FantasySalesTeam is a Gamifying Platform to Motivate Teams [Interview]

What if you could take the concept of fantasy sports and apply it to your work? Between the friendly competition and fun of turning the workday into a game, employees are sure to find themselves more motivated. FantasySalesTeam is a platform that does just that. Designed specifically for sales teams, the platform encourages high performance through engagement, while tracking metrics and providing additional incentive. Founder and CEO Adam Hollander talked to us about what makes FantasySalesTeam so effective, and how the ideology can be used to motivate any team.

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How does FantasySalesTeam work to boost productivity among sales teams?

There are two major reasons why traditional sales contests and incentives fall short of their potential. First, the same top performers tend to win every time. This demotivates (and even frustrates) the middle 50% and bottom 30% who are the reps you really want to motivate. Second, reps tend to lose interest and disengage when they fall behind or out of contention. So, by the end of the contest, you only have a handful of employees still paying attention. FantasySalesTeam solves these problems by using unique team-based game models which level the playing field, motivate more of the team, and keep reps engaged longer. This not only boosts productivity and engagement but results and ROI for our customers.

Users have the option to use one of three scoring systems. Can you explain what these are?

The first are out-of-the-box CRM integrations which we’ve built for major CRM platforms like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. Our games run like magic when placed on-top of these systems and setup takes 10-15 minutes.

The second way to score your game is by using our web services and APIs. We can connect into any CRM, call center platform, ERP or other system – even a home grown one – and have it power your FantasySalesTeam games. This is very straightforward to set up, but does require someone with a bit of knowledge about posting data to a third party platform.

The third option is to use FantasySalesTeam as a standalone product. You can use our built in scoring dashboards and Excel Spreadsheet templates to score your games without any integration at all.

I should also mention that many of our clients use hybrid models. They might pull 3-4 metrics from Salesforce, 2-3 from a home grown system and even have a few that they upload regularly. If you don’t have your data all in one place, that’s not a problem. In fact, at that point, FantasySalesTeam can become a single place to monitor and measure all of that data for your team.

How can the gamification tactics used in FantasySalesTeam be implemented in other teams?

We already see our clients using FantasySalesTeam in non-sales environments, like customer service and marketing. Our platform is flexible to be used with any group of employees measured on common metrics. We also have our “Fan” feature which allows companies to run more traditional sales contests but engage non-sales employees to become invested in the success of the players.

Does FantasySalesTeam use gamification internally to boost productivity? If so, how?

Of course we do! There’s a giant monitor that streams FST TV all day long for our sales and support reps. We constantly run our own games and do so because it works. We absolutely drink our own kool-aid at FST.

What one thing you do every day that helps with your personal productivity?

I get into the office very early – several hours before any of my employees. It’s the only time of day I can truly focus on email and strategic items before I get distracted and pulled in other directions.