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Secret Agent Salespeople
By: Audrey Sellers, Associate Editor
Issue: March 2010



An insurance agency transforms its sales agents into ninja stars for a high-energy motivation campaign.

When Susan Hysen of Silver Spring, Maryland-based distributor Summit Marketing (UPIC: summit) learned that her client, an insurance agency, wanted to kick off a sales contest, she knew she needed an ultra-creative idea. “We’ve been doing these contests for more than 20 years and we will not repeat a theme from the past,” says Hysen. “We had to be creative and our thought was to have a ’70s kung fu/ninja theme.”

The agency launched a website to introduce the contest, titled “10 Fingers Of Sales Lightning,” and each week a one-minute webisode was added to draw sales agents back. Hysen had a sizeable target market on her hands—about 3,500 employees nationwide—and she wanted to maintain a high level of excitement throughout the contest.

Her plan? A series of secret agent-worthy promotional products. The first round was a kick-off kit containing an assortment of items ranging from aviator sunglasses and mini toy ninjas to rubber nun chucks and a terrycloth headband.

Another element to the contest was scratch cards that sales agents received each time they made a sale. This gave them the opportunity to win a $5, $10, $20 or $50 gift card from a variety of merchants or entry into a lottery drawing, which offered prizes such as ice cream-makers, gumball machines and digital picture frames.

If participants didn’t win an individual prize, they still had a shot at winning a team prize, which included gifts such as solar radios, USB drink coolers/warmers and digital camera key rings. “Each week, regional offices would create an office goal. The top teams within that office would win promotional items for supervisors to award to team members,” Hysen says.

Hysen made sure participants also dressed the part and ordered custom polo shirts to boost excitement and visibility around the contest. “By using promotional items related to the theme in addition to webisodes shown on the content website, we were able to keep the sales associates engaged throughout the two-month contest,” Hysen says. “There was a significant increase in morale during these contests.”
Above: Briefcases packed with items such as a ninja stress reliever, nun chucks and a foam gun set the tone for the promotion.