Gamifying Sales: A Nigerian Perspective

Hello and welcome to the show. Before we begin, the usual apologies. The kids are home, so I expect to hear some noise in the background. Also, if listening to the last episode made you feel claustrophobic, sorry about that. That was because well, of course, like I explained in the video, I what I thought was a sore throat actually turned out to be something else. And so I, I had difficulties with, yeah, let's just say I had a hard time breathing.

But The thing is I'm responding to medication. So I'm feeling a whole lot better today. So let's just get on with the with the show. And today we're going to talk about how gamification can help to boost sales performance. I know some of you might think gamification. What is this again? I mean, those of you who are tech savvy, you already know what that means. But before we go into it, let me go straight into the Geek Challenge or the Nerd Challenge.

I've been sharing stuff that's on my playlist so that you guys can help me decide whether I'm a geek or a nerd, like my wife says, or whether I'm just a gentleman with fine taste, as I like to put it. So today on the playlist, I am listening to The Searchers on Spotify. They're a really old band. They're contemporaries of The Beatles. So if you don't know, you haven't heard of the band The Beatles. It just means you're an embryo basically.

It means you were born after, I don't know, 2000 or something, but everybody should have heard of The Beatles by now. So there are a band based out of Liverpool and had some really classic stuff like a song called Love potion #9. And I would not recommend any of you guys listening to this podcast right now to try looking for any kind of love potions in case you're having any problems with the ladies. Because if you've been watching Yoruba movies, you will find that love potions always seem to have some complications and end up backfiring.

So if you toss the baby and she no agree, just let it go. Don't bother checking the love potion. And then the searchers were also responsible for this really classic old song. If you haven't heard of it, ask your parents. Your parents definitely know this song. If you don't know it, you've most likely heard of the the version that was done by I think was Shabba. Is it Shabba Ranks? ABI Shabba Ranks something and the pliers I can't remember.

Maybe Shabba Ranks. But and song is sweet for my sweet and is that one that goes sweet for my sweet, sugar for my honey let you go boom boom boom boom. So anyway, just good nice old time groups. Then on Netflix, on the playlist I have, I'm currently watching Res Ball. I'm not done with that yet. It's a movie about it's a movie. It's a movie about reservation culture. When we say reservation, I mean Indian reservations.

That's indigenous tribes in Northern America. And I've always found movies like this interesting because I'm TV, I'm from the North Central part, as people call it nowadays. But when I was a kid, we used to call it the Middle belt. So I found the middle part, middle belt part of the world where we're juggling with problems like rural, urban migration, poverty, you know, things like that. And of course all those things have implications on family life, drug culture, you know,

these sorts of things. And I saw a bit of that when I travelled to Scotland as well. I was really surprised to see that in the West that they have the same sorts of problems that we have over here in Nigeria. So movies like this that explore these sorts of issues, they, I find them intriguing, but Res Ball is about basketball ultimately. So if you like the sport basketball, then you should watch Res Ball. So that's it for today on the Geek Challenge.

So have a look at stuff on my playlist. Let me know what you think. So far one person has voted and said that they think I'm a geek. So I've let my wife know that one person agrees with her. Now let's move on. Today we're going to look at how gamification can help boost sales performance. Now, the rationale behind gamification is this. If you make things fun, then you have less barriers to learning because trying to learn in the classroom environment, people are tired, people are bored,

excuse me, everything comes across as stiff. And then sometimes when you include games and fun into the whole thing, it makes things more application based. So you know, people are actually trying out, people are practising what it is that you're preaching. And so it makes it greater for people to make for greater retention and then for more participation. And I can tell you that for a fact because as someone who handles coaching and training sessions, I can tell you that if it's a stiff lecture, you're not going to get too many people bought in.

But if you know how to get people engaged and introduce some fun and game elements to it, then you increase the number of people who are going to take part in until the end of the day. So of course we should define what gamification is. And so excuse me, so I like the name sounds. Gamification basically is just adding game elements to work. Game elements, fun elements. And how is something like that supposed to help sales?

