The Hindu Business Line : Getting contestants excited

The previous column of SaleSense in the Catalyst issue dated May 19, 2005, dealt with the fact that contests for salespeople had become so dull that they failed to motivate. This week's instalment illustrates how pepping them up can pay off.

TIME to revive the contest and its appeal, then! My experience with contests is that they can get exciting if you pay a wee bit of attention to this rather important tool that can get the big M going in your team. Let me share just one that I have implemented in the past!

The challenge was a big one. I had just three months to go to run for the all-India sales trophy presented annually by the company of repute I worked for. My sales team that had a contingent of 260 front-end sales folk from across two States was just not there.

Getting there meant recording a 60 per cent increase in sales volume every month for the next three months. There was a rider for the all-India sales trophy! One month after the contest close, volumes could not dip at all! No dumping and pre-sales were allowed!

My team of 260 would normally record an increase of 20-22 per cent in a standard contest. The challenge: how do I get my team to record a 60 per cent increase in three successive months? An impossibility by standard terms of the standard contest.

The idea then, without much ado.

My team of 260 was called into a meeting at the HQ of the satrapy I ran. For the first time ever, though, there was a difference. The wives of each of the salespersons were invited to attend the meeting!

A record in the then 60-year-old history of the company. The women landed up with their salesmen husbands at the 5-star location we chose for the meeting. We broke custom. We made the man sit with his wife next to him at the meeting, avoiding the otherwise common custom at any function of the men gravitating to one row and the women to another. The meeting started. The objectives of the challenge were laid out. The targets ahead of the team were laid out, just as they heaved in disbelief that anything of this kind could be attempted by the silly Branch Manager.

And then came the visuals of the prizes. This time round, everything was about the woman. There was to be a prize for every month's target. And everyone could win this if they touched their target. A Coorg gold kada worth Rs 20,000! There was a gasp! Was the Branch Manager mad? And a salesperson could win three of these in three months ... just if he touched his targets. A second rung of prizes was also there. Mysore silk sarees! Not one, but nine to be won by each in three months.

The prizes were completely about the woman. There was a buzz all around. The lovely visuals had created enough appetite among the women to get them really interested in their husband's sales targets. For the first time.

In short, we did three more meetings at the end of every month. Every meeting had us instantly distribute the prizes in open boxes that stoked more appetite jealousy as well! Just as Mr Mathur collected his Coorg kada with Mrs Mathur proudly in tow, Mrs Kannan was nudging her husband to buck up for the next month. A pinch in some cases, a kick under the chair in some!

My salesmen were a harassed lot those three months. Many called up and said that in the past it was their sales controllers who chased them for volumes. And that was a weekly visit. This time around, the sales controller was right in their homes! As the salesmen returned home, the women would come up with the target statement in tow. Just post-dinner, she would very gently ask the volume, note it down, total the balance to be achieved and would motivate the husband in her own unique way to achieve!

Many men complained to me that their womenfolk would even chide them for coming home early, hoping that extra hours in the market would work wonders! The very same woman who in the past was known to chide her husband for coming so late!

In the end, we got that coveted all-India trophy. We got that 60 per cent increase in volume. We kept to the goal of market improvement. We had competition stymied for months together! We just did it!

A contest needs to be different. We need to think different!

(The author is a business strategy specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.)

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