Looking for ways to boost the performance of your sales team and have your most profitable year ever? Look no further! In this article, we’ve compiled some of the best ideas for sales games that teams can use to super-charge training, cooperation, and engagement. We’ve covered a broad list with different types of games designed to target key areas in sales performance. For example, a pitch tournament is a fun and energizing way to focus on solving customer problems, while the classic “sell me this pen” activity involves quick thinking and plenty of sales-closing tips. 

The best part? You’re likely to see a boost in profits because your team will be actively engaged in learning new sales strategies that will bring in more revenue. Use these activities to help your team compete, cooperate, and close more sales than ever. 

Energizing sales games

1. Sales game show

Making a game out of training is a great way to get people more excited about the subject matter. And which game is better than Jeopardy? A quiz show format is an innovative way to introduce new material and understand how much your team has absorbed. Here is how we suggest you play: 

1. Find a Jeopardy template online using a site like Jeopardy Labs. 
2. You’ll need five categories for questions related to your company. It’s best to stick with your company’s offerings or information like the organization’s mission, customer demographic, or latest marketing campaigns. 
3. Use the premade questions from the online resource or come up with your own questions and answers. Make sure you’re able to share the screen with all your participants. 
4. If you’re using a group format, let people discuss and share answers. 
5. Proceed to gather everyone in a large space with a smart screen and ensure everyone can see, then divide people into either small groups (or individuals if the group is already small). 

2. Name that product

Remember the memory games that you used to play as a child? A variation of this activity can help new hires to learn about your product offerings. You don’t need anything besides a pen and paper! Begin by making a list of the products that your company sells. On the same page, list product features and price points. Then, on separate papers, write a short product description for each of the items. Have sales reps match the products with the short descriptions. Or, as another variation, instead of descriptions you can use customer needs or wants, or another indicator that would help people to better understand your product breadth and keep them straight. 

3. Most difficult prospect

Every sales person has come across a prospect that is full of objections and generally makes their job harder. The better that people are able to deal with such individuals, the more effective they will be at a sales job. Sort people into pairs and have them act out a sales meeting, with one of them playing the role of a difficult prospect. That individual should impersonate the toughest prospect they have come in contact with, rolling out all the usual objections and talking points, while the other person tries to overcome them and answer questions. Then, bring everyone back together for a discussion about how the conversations went. Everyone will have something to learn about how to deal with their next challenging sales meeting. 

4. Dice game

Sales is a numbers game, and the more thoroughly that your reps understand this, the more motivated they'll be to keep making calls and taking meetings. You’ll need teams of 8 players, so either keep your group small or break larger groups into smaller ones. Give each 8-person team one dice and a timer (set to 30 seconds). Have each person take a turn rolling and have one “secretary” in the group write down the results for every roll. In particular, they should write down each time someone gets a “6”, and record how many tries it takes to get that result. The key is that the players can roll as many times as they want in the 30 second interval. You’ll quickly see people moving a lot faster in order to have more tries at getting the “6” - just the way the overall sales process should work. The faster you move, the more prospects you have, and the more likely you are to get your desired result. It’s a quick visual representation to drive home what makes a truly productive sales person. 

5. Team trivia

Trivia can be a really fun game, especially if you kick off a sales retreat or morning meeting with it. In larger team settings, try having trivia competitions with incentives based on points. Use random sales knowledge questions or come up with questions based on your business and offerings. Here are some good examples: 

1. What is our sales goal for the month? 
2. What is our current marketing campaign? 
3. What is our most profitable product line? 
4. What is the most common objection to [product or offering]? 

Find more morning meeting games on our blog.

You can also find more energizing team warmups, sales kickoff themes, and sales meeting ideas on our resources page. 

Sales games for small groups

6. Pitch tournament

An important part of selling is understanding customer needs: what they want or what drives them to buy something. Help your team to hone these skills by pitching items to you or another panel of judges. Pick a few regular objects, such as things from around the office. Then, pair people up (or work as individuals if your group is already small) and have them take turns pitching the item to your judges. Give everyone a few minutes to come up with a unique presentation and make sure they understand the product. Add a prize for the winner to up the ante a bit. 