That's supposed to help in different ways. Gamification increases the motivation of people because everybody wants to get in on the game. It increases engagement because, you know, more people want to take part. So if you try game elements and let's say normally in your sales meetings, maybe Kuli is the only person. And let's say Kuli and Kemi are the only people who keep talking at the meetings. But then you introduce some game elements and Kuli and Kemi look like they're having fun, then maybe Abdul Kadir might try and maybe Fatima might try.

And then, you know, maybe, OK, Chuku might try. And you know, that's, that's the whole idea. And like I said, greater learning. But ultimately the main reason why you should try gamification to get your sales people to sell more, that's for those of you who are business owners, The main reason why you should do it ultimately is because you want the improved customer experience. Because if you throw gamification into the mix,

everybody's having fun, everybody's catching trips, everybody feels like they're just flexing. Everybody's feeling all right. But in that atmosphere, everybody is learning. Then the benefits translate to your end customers because your sales people will now be on point, personable, efficient, professional, take initiative, guide the sales process. And these are all things that the customer is going to improve greatly from at the end of the day, because they won't just call in and then your staff members just handle their massive, you know how, you know,

like that whole civil servant thing, you don't like when you really, really need something. I mean, God forbid you need something from the Ministry of Justice and you have to go and see one of the registrars, especially if it's like registering. And then they will not call out any particular branch. But I mean, for those who also have to go to the civil service, Nigerian civil service because we need something, it's, it's torture, absolute torture,

especially if you go when it's time for prayers. I mean, you're on your own. So yeah, ultimately that's why we should try gamification because it's going to lead to improved customer experience and improved customer experience means more money. If your customers are better taken care of, they're going to return. So there's repeat business, there's referrals, greater customer maximizing customer lifetime value. Let's see what else.

It just means good business, more money. So how can you add game elements gamification to your sales team? That's very simple. There are lots of intra team sales activities that you can do, like sales contests. It's something that I've seen some people do before. You have a sales team, maybe it's eight people, divide them into team A and then team B. And the whole idea is from January, February, we see which team is going to make some more money during the sales or bonanza period or whatever, and the winning team is going to get a price or something like that.

So you can see you've thrown in a contest element to the whole thing. And that is something that can, you know, motivate, get more people involved. Now there are some real fancy ways that have come up in the West, like where people try and gamify the CRM. Now, the CRM is a customer relationship management tool. Yeah, big words. But basically what that means is it's just a tool that helps you, the salesperson or the business owner, figure out who are you talking to right now, What stage of the relationship are you in?

Is there anything outstanding that you have to do for this potential customer? Is there anything that has potential clients, is owing you? What are the relevant next steps that you need to take to make sure you close the deal? So the CRM basically is just the brain that doesn't live in your head that tells you at all times who are you talking to, what is the next step you need to take with each person so that you can close the deal.

So in the West, that's our our brothers and sisters in America and in Western Europe, they now gamify the CRM. So the CRM is tracking, awarding people points, you know, things like that. So it's just a way of spicing things up so you can look at the CRM and see who has more points and you know, what do you call that thing? You know, like when you have a slider and The thing is sliding from the left to the right and if you hit a certain stage and it gives you a star and then all those fancy things.

So those are stuff that I've heard about that go on. Currently in the West, I have not seen and I have not taken part in any of the more fancy gamification kind of stuff in Nigeria over here. So if you're listening to this and your organization, you're in Nigeria and your organization does this gamifies through CRM, please hit me up. Let me know. I always give my contact details at the end of the show. Let me know so I can come and share it over here on the podcast so we can learn and see how other Nigerian organisations are gamifying things using the CRM.

Then one that I do all the time is role-playing or simulations, and that is how I get people involved a lot of the time. So we could be discussing a particular thing, maybe about how to handle objections or like a training during a training that I gave today. Well, luckily during the training they had a microphone because with my breathing issues, it would have been very difficult, you know, to stand, walk left, right.

