Team Cold Call Incentives

A company I know have just appointed a new guy to their sales helm.  I’ve heard plenty about his lack of talent, so we’ll wait for the results which at some point will tell their story either way.

One of his early initiatives was to encourage more cold-calling by his reps.  They traditionally rely more on marketing-stoked leads, rather than self-generated activity.

His trick is to get reps into a room together, with prepared index cards that have prospect details hand-written upon them.  The names come from previous enquirers that fizzled away.

When you get a ‘result’ (in this case a potentially re-invigorated ‘lead’ from a contact for a new pipeline opportunity) you walk up to a table and pick a random playing card from a few face-down decks.  You then get to write your name on it and place your card on one of a number of hooks.  As success hopefully grows, you can only place your card if it outscores one already there.

At the end of the session, all those with the highest cards in place win an extra prize, typically something like shopping vouchers, bottles of vino, you know the type.