If you’re leading a sales team and thinking, “Maybe a contest will wake everyone up,” you’re not alone. But it’s easy to set up a sales contest that just burns people out or turns into a popularity contest. If you want to actually drive results—and not just hand out Amazon gift cards—this guide’s for you.
I’ll walk you through setting up a weekly sales contest in Spinify, a tool built for gamifying sales metrics. You’ll also get the honest take on what works, what to skip, and—most importantly—how to see if your contest is actually moving the needle.
Why Bother With a Weekly Sales Contest?
A weekly contest is a sprint, not a marathon. You want to:
- Keep energy up without fatiguing your team.
- Quickly see what’s working (and what isn’t).
- Adjust fast if things go sideways.
But contests are only as good as your follow-through. If you don’t measure the results, you’re just giving away prizes for nothing.
Step 1: Pick One Metric That Matters
This is where most contests go wrong. People try to track too much—calls, meetings, new pipeline, closed deals, NPS, coffee consumption. It gets noisy, and nobody remembers what matters.
Pro tip: Pick one metric per contest. Two, max. Here’s how to choose:
- If you want more pipeline: Focus on meetings booked or qualified opportunities created.
- If you want more deals closed: Go with revenue or closed-won deals.
- If activity is lagging: Calls made or emails sent can work, but be careful not to reward empty activity.
What to ignore: Vanity metrics (like “most Slack messages sent”). Only pick a metric tied directly to your actual sales goals.
Step 2: Prep Your Data (Don’t Skip This)
Spinify is only as good as your data. If your CRM is a mess, your contest will be too.
- Check your integrations. Make sure Spinify connects to your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.) and can pull real-time data for your chosen metric.
- Test your field mapping. If “closed-won” in your CRM is sometimes “Closed Won” or “Deal Won,” standardize it first.
- Clean up old junk. If you’ve got fake deals or test accounts, clear them out—they’ll mess up your contest.
Reality check: If you can’t trust the data, fix that before you start gamifying it.
Step 3: Set Up the Contest in Spinify
Now you’re ready to build your contest. Here’s how:
- Log in to Spinify.
- Go to “Contests” (or “Leaderboards”—the name changes sometimes).
- Click “Create Contest.”
- Fill in the basics:
- Contest Name: Keep it clear (“Weekly Pipeline Push” beats “Dave’s Fun Bash”).
- Start and End Dates: Weekly means seven days—don’t overthink it.
- Participants: Pick the right reps or teams. Don’t mix SDRs, AEs, and CSMs in one contest unless they actually do the same job.
- Choose your metric: Select the field you cleaned up in Step 2.
- Set the scoring: Usually, higher is better (e.g., more meetings, more revenue). If your metric is weird (like “fewest days to close”), check the scoring direction.
- Add a reward: Skip the Ferrari. Gift cards, lunches, or just bragging rights work fine. Some teams like a rotating trophy or silly hat. Keep it simple.
Pro tip: Don’t make the contest too high-stakes or cutthroat. Weekly prizes should be fun, not life-changing.
Step 4: Launch—But Don’t Overhype
Announce the contest. Tell your team:
- What the metric is
- Why it matters
- How to win
- What the reward is
Skip the “game-changing innovation” speech. Just be clear and direct. (“We need more meetings on the calendar, so this week’s contest is all about booked demos. Top spot gets a $50 lunch on me.”)
What to avoid: Overcomplicating the rules. If people have to ask for clarification, the contest is too complex.
Step 5: Keep It Visible (But Not Annoying)
Spinify’s dashboards and TV leaderboards are great for keeping scores front and center. But if you overdo it—endless notifications, daily emails—you’ll just annoy people.
- Update the leaderboard daily. Once a day is plenty.
- Highlight progress in stand-ups or Slack. Quick shoutouts, then move on.
- Don’t call out the bottom performers publicly. Praise effort, not just the scoreboard.
Pro tip: If your team starts ignoring the updates, that’s a sign they’re not bought in—or the metric doesn’t matter.
Step 6: Measure the Impact (This Is the Hard Part)
Here’s where most people drop the ball. They run contests, hand out prizes, and… never check if anything changed.
What to Compare
- Before vs. during: Did the metric actually move during contest weeks?
- After the contest: Did the bump last, or did things snap back to normal?
- Quality, not just quantity: Did more meetings mean more deals, or just more no-shows?
How to Track It
- Pull reports from your CRM, not just Spinify. Spinify tracks the contest, but your CRM holds the real business data.
- Look at trends: Are you getting more of what matters, or just more noise?
- Ask your team: Did the contest help them focus, or did it feel pointless?
What to Ignore
- One-off spikes: If numbers jump for one week, then drop, the contest probably didn’t fix the underlying issue.
- Feeling good vs. doing good: Just because people liked the contest doesn’t mean it helped sales.
Step 7: Adjust or Kill the Contest
If your contest moved the needle—great! Keep it up, tweak the rewards, or try a new metric next week.
If nothing changed, don’t be afraid to call it. No sense in running contests for the sake of it.
- Rotate metrics if the team starts gaming the system (e.g., booking fake meetings).
- Get feedback from the team—what motivated them, what didn’t.
- Keep it simple. If you need an FAQ to explain the rules, it’s too much.
Honest Takes: What Works and What Doesn’t
- Works: Clear metric, visible leaderboard, fun but low-stakes reward.
- Doesn’t work: Vague goals, complicated scoring, or “everyone’s a winner” prizes.
- Ignore: Vendor hype about “gamifying engagement” if your team just wants to hit quota.
Remember: Contests are a tool, not a strategy. They can boost focus for a week, maybe spark some healthy competition, but they won’t fix bigger problems like bad leads or broken processes.
Keep It Simple—And Iterate
Set up your contest, measure what matters, and don’t be afraid to scrap what doesn’t work. Weekly contests are a great way to focus your team—just remember, the goal is better sales results, not fancier leaderboards.
Try it, learn from it, and keep tweaking. That’s how you get real impact—not just a stack of unused coffee gift cards.