7. Sales sleuthing

In this engaging game, sales reps work as detectives and try to uncover customer needs. Here’s how it works: 

1. Have everyone in the group divide into pairs with one detective and one customer. 
2. Give every pair about ten minutes to get as much information as possible. The detective should try to understand as much as they can about the customer's needs.
3. At the end of the session, have each detective present what they’ve learned, with the person who acquired the most knowledge the winner. 

This is a great activity for learning more about probing questions, uncovering the things that aren’t being said, and building rapport with prospects - all valuable skills in the sales process!  

8. Cold call point system

For an ongoing game that will add some fun to the daily routine, start a cold calling point system. Take five minutes out of each day and have employees record their cold calls. It can be really fun to see points add up over time and learn from each other. Keep a whiteboard or other points-tracking system in view so everyone can get a status. Here are some options for tracking points: 

1. 30 points for getting the prospect on the phone
2. 20 points for keeping them on for more than a minute
3. 40 points for scheduling a follow up
4. 10 points for getting a new contact from the call

9. Stranger conversation practice

Boost team confidence by practicing talking to people you don’t know well. Pair people up in groups of two and then give them a few prompts. Their objective is to learn this information from each other using a natural dialogue. For example, maybe the goal is to learn about their favorite international cuisine, or their favorite place to vacation. It’s great practice for having an objective in mind and then being creative about how to get there. 

10. Pair selling

This can be a really powerful exercise for new salespeople. Match up seasoned sales reps with newer ones, and have them spend the day together selling. For example, give each pair 12 hours to sell as many of your products as possible (or to set as many meetings as they can, or whatever is realistic). Set time aside the next day to bring all of the pairs together and discuss how things went. In particular, ask the newer reps what they learned and to share any major takeaways. This is a natural way to encourage organic mentorship that lasts and can also serve as a great small group icebreaker. 

Sales groups for large groups

11. Flight seat partner

A really simple activity, this game teaches people how to proactively engage new people. Everyone will need a pen and paper. Start with these instructions: 

1. Have everyone imagine a scenario where they are traveling for a work trip. 
2. Have people in pairs and have one person pretend that they have reading materials or other items to prepare for a big meeting. 
3. At that point, the other person should find a way to ask “what do you do?” or “where do you work?”
4. The other player should find a way to lead to a successful sales pitch. 

The basic idea is to get people more comfortable starting conversations with strangers and incorporating work information. 

12. Sell me this pen

One of the most popular sales training activities and a simple workplace competition, in this game you simply hand each person a pen and have them take a turn selling it to the larger group. What is the sales pitch? What are the questions and objections? Who has the best selling points? After the activity, have a discussion about what stuck out to everyone - what worked and what didn’t. Not only does this force people to get more comfortable with public speaking, but everyone can learn some new tricks, too. 

13. Pitch Scattegories

In this classic family game, players compete by listing down words that start with the same letter. Make a sales-training version where you can hone more business development skills. You’ll need a letter spinning wheel, pens, and paper. Here are the instructions to play: 

1. Make a table with products in a row and characteristics in one column. Some good characteristic ideas include product features, benefits, and disadvantages. 
2. Have several players spin the wheel and then mention products or services that start with the selected letter. 
3. Give players a few minutes to fill in the categories. 
4. Host a discussion about the importance of product features in closing a sale.

14. Product descriptions

For this game, you need a large space to accommodate everyone. Here is what to do: 

1. Have all players get together and form a circle. 
2. Choose a random item within your reach and give each player up to 60 seconds to pitch to other participants. 
3. Have everyone focus on the notable features and try not to repeat a sellable attribute that another participant mentions. 
4. Any player who cannot remember a feature within 60 seconds leaves the game. 
5. The last standing player is the winner. 

