Gamification seems to be everywhere these days. Organizations gamify to increase brand awareness, consumer satisfaction and employee engagement. Managers gamify as part of their marketing or customer service or sales departments. College students can take courses on the topic. There’s even a whole industry built around gamification, with its conferences and publications and competing organizations.
In this land of opportunity, it’s understandable that people would call LevelEleven unique – that they would wonder why we focus on only one slice of the pie. “Aren’t you limiting yourselves by providing services only within the range of sales gamification?” they ask. “No,” we say. “Actually, we’re not.” And here are three reasons why:
1. We like to play detective
Focusing on one sector of gamification works for LevelEleven, because it’s where we began. Our CEO, Bob Marsh, developed a gamification app as a solution to his own problem; as a sales manager for ePrize, he wanted to get his salespeople motivated and focused. (To learn about the app, watch a video here.) Today, our company, which spun off of that app, continues searching for gamification solutions to sales problems. To identify the issues we should be focusing on, we count on the close relationships that working in a niche market allowed us to build.
2. Jack of all trades, master of none
We target one group: companies who use Salesforce. That means we focus every piece of research and every meeting and every new idea and, well, every bit of our work efforts period on what would help companies get more out of their use of Salesforce. And so our narrow scope allows us a clearer view. The best part is that when we share what we learn through case studies or white papers, we never have to question whether potential clients will be able to relate.
3. Distinguished niche distinguishes business
As we dwell within the walls of our niche, we compile just as much research as the next guy. But the constant mention of “sales contests,” “sales gamification” and “salespeople” in our published works and social media increases our SEO. Then of course, that elevated visibility helps to establish us as an authority when it comes to sales gamification. We’re more easily found by industry publications searching for subjects, event planners searching for speakers and associations searching for experts.
So the way we look at it, locking our company into a niche does anything but restrict our capabilities. In fact, if gamification expands as we’re assuming it will, to create more results and encompass greater departments and become a college major and represent a larger industry, we’ll keep our narrow focus. Sales gamification – it’s kind of our thing.
