There are several sales incentive programs, sometimes referred to as sales contests, occur throughout the year. We were challenged to brand and package all the programs into one system. Our goal is to boost agent engagement and awareness of contests.

I facilitated a workshop to gain an understanding of what two types of agents think, say, feel and do. I invited an incentive program owner as well as a field sales manager to participate in the session to help validate our assumptions and split everyone into two groups. I gave them consideration prompts to further round out their personas like: what technology do they use? What are their motivations/fears?

I wanted the groups to really pull out some interesting ideas to explore, so I gave them the IDEO brainstorm parameters at the start of the session. To help them get more ideas on stickies and knowing what we know about our agents from the persona exercise, I gave scenario prompts such as large budget vs. small budget execution and digital vs. traditional marketing. This was to help think about options beyond what we normally think is possible. It was a fun and collaborative experience!

Both groups came up with solid ideas and we ended the workshop discussing the agent’s journey. How do they use this solution from start to finish? I took their work sheets and notes and pieced together what I felt were the strongest components from each set. The minimum viable product is a microsite/contest hub with a text notification system. Knowing about some pain-points from the persona exercise, clear and upfront details about each contest had to be quickly accessible, they need to know who to talk to right away if there are questions, and important dates had to be prevalent.

This project is currently on-going and is going through comp design to gain buy-in from key stakeholders. After meeting with my immediate team to go over the mockups, we’re going to move forward with building out some working prototypes. I learned these methods outside of work from my peers and my participation in AIGA workshops and it was exciting to try an innovation approach to a work product. Will post updates as they become available!