And you know what, I've been out of breath quite easily. And luckily it was a small gathering, just about 70 people. So role-playing, that's how I got some people involved. So I called the customer service gal, the lady, and I was like, OK, in X&X&Y situations, how do you handle that sort of thing? And she said, and then her line manager was there and line manager said, wait to say that again. The person said it, line manager had one or two things to contribute, supervisor also had something to contribute another person.

And we were all just freestyling one scenario and basically we were trying to figure out what is the optimal process for trying to resolve certain kinds of disputes with customers. And so by role-playing, coming up with something on the spot saying that look, I'm the angry customer, I'm on the phone, ring, ring, I call you, I abuse you, I cuss you out, blah, blah, blah. This is the problem. How do you handle it? So by gamifying that, we got lots of other people involved and we got people engaged.

You know, it's not the same thing as me standing up in front of a training room, a conference room, and saying that, look, this is how we handle angry customers. Option A, do this. Option B, do this. Option C and do that. So if you stand in front of a classroom and say ABC, then yeah, people will listen. Some people will take notes, some people will nod, and some people will be sleeping. But if you turn anything to drama and say, look, I'm going to be an angry customer, I'm going to call right now.

I'll pick you at random, I'll call and we're going to have this conversation. I'm the angry customer. I'm going to cuss you out. I abuse your life, I abuse your father, I abuse the business. How are you going to calm me down, figure out what the problem is and how are we going to resolve the situation? So by throwing element of drama into it, you get lots of people involved. And yeah, so this one can be done very, very easily.

In fact, you don't have to be missile trainer to do this. You, the business owner, you can do this one all the time. Just role play from your experience, you've handled angry customers before. You've handled the situation before, you've handled that situation before. So your Monday meetings or your Friday meetings, you know, call everybody together and say, look, today we're going to do role-playing. This is the role, I am this.

How are you going to handle that? Then there's sales pitch competitions. I've seen that being used back when I was selling insurance and financial products to something that agency head did once. So this is a pitch, this is a competition about this particular product. So you come and speak, the person who wins is going to be given, she said, recharge card. That's what the agency leader said. And I thought she was going to say recharge card like 20 K, you know, like to motivate people.

I don't believe Madam said was recharge card that he said was 500 naira. And in my mind, I'm thinking like Madam, come on, they're trying to motivate people. How do you motivate fully grown guys and women with 500 naira? If you're going to give somebody recharge card because they won the competition, make it 20K30K50K. Now you motivate people. So please, business owners, agency owners, don't say that you want to motivate people and you do a competition and then the prize is 500 recharge card.

That is absolutely ridiculous. So let's see what else. So leaderboards, not something that people do in some organisations. So there's a board there and it shows. This person is on top. He has closed 20 deals. This person is next has closed 12 deals. This person is next has closed 5 deals or whatever. Sometimes people do it based on money. So number one you have Rosalynn, and Rosalynn has brought in maybe 2M in profits.

And then next is Abdul. Abdul has brought maybe 1.6. And then maybe next is Chiniery, and Chiniery has brought 500 game or something like that. So that's a leaderboard. That's the whole idea. And then there's also awards or trophies given for performance. There's some people that do trivia contests like today we're going to handle objection. We're going to do a trivia or a contest on handling objections and the price is going to go for the person who can give me the most number of ways to handle money objections.

So if you call and the customer says no thank you, I'm not interested because people are too expensive, how do you handle that objection? Go give me three options, you know, that sort of thing. And then whoever gives the right number of answers or the highest number of answers gets to win the competition. So all those sorts of things. But I hope you guys are catching my drift. You can see that there are lots of things that can be done to Gamify sales performance, sales training, sales learning, and it doesn't have to be anything fancy.

