Sean Huckstep In field sales, unlocking motivation is the key to success. Sales managers who take the time to understand the following four player types and use a sales gamification platform can tap into motivation and propel their sales team’s performance to new heights—by as much as 107%.
The Four Player Types on Your Sales Team
Whether they know it or not, each member of your sales team is a mixture of the following four player types, and each sales rep has one primary player type that dictates how they are motivated.
- Achievers
- Explorers
- Socializers
- Killers
To successfully incorporate gamification into your sales team, it’s important to understand where these player types come from and what they’re all about. For that, take a step back from sales:
From Gaming to Sales: the Power of Player Types
The Bartle player types framework, developed by Richard Bartle in the early 1990s, is useful for categorizing and understanding the different types of players who participate in multiplayer online games: achievers, explorers, socializers, and killers.
Bartle’s theory classifies players into four primary categories, each associated with distinct motivations and behaviors. Understanding player types can be valuable for sales team managers using gamification to ensure an inclusive and successful environment for all types.
Much like in the realm of online gaming, your field sales team is composed of individuals with distinct motivations and behaviors. Associating team members with their player type can help you understand what actions you need to take in order to keep your team motivated.
Achievers and How to Motivate Them
Around 10% of the workforce falls into the achiever category. They’re motivated by earning badges, achievements, and the recognition that comes with them. In sales, achievers prefer having the freedom to choose their own path and focusing on their work. They’re like the poster children of the “Steadiness” personality type, always striving to meet their goals consistently.
For sales managers, helping achievers succeed is quite straightforward. By giving them clear achievements and objectives, such as receiving a badge for reaching their weekly call targets or doubling their goals, you can keep them motivated. With the right incentives, your achievers will consistently deliver outstanding results week after week!
Explorers and How to Motivate Them
Explorers represent another chunk, around 10%, of the workforce. They’re super motivated by discovering new clients or industries to focus on. Typically, explorers have been the ones doing the tough jobs that weren’t highly praised. They reach out to find potential customers, come up with creative ways to address specific problems, and are always ready to tackle hands-on tasks.
Explorers enjoy becoming experts in what they do, but one of the challenges when working with explorers on your team can be helping them with their tendency to keep to themselves.
For sales managers, motivating explorers can be done by creating competitions based on the number of prospects added to a sequence or by offering rewards for targeting clients with a certain revenue potential. Your explorers will uncover some great opportunities in no time.
Socializers and How to Motivate Them
Socializers, who make up a significant 80% of the sales force, are all about winning as a team, craving acknowledgment and praise for their excellent work, and actively participating in all aspects of the sales process. While you might think that their outgoing nature could create challenges in sales, socializers could actually be your secret weapon.
For sales managers, transforming your socializers into a group of closers involves highlighting their hard work on a company-wide platform, introducing programs for peer recognition, and organizing team-based competitions. Peer recognition programs are especially valuable for this large portion of your workforce, as they often take the lead in such initiatives.
Killers and How to Motivate Them
Killers are often seen as the perfect sales representatives. They are fiercely independent, highly self-motivated, and their primary goal is to clinch the next significant sales victory. So, you might wonder, why not assemble a team of just these high-achieving individuals? Well, that’s easier said than done because killers account for less than 1% of the total workforce.
Most sales teams are fortunate to have just one or two of these exceptional performers, and motivating them is as straightforward as launching a competition and watching them shine.
As a manager, you can further maximize the potential of your killers by engaging with them and finding out what kinds of rewards they prefer and whether they are satisfied with the current competition formats in use. Let them have a say in the decision-making process; after all, many sales managers were once killers themselves.
How to Build a Door to Door Sales Team with Gamification
The key to sales team motivation is not only knowing player types, but also incorporating gamification elements into your sales training, process, and culture.
Always Remember:
- Recognize that individuals may exhibit traits from multiple player types
- Adapt your strategies to create a dynamic and motivated sales team
Tailoring your approach to each team member’s unique motivations and introducing gamified challenges and rewards will empower your team to achieve outstanding sales performance.
The Simplest Way to Use Data-Driven Gamification for Field Sales
Incorporating gamification into your sales team is as easy as using SalesRabbit, the only fully integrated field sales platform. SalesRabbit’s Gamification elevates rep performance up to 107% with Battles, competitions, achievements, badges, dashboards, social feeds, and a reward store.
Gamification provides the motivation your reps want, the analytics you need, and the retention every sales organization struggles to maintain.
