Well think about how tremendously involved we become when watching a sporting event. Emotionally, we get right out there with our favourite players and want to win. The same goes for games we participate in like golf and tennis. We feel strongly about competing and stretching ourselves to reach new personal goals.

The same thing can happen on your sales floor. Games and contest brings out the fun, challenging and competitive spirit in your salespeople. But that’s not the real reason why you run a game. The improvements in selling behaviours and sales statistics that result from games is what you’re after.

The object of any retail selling game is to get your salespeople to want to reach a goal; to do better; to meet or beat a sales statistic. The game, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, focuses on a key part of your business. And when that occurs, some interesting things can happen.

For example, we had a client in the shoe business in the early 1980’s that wanted to improve their items-per-sale statistic. The average was running at about 1.30 pairs of shoes per transaction. In the shoe business, as with most retail operations, add-on sales are they key to growth and profit. We laboured through extensive sales training and many meetings, extolling the virtues of adding on, with only small increases to show our efforts.

At the same time, Imelda Marcos, wife of the Philippines’ deposed president, was pictured in the media with a closet full of more than 2,000 pairs of shoes. A light bulb went off and a contest was formed: The Imelda Marocs Cup! The contest awarded terrific prizes for those individuals who maintained large items-per-sale increases. The contest ran for a week and the company-wide average rose to 1.75. Two weeks after the contest, the average sale settled at about 1.45 items per sale, that’s .15 over the original average. As a result of the game, the sales staff knew they could sell more items per sale, and management came to expect it. Here then, is a primary benefit of running games:

After you run a contest or a game and your store’s sales stats improve, you should never expect those numbers to go down again.

Improved selling behaviours are directly related to the focus that games and contests place on sales statistics. A behaviour is an activity that can be seen, described or measured. Selling behaviors are how your staff sells. All behaviours, including selling behaviours, can be reinforced with positive consequences. Therefore, if your salespeople get some kind of prize (which doesn’t have to be money) for doing somethiung special, they’ll probably want to do it again. That’s where selling games and contests will pay off in your store.

Suddenly, the same person who wasn’t motivated enough to show up for work on time, begins to improve his or her selling skills. When there’s a game or contest going on, you’ll see how your salespeople will take that one extra shot. Give your staff a game to play, and watch what happens.

by Harry Friedman, CEO of The Friedman Group