Sales Managers and agree on the timeframe for this. For example, the competition could last one month or a quarter, depending on your goals
  • Rules: Organize a set of rules that users need to follow in order to be one of the winners of the competition
  • Prizes: Discuss with the Sales Managers the type of prizes their team member could receive. You can think of recognition awards, like a call-out in your monthly/quarterly newsletter or a group chat, or prizes like company swag (mugs, t-shirts) and vouchers
  • Communication: Choose the best communication channel to promote the competition (newsletter, company chat, email) in order to make sure user will be aware and engage shortly
  • Structure: Think of the structure of the challenge and the type of tasks you want the users to complete in order to win it

 

Example

 

Level 1: New users (using SN less than 6 months)

Task: Get the highest SSI and share how you did it

 

Level 2: Moderate users (using SN between 1 – 2 years)

Task: Get the highest number of saved leads and unique connections

 

Level 3: Experience users (using SN for more than 2 years)

Task: Get the highest number of InMail replies and potential contacts identified using SN

 

Note: the winner of each level will be the one with the highest number in each task

 

I would love to get your feedback in whether this is something that might help you promote the adoption of your Modern Selling program, or in case you have run a competition like this in the past and what were your findings /challenges.

 

Feel free to reach out in case you have any questions.

 

Thanks,

Nádia

Hi @Nadia Vieira​ !

 

I've run competitions in pilot and full programs, and they always work. It's also an amazing way to find and/or create champions / evangelists / ambassadors. I strongly recommend that. Biggest findings so far are simple enough to share:

 

a) Make it compelling. The whole "what's in it for me" must be addressed from day 1. It works way better when you cater to their wishes than just have them do things.

 

b) Don't be afraid of creating both a Wall of fame and a Wall of shame. Sometimes you just need to rule out people that's not doing it right, other than just award the people that's doing it right.

 

c) Get at least 1 important leader to sponsor / champion this. If possible, use a sales kick-off or any other big event to launch this and announce winners.

 

d) go BIG with awards. No one cares about small prizes :-)

 

e) If possible, get a solid framework (such as Octalysis which I just recommended in another post) to better understand how to create a compelling and FUN game that gets everyone engaged.

 

There' so much more to share, I'd love to know more about what's in your mind Nadia!

 

Alejandro

Wow, @Alejandro C​! This is incredible - I just love all the findings you shared, especially the ''Wall of Fame/Shame'', since sales reps are so competitive that this is definitely something it will impact them and drive their engagement with SN.

 

Additionally, the ''what's in it for me'' is so important. Here it might be useful to share some success stories, whether from internal reps, or from other companies, showing how they were able to increase their pipeline or get closer to the buying committee of a specific company when using SN and adopting a Modern Selling strategy.

 

I have two questions for you:

 

  1. What were the main difference between a competition you organized for pilots and full programs? Are there any important aspects other Admins/PMs should have in mind when organizing any of them?
  2. For more advanced users, so reps that have been using SN non-stop, do you have any tips of a competition or ways of showcasing those reps, in order to drive their engagement or even make them become internal champions of Modern Selling?

 

As usual, really appreciate reading all your insights and tips.

 

Thank you, @Alejandro C​! 😊

Hi @Nadia Vieira​ ,

 

We are running a very similar competition this month. Since we don't have the CRM & SN integration, it's a good opportunity to change our sales reps behaviour and ask them to tagging the opportunities in our CRM. Check below:

 

Find Your Level:

  • Starter - SSI up to 65
  • Enhanced - SSI from 65 to 70
  • Master - SSI Above 70

 

Play The Game:

  • Starter - How fast can you improve? The winner will be the one with the greatest SSI score (%) improvement.
  • Enhanced - Get your customer's attention! The winner will have the perfect combination of most profile views and InMail sent.
  • Master - Show me the money! We are looking for your success. The winner will be the one with the largest number of open opportunities and contacts identified using social selling. Add #LI in Salesforce under the opportunity/contact description created in September to keep us on track.

 

Regards,

Isis

Hola @Nadia Vieira​ , good morning (though it's probably afternoon for you now)! Great questions both, let me take each one separately.

 

  1. That's a great question actually. The main differences between a pilot and a program are 3 in my own experience: a) how long it goes b) how big it goes c) how much funding you get. That differentiates the "games" you set as well. As an example, during most of my pilots games are oriented not just at having people use the tool but mostly proof the concept. That means we're gaging for more than adoption here. The goal is to find out if SN has a real potential for adoption. Games are shorter and rewards are "flashier" if you will. In a program, you need to think about games as "quests" that will take longer, which will also open opportunities for all type of competitors. In a pilot, games are more like sprints, while in a program they need to keep it up, so there's no sense in sprinting unless there's specific events. You can actually build for adoption far better than in a pilot, which is why both need to be different!
  2. Yes! A huge tip for Program Managers is: go get your stakeholders and keep those as engaged as you can. Without them, there's no recognition. Ideally, town-halls are the right place to announce those that are doing great and actually, feature them on stage of possible. I did the same with sales kick-offs, where I'd featured those champions. As a matter of fact, I'd also created programs that are "invite-only", which appeals to the sense of "being part of something exclusive". They also intrigue other participants (as much as speak-easy bars do) and build-up on adoption. Showcasing those that are doing great is really important, but you rarely get to do it without stakeholder buy-in, which is why that's the first step for me!

 

Great exchange, I'm loving this :)

Alejandro

@Isis L​ I love that! I did the same type of contest before we were able to sync CRM + Sales Nav, and even once you turn it in there's still need for manual input. Quick one: are you using any dashboards in excel, or are you using something like Tableau to display results?

 

Also, if you get people with amazing results (so typically top performers + really high SSI scores)...those could *unlock* a hidden level above Master, like "guru" or something. That's an amazing way of identifying and "recruiting" champions!

Hi @Alejandro C​! I'm so happy with this interesting and rich discussion, and, to be honest, I really enjoying learning from your experience managing a program.

 

Awesome tips to differentiate competitions between pilots and full programs. You mentioned a really important point: ''during most of my pilots games are oriented not just at having people use the tool but mostly proof the concept'' - this totally relates to the ''what's in it for me'' that I mentioned in my earlier comment. This will actually determine if pilots really understand why they need to continue using SN and go to a full contract.

 

As for keeping more advanced users engaged, recognition is the key and I'm happy that you also think that. These are the type of users that want to be recognized in the town-halls, sales kick-off and any other company-facing event that will allow them to showcase their success. I must say your idea to run private event for the most successful users is fantastic and can really bring value internally.

 

As usual, such an interesting thread we have here! Thanks for sharing, Alejandro. 😊

My pleasure @Nadia Vieira​ ! I do keep testing different modes and learning from other people that know way more than me in a lot of things. I haven't figured how to use LEGO with Sales Nav though. I'll get there ;)

This is gold, thanks everyone for contributing. I am just embarking on planning a competition to better engage our small team of SalesNavvers. Super exciting, but a bit scary if I'm completely honest (I don't want to create hype and then turns out it's actually boring). The advice here is super helpful and gave me some peace of mind.

I was just wondering if there have been others in the past two years since the last post who have successfully experimented with competitions for SalesNav teams?

Thank you!

Raluca

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