So if you have those fancy Gamify CRM things like I said, if you're in Niger and your organization is using that, please hit me up. Let me share it over here on the podcast. To be frank, the people that hang around, I'm not sure if guys are going to fall for that thing, you know, so you give me a couple of stars on on the CRM and so, you know, am I in nursery school? Are you going to give me a star for doing my homework?

You know, that's my guess. But if you do it in your organization and it works, then please let me know. So if you're willing to give this a try in your organization, like I said, you don't need to bring in a sales trainer. You don't need to be a fancy sales coach, business consultant, nothing like that. You can do this yourself based on your own experience running the business. And sometimes you business owners discount the level of experience that you have.

Let me give examples. Well, these individuals did not discount the amount of experience that they have, but this year I've worked with that's in the in Q3 and four of this year I've worked with someone who has had 17 years of experience, alternative energy space, 13 years experience leather in the leather working space. Let's see what else I think for this year. That's the largest that I've that I've done. That's the largest years of experience that people have been in the business.

And so let's face it, even if you didn't go to school to learn biz admin or you didn't go to, you didn't take a fancy coaching program to learn sales, know how know how over that 17 years you have learned some good stuff. Over that 13 years, those 20 years you have learned some good stuff and you have wisdom to impart. So please, by all means, every Monday call your sales people, sit them down. Who every Friday, who every two weeks?

If it's once a month, once a month is too is too far. Make this weekly if you can. Of course, everybody's busy. You have to travel, you have to work. I understand. So maybe bi weekly. If it is monthly, that's too sparse, too wide. And then you can introduce these elements and you're going to be able to impart your wisdom, your knowledge, your business acumen to your employees, your salespeople, other people within the organization in a very fun way that people can take on board and that people can learn from.

And trust me, believe me, it's a lot better to do this than to do what the average Nigerian employer does, which is call everybody on Monday morning, 8:00 and then abuse the hell out of everybody. Now, what are you guys doing? You are not professional, you are not this, you are not that and just abuse, abuse, abuse and berate, berate, berate everybody up and down. Now there's a time that is needed for you to call everybody and tongue lash them.

You know, if it's a sinking ship, then by all means tongue lash everybody and try and whip people in the shape, but just mix it up. My sister, when she was in, when my sister worked in banking, she would talk about the Monday she's called the Monday abuse meetings. I think it was Monday abuse meetings or something. I was at the particular bank. But anyway, that's how their manager used to run things. So basically call everybody on Monday morning and then abuse the hell out of everyone and then pick the worst performing person and abuse the hell out of that person.

You know, those are not very effective ways of getting the best out of people. So it might be warranted once in a while. By the way, if you're listening to this podcast in the West, if you're listening to this in America or if listening to this in the UK, do not try this or you will run into trouble. People will report you to who, they report you to any of the government regulatory agencies that are responsible for these sorts of things.

So if you try this in the West or you try this, if you try this in America or in the UK, don't be surprised if you end up behind bars. But in Nigeria, that kind of behaviour unfortunately is still tolerated for now. So. Round your people up. You'd have to be a sales trainer. Give me 5. Impart the level of wisdom and knowledge that you have so that everybody can move the business forward so that we can all make greater profits.

So you can put more money in your pocket and you can send your kids to fancy schools and you can increase the salary of your sales staff and everybody within the business. So thank you very much for your time and attention today. Let's see, what else? Oh, yeah. Connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 080 64662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, then also connect with me on LinkedIn.

My name is Tavishima Ayede, you can confirm the spending of my name from the link. We're listening to this episode so highlight and copy paste on LinkedIn. My handsome face pops up. Then connect with me. You have questions, queries, comments, tips, insights, whatever it is, just connect with me and I'll be in touch with you. 24 hours Max 48 hours. I respond to everyone for now until I become a bona fide big boy and I'm in super high demand.

And yeah, then I won't respond to all you ordinary people. So by the way, I'm joking in case you can't tell. So that's it. Thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.