Ah, sales. In no other office department will you find as much competition, focus and good ol’ fashioned fun. Whether they’re competing to win the newest monthly incentive or on their collective way to an outing celebrating a crushed goal, sales teams know how to keep things lively.
We talked with five tech companies in Austin about the cultures and traditions that set their sales teams apart. Here’s what they had to say:
Main Street Hub's sales team is all about embracing positivity. Their team is an encouraging bunch, and seem to always have a reason to celebrate something.
They too have a custom-made gong. Whenever someone makes a sale they ring the gong. When a new team member makes their first sale, their sales manager will push them through a high-five tunnel made up of the entire team. After being rolled through the gauntlet, they'll stand up and give a bow as their team applauds.
Main Street Hub also holds a monthly awards ceremony. There, the Hometown Hero Award will be presented to the top sales representative of the month, who can expect to be showered with confetti while being awarded a bejeweled boxing belt.
"We are all about fast starts and challenging ourselves to improve our performance and push through our comfort barriers," Mike Zaretsky, Junior Director of Sales said. "We strive to create an environment where we have a healthy balance between fun and accountability.”
Trendkite loves a good competition, so they have them both weekly and monthly. In addition to getting to ring the gong after big sales, the entire company gives out high-fives on your first deal after you saber a bottle of champagne. If the team hits the monthly quota, the entire team will go out together on "closing night" to celebrate the win. And if the team hits a sales milestone this month, founder and sales leader AJ is getting a tattoo (design TBD)!
"It is an open and collaborative environment with a lot of energy. We are data driven in our activities, objectives, and goals to ensure that we hold ourselves accountable on a weekly basis. Our reps talk about how awesome our product is to demo and that they love the ability to pitch something that truly adds value to our clients. We rally around one another and enjoy celebrating each others successes as much as our own. You'll find a huge portion of the entire company staying late on closing days in their TrendKite t-shirts and Rage hats cheering on their sales peers to the finish line."
Ownlocal rewards sales team members with outings, awards and "literal fists full of cash." Can't beat that.
When a big sale is made, the team makes a celebratory announcement and blasts yakety sax while the sales team takes a victory lap around the office, receiving high fives from everyone. Then, they get to spin the OwnLocal light up prize wheel.
Ownlocal likes to sum up their sales culture with these four quotes:
- "A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business" Henry Ford
- "Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value" Albert Einstein
- "Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre" Warren Buffett
- "Lead, follow, or get the fuck out of the way, immediately" Thomas Paine by way of Landon Morales
Sales team members at Kony have very aggressive quarterly and annual accelerators that foster over-achievement. They also do occasional quarterly spifs and have an annual sales club for over-achievers.
And like any good sales team, they ring a bell for big sales to celebrate.
"Our sales culture is described as collaborative and performance-based. Acquiring and retaining customers is our number 1 focus."
Signpost knows that a successful sales team stems from real motivation, so they like to keep things interesting with unique competitions. For example, when they had trouble with the number of product demos the team was holding, they ran a competition called “join.me water pong.” The team would throw ping-pong balls at a series of cups full of water every time they said the word “join.me” (their screen-sharing system) in a call. The person who sunk the most cups by the end-of-day won an early weekend, and a handful of scratch off lottery tickets.
Signpost is also all about recognition. When something awesome happens, team leaders will be the first to recognize it with a "fire call." When team members complete a sale, their company wide scoreboard sounds a resounding gong to get everyone’s attention. This is then followed the salesperson’s deal photo and song of their choosing to give it some personal flair. Also, everybody on the floor who is not currently in a selling situation stands up to give them a strong celebratory high-five. For bigger milestones such as a promotion or graduation from training, we have an in-house gong that salespeople get to hit.
"Our culture is committed to the pursuit of exceptionalism on a daily basis. Everybody comes in highly energetic, exceedingly motivated, thoroughly supportive of one another, and focused on making their own luck through every opportunity that comes their way. Simply put - our team wins. "
