Gamification in sales: what to give points for, and how to stop reps gaming it

Gamification in sales means using points, leaderboards, contests, streaks and small prizes for the work that leads to deals. The usual academic definition, from Sebastian Deterding and colleagues in 2011, is "the use of game design elements in non-game contexts".

It helps when most of the team can win something and when it rewards steps a rep controls. It hurts when the same person wins every month, or when the game is forced on people who don't want it.

As of November 2026.

Sometimes, and the better studies are less excited than the vendors. Four worth knowing:

• A review of peer-reviewed studies by Juho Hamari and colleagues (2014) found positive effects overall, "greatly dependent" on the context and the people using it.
• Ethan Mollick and Nancy Rothbard ran an 18-day experiment with salespeople at a tech start-up, inviting 448 of them. Wharton's report of it says those who bought into the game felt better about work, and those who didn't felt worse. Performance didn't rise for either group, and it dipped slightly among those who hadn't bought in.
• Iwan Barankay's three-year trial with 1,754 furniture salespeople, in a 2012 working paper, found that removing private rank feedback raised sales by 11%. Only men changed their performance. Adding benchmarks to rank feedback raised performance, though not significantly above no feedback at all.
• Thomas Steenburgh and Michael Ahearne write in Harvard Business Review (2012) that stars usually win contests, and that the middle of the team knows it and doesn't try harder.

So a board isn't free. Ask the team before you start, give people more than rank to look at, and check your own numbers after a month.

Give points for what a rep controls, with more for the steps closer to a deal. Here's a made-up starting table:

Change the numbers at the start of a month, never in the middle. If reps pile into one activity, it's worth too much. The leaderboard template does the sums in a spreadsheet.

The classic, where the most points or revenue wins, reaches the top two reps. It's fine now and then. Run it every month and the rest of the team works out they can't win.

Prizes matter too. Steenburgh and Ahearne say the middle of the team works harder in contests where the lower prizes are gifts with their own appeal, such as a family getaway beside a top prize of a golf trip, than in contests with cash prizes.

The top of the board looks after itself, and the back usually needs coaching more than a prize. The middle is most of your team, and a ranked board does least for them.

Give them something to chase that doesn't depend on beating the top two:

• A personal target beside their points, so hitting their number is a win they can see.
• Most improved, against their own recent weeks.
• A streak of weeks on target, which a steady rep can build.
• Credit for the step they're best at, such as the best show rate.

Made-up example: a rep in the middle averages 40 points a week. Add a stretch of about 10% and their target is 44. The week they hit 46, they've won, even if they're sixth of ten.

1. Pick the one count furthest off pace this month, such as meetings held, so the contest fixes something.
2. Ask the team which format they'd play. Buy-in was what split the groups in the Mollick and Rothbard study.
3. Set each rep's weekly target from their own last 8 weeks, plus a stretch of about 10%.
4. Run it as "hit your number", and draw a winner from everyone who hits it all four weeks.
5. Put the rules on one page: what counts, how it's logged, when it ends and what the prize is.
6. Update the board each day, and name the weekly winners, so the contest has four finishes.
7. At the end, look at your number. If it stayed up the month after, run it again. If it dropped straight back, the contest bought a spike.

Anything that earns points will be gamed by someone.

• Pair counts with outcomes. Calls earn points, but the board also shows meetings booked per 100 calls.
• Check a sample. Talk through three logged calls a week with the rep who made them.
• Count only what you can see. A meeting counts when it's in the calendar with the buyer on it.
• Cap the cheap stuff. Calls stop earning points after, say, 80 a day.
• Take back points for things that didn't happen, in private.

• Prizes are the only reason anyone logs, so logging stops when the prizes do.
• A board read out to shame the bottom three teaches people to hide from it.
• Rules change mid-contest, and the team decides it's rigged.
• A contest rewards work the business doesn't need, such as calls to a list that's already been worked.
• The same game runs forever, so nobody looks at it. Rotate formats every month or two.

Not to start. One row per rep, a column per activity and a points row can run a team of ten. Software earns its place when updating the sheet takes someone an hour a day, or when reps are out and need to log from their phones. The comparison of sales gamification software covers the tools.

A contest runs on activities, one tile, closes or points; once, weekly or monthly; for the top 1 to 10 or everyone past a target. It has a prize line, and you tap to post the start and the standings to your group. The contest's board and post name the top places and you, never the bottom.

You rename the nine starting tiles and change their points. A week streak survives leave, and shields cover a missed week. Nothing can be dated more than 7 days back, late entries are marked, and you can read every edit for 14 days. It can't prove a logged call happened, so keep your sample check.

• Deterding, Dixon, Khaled and Nacke, From game design elements to gamefulness: defining "gamification", MindTrek 2011, read 2 November 2026
• Hamari, Koivisto and Sarsa, Does Gamification Work?, HICSS 2014, abstract, read 2 November 2026
• Knowledge at Wharton on Mollick and Rothbard, Mandatory Fun, read 2 November 2026
• Iwan Barankay, Rank Incentives: Evidence from a Randomized Workplace Experiment, working paper, July 2012, read 2 November 2026
• Thomas Steenburgh and Michael Ahearne, Motivating Salespeople: What Really Works, Harvard Business Review, 2012, read 2 November 2026