15. Trade-up game

Negotiation is a crucial part of successful selling, and this game is a great way to practice. The objective is to trade for better objects than what you currently have at hand. Start by passing out basic items such as office stationary, a stapler, or a soda from the fridge. Then, let everyone talk to others and try to trade for something they deem as better. Whoever ends up with the best product wins the game - since obviously they were able to finagle their way into better items. Afterward, it’s a good idea to ask the top players how they performed so well and what negotiation tricks they might share. 

16. Cold call bingo

A light-hearted game that can help with dreaded cold calling skills is bingo. For this activity, you need to break up more senior sales people from less experienced ones. You’ll have two groups (senior and junior). Give each junior participant a bingo card with 24 sales-related prompts. Have the junior reps listen to the more senior ones make calls and fill in their bingo cards accordingly. Once they have filled in their card - like in normal bingo - they win. Some of the prompts to add to the card could include: 

1. “Call back tomorrow”
2. “We’re not interested”
3. “You need to talk to someone else”
4. “You’re too pricey”
5. “I’m not sure”
6. Whatever pertains to your business

17. What’s in the box

Learning to ask the right questions is another crucial sales skill. You can help to teach your team these skills by playing this game. Start by collecting several boxes and then placing everyday objects inside. 

1. Group players into groups of approximately 10 and have each team select a leader.
2. Set a five-minute timer and then let each team member ask a question about what could be in the box. Questions should be closed-ended like “Is the object large?” 
3. Questions continue until the player finds out the answer, similar to the game of 20 questions. 
4. The first team to correctly guess their item wins. 

Sales games for virtual teams

18. Storytelling king/queen

It can be difficult to come up with collaborative activities for teams that are meeting online. However, this exercise is helpful for using more storytelling skills throughout the sales process. Host a video call and prepare a customer case study or success story in advance. Give everyone the case study or success story in advance and make sure people have time to practice. Then, have everyone take turns relating the story as if they were speaking to a prospect or customer. Their goal is to share the details of the story in such a compelling way that it builds trust and makes prospects more interested. At the end of the meeting, all participants can vote via a poll that you set up. Bonus points for having a prize to share with the person who related the story in the most engaging way. For more communication games or activities, make sure to follow our blog. 

19. Value vs. feature

Knowing the difference between a feature and a benefit is essential, especially for more complex offerings like technology or industrial supplies. To begin with, everyone will need to review a document or a matrix that lists features as well as the benefits associated with each (obviously this is something you’ll need to prepare in advance if you don’t already have something like this created). Then, bring your group together for a virtual meeting and run through the different features or benefits. Pick them randomly so there’s no pattern. After you share one, participants should chime in with whether that was a feature or a benefit. Finally, host a discussion about how easy or difficult the process was, and how people can better differentiate in the future. 

20. Buyer-seller switch

Have you ever wanted to step into the shoes of a buyer and see how they think throughout the sales process? Now is your chance! In this simple game, have people pick a partner and set up an online meeting with them. This is something pairs can do independently outside of a larger group activity. Have one act as a buyer and one as the seller, and run through a typical sales meeting or conversation. The buyer should really try to approach the conversation from the point of view of a usual prospect. Then, they switch. This is a great way to gain new perspectives and prepare for potential conversations in the future. 

An investment in sales retreats will pay dividends

Many companies avoid bringing their sales team together or focusing on training because there is an expense involved. It’s absolutely true that there is an investment required in having scattered sales teams travel, hosting them, and planning an engaging agenda in a collaborative environment. 

That being said, an investment in bringing your team together for collaboration and learning is always a smart one. You’re guaranteed to get an ROI from things like team-building games and sales training games where people can get to know colleagues better, learn new skills, and better understand how to bring your products or services to market. Just think of the extra revenue that can be generated from a more productive salesforce!

If the involvement of organizing such an event is what’s holding you back, then reach out to Surf Office. We can help you to plan a sales team gathering, work retreat, or all-company meeting that will leave your employees energized and engaged.