Sales Q&A: Want your customers to eagerly spend more money?

If you’ve ever been around young kids, you know that sometimes the best incentive for unpleasant tasks is to turn them into a game. (Think playing “Here comes the airplane” with a spoonful of strained peas). Of course as kids get older, they outgrow that phase. Right?

Not really.

Not to insult them, but your customers can often be just big kids. To engage them, try making it fun by using motivational games. (Think playing “Make your payment to enter the drawing”).

In marketingspeak, it’s called, “gamification”. Basically, playing games make a boring task, a learning process, or a buying decision fun. It uses people’s competitive spirit and desire to win to motivate them. There are entire businesses dedicated to gamification for sales and training.

But in mobile distribution it can be much easier than all that makes it sound.

I spoke to Mike Boyhan and Kurt Houpt, trainers at Cornwell Tools, to get their take on contests.

Q - Why do I have to turn paying their bill into some kind of game? When I pay my electric bill I don’t get a gold star and no one enters me into a drawing for cash and prizes.

A - I agree. Paying your bills on time is an obligation. That shouldn’t require an incentive. But keep in mind, you’re not a bill collector. You’re a salesman. The more fun you make payments or purchases, the more fun you making buying.

Maybe you don’t get prizes for paying your utility bills, but think about other things as simple as fueling your truck. Chances are at least one gas station on your route has a rewards program. And many credit cards have cashback programs to encourage you to use them. So, if you look around, you may find yourself being steered or rewarded in more ways than you realize.

Okay, maybe it’s not your personality to turn your truck into a carnival with games and prizes. But occasionally running a few simple drawings or contests to engage customers, stay on pace with your competition and reach your goals isn't such a bad idea.

Q - What kind of goals can I reach?

There are two basic goals that a mobile dealer can choose to reach for:

Boost Collections - This is perhaps the most common objective.

To reach this goal a dealer allows customers to participate in the game or contest only if they make their weekly payment. Often if a client is behind, they cannot participate until they catch up. And to give an incentive to pay off their balance early, a dealer may give an extra entry if they pay an extra week’s payment.

Often dealers will run a collections contest just before they take a vacation so they have an influx of cash before they leave and don’t find themselves in a cashflow crunch from their time away from the route.

Increase Sales - This can have a big impact on the bottom line.

There are several ways to run this kind of competition/drawing. One of the easiest is to allow a participant an entry for every $X they spend.  Say you choose to $25 as X. In that case, for every $25 your customer spends with you they get an chance to participate.

The benefit here is that customers are driven to spend more to get more entries in the competition. And, of course, if the customer is behind on payments they can’t enter until they catch up.

No Goal - Of course you could just run a game for fun. But event that has the hidden result of bringing customers out to your truck to browse and should have an impact on sales.

You don’t want to run a game too often or it loses its impact. Once a quarter seems to be about the right timing for most dealers.

Q - What kinds of games work best?

A - The games that work best are those that you get the most excited about.

Your excitement is contagious. Customers can tell the difference between you going through the motions and you believing in what you’re doing. If you’re having fun, they’ll have fun.

Here are a few ideas. Choose the ones that work best for you and put them to use.

Dollar Raffle - This is a simple game that is very popular with dealers and customers.

Each participant draws a raffle ticket numbered from 1 to 500 and pays for the ticket at the rate of a penny a number. So for example ticket 001 pays one cent and 500 pays $5. By doing this, you’ll have gathered $1,250 once you sell your last ticket.

Before the contest, you buy about $1,250 in prizes (for more on choosing prizes, see below). So the contest pays for itself.

Game of Skill - This “skill” involved in this tends to be nothing special, but adds to the fun.

Dealers create a game that customers play to earn a chance. This can range from making a basket with a Nerf basketball and hoop mounted on the back door to a dartboard. (I suggest using “safe” darts with plastic or velcro tips. You don’t want anyone hurt.) If your customer makes the basket or hits the selected area of the target, he gets a chance in the drawing.

In this case, your customer doesn’t pay to enter the contest, they just pay his or her account or make an agreed upon purchase amount.

Games of Chance - In these games, the dealer pays for the prizes and there is no cost to enter.

This can be anything from a blackjack game, to a football pool, to picking treasure chest keys. The game you play isn’t as important as that the rules are easy to understand. No one wants to play a game that’s too complicated or seems impossible to win.

Keep in mind, whenever you do a drawing be sure there are customers around. You don’t want anyone thinking you stacked the deck or that the drawing is rigged.

Take pictures of the winners to post on your bulletin board and/or your social media.

Q - How do I choose prizes? Do certain one work better than others?

A - The perceived value of your prize will influence participation in your game. Here are a couple types of prizes and ways to gather them for your contest:

Use Your Tools - This is cheapest for a dealer since tools can be purchased at cost and customers perceive them as valued at retail price. Or you can gather prizes over the year to put in your “prize closet” by using tools gathered at your annual expo or month specials. Any time you get a free tool, put it in your prize drawer for future use. Another way to use tools is to give your customers a truck gift card. This way they can choose what they want. Most winners will spend more than just the amount on the gift card.

Use Branded Gifts - Buy branded hats, shirts, mugs, jacket or whatever is popular with your customers to use as prizes. This has the added benefit of keeping your brand in the winners’ minds long after the game is over. These also may cost less than your customer perceives them to be worth.

Use Big Ticket Items - Sometimes a tool or t-shirt isn’t going to be the incentive a TV or video game console might be. Join a local warehouse club or look for deals at your local big box store and offer these as prizes. This is best for a “self-liquidating” promotion since the money to buy them comes from the entries.

Test different prize combinations to see what works best with your customers. Some like better odds of winner, in which case having more prizes with lower price takes works better. Some like better prizes, so you’ll want to buy fewer prizes with high price tags.

Overall the key to a game’s success it to have fun and listen to what your customers want in the types of games and prizes. If a game works, run it again. If it doesn’t, try a different one.

What’s working for you? Let me know and I’ll post the most innovative ideas online.