As a sales manager, are you looking to increase your sales team’s productivity while improving morale around the office and fostering an environment of friendly, healthy competition? If you are, consider installing a sales leaderboard and displaying it loudly and proudly in your office for all to see.

As gamification – the use of game thinking, game mechanics and competition to engage sales reps – increases in popularity, sales managers are testing different ways to introduce and implement it into their sales forces. Sales reps are a naturally competitive species – it’s part of what makes them great at their job. A sales leaderboard is the perfect outlet for this competition and a key feature of any gamification best practices.

Here are three sterling benefits to having a sales leaderboard:

Competition

Imagine having a ranking of your top 5 sales reps displayed on a large-screen television positioned in your office for all to see at all times of the day, everyday. As the month progresses, sales reps will battle it out to see who will finish the month strongly as the number one ranking sales rep, in terms of most bookings closed. Reps in the number one spot will be equal parts proud at their good work, while remaining motivated each day to remain in the number one spot.

More importantly, underperforming sales reps will be motivated to step their game up and break into the top 5 so that they – and the rest of the office – can proudly see their name on the team-wide leaderboard. There is no motivational technique more powerful than self-driven motivation, something a publicly displayed sales leaderboard does in subtle ways. A rep that consistently fails to make the top 5 of the sales leaderboard – while his peers around him regularly compete to not only make the top 5 but be number one – will have his competitive fire stoked in ways that a sales manager can only hope for.

Transparency

The most successful companies preach a policy of total transparency, where disparate departments are kept abreast of the work done by other teams. For the sales team, that transparency is created by having the sales leaderboard publicly displayed on a television for the whole office to see. Is the Marketing VP curious about which rep has been doing well lately? Simply look at the sales leaderboard on the television to find out!

While transparency is great in terms of doling out credit, it can be even more effective in ensuring that there is no place for anyone to hide. For instance, if a small sales team has only 5 reps and the same rep is regularly ranked in the fifth spot, people around the office will start to notice and ask questions. At that point, the underperforming rep might be embarrassed at his or her own performance. Nobody wants to finish last – and worst, have everybody know about it – month over month.

Morale

A great aspect of the best sales leaderboards it that they not only serve as standings, but have other associated morale-boosting features such as a ticker of new deals and an alert for breaking deals, similar to on a news or sports channel. The constantly roving ticker cycles through all the recent deals that the sales team has closed recently, serving as an effective reminder of past successes.

But one thing sales managers like even more than historic success is ongoing, current success – namely, new deals that are coming in. The “Breaking Deal” alert of an effective sales leaderboard is a de facto ceremonial gong, letting the entire office know when a new deal is closed. The associated bells and whistles – with sleek graphics, slick animation and attention-grabbing sound effects – will lend pomp and circumstance to the occasion, as the entire office can cheer and celebrate the fruit of their collective efforts together. That type of motivational carrot will greatly improve morale and urge everyone to step up their games and keep seeing more of these great “Breaking Deals” come in.

Gamification tactics in sales environments have proven to be effective in improving transparency, motivation and morale. Increase the competition on your sales team and lift everybody’s performance by installing a sales leaderboard in your office today!