How to Design Sales Contests Better
Featuring Raghuram Bommaraju
Sales contests that crown a few winners may not give everyone a fair chance to compete. This study shows how to redesign them.
January 15, 2026
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Raghuram Bommaraju
Associate Professor of Marketing and the Executive Director of the Fellow Programme in Management (FPM). His research primarily focuses on sales force management and the interface between marketing and finance.
Key Takeaways
- Sales contests are useful for organisations as they encourage healthy competition and success, but the design of the contest influences its results.
- Running a sales contest with everyone in a single group does not improve results than not running a contest at all. Segmenting salespeople into groups, especially by past performance, works better.
- Multi-segments contests are more effective because more people feel they can win, raising motivation and performance.