For many B2B corporate events, team building is Job #1.

Your management wants their meeting attendees to transform from a group of strangers and acquaintances into a unified team aligned with your company culture and strategy.

Because after the meeting’s over, they’ll be much more willing to help their new friends than their unknown coworkers. Plus they’ll be less likely to leave, reducing turnover and increasing productivity, sales, and profits.

To help you achieve your team building event objective, we’ve assembled 60 team building activity ideas you can build into a digital game your attendees can play on their smartphones throughout your event.

Many of these ideas have been used by actual SocialPoint customers in the games we created for their corporate events, while others are further ideas tailored to key use case games we can design for your attendees with our game platform.

17 Team Building Ideas For Sales Kickoffs (SKOs)

1. Get the game going before your event even starts with pre-event quizzes about company history that boosts sales reps’ understanding of your company achievements and culture.
2. Offer photo challenges that reward salespeople for taking a selfie with their colleagues from marketing, IT, HR, and more, which creates a gallery of team photos you can share on the big screen at the event, or on webpages after the event.
3. Send your teams you want to bond (be it within or across sales teams, regions, or cross-functional departments) on a fun scavenger hunt where they work together to win prizes.
4. Display a leaderboard that shows the ranking and points of your teams (by region, industry segment, or other groupings) so the team members work harder and help their team members to score higher.
5. Give teams points towards rewards for when their team members complete tasks such as the IT security training, giving your sales team greater motivation to complete a necessary task they might otherwise avoid.
6. Provide points towards rewards for the teams that met quota the previous year or quarter, uploading the points via Excel spreadsheet during the event.
7. Reward the sales team that gets the highest collective score on trivia games about company history, given during a break between sessions or activities.
8. Using our “game within a game” capability, offer a separate team building challenge on day two and day three that offers a chance to win a prize, even to attendees who feel they are too far behind in points to win the big overall prizes, so more attendees stay engaged through the entire conference.
9. Reward the teams that get the best scores on quizzes given after breakout sessions on sales techniques or competitive overview or market dynamics, to motivate them to pay more attention to the content.
10. Reward the teams that get the best scores on quizzes about your new products introduced at the SKO, to motivate them to learn the new products better.
11. Using our staff-scored challenges, give points to the teams that successfully role play a sales pitch or customer service interaction.
12. Using our staff-scored challenges, give points to the teams whose people complete the early morning 5K run or yoga workout.
13. Prompt more of your salespeople to collectively visit the vendor show floor by giving the teams points for meeting your event sponsors there.
14. Your entire sales organization can still play together as individuals and teams in one overall game.
15. You can decide where game content applies to all sales teams versus a specific team (such as a new product introduction within a specific industry vertical only they sell to).
16. Use a game theme that is explicitly focused on team building, such as “Stronger Together” or “We Are One”. See other sales meeting themes here.
17. If your SKO includes an awards ceremony, include a photo challenge that will later provide a glamorous photo gallery of your sales leaders and company leadership, all dressed in their best outfits.

14 Team Building Ideas For All Employee / All Hands Meetings

1. Create teams across departments, so your employees develop new relationships with fellow employees they may not have met before.
2. Include in your game photo challenges that reward employees for taking a selfie with the newest employees or the most veteran employees, or other creative ways to get employees to talk to each other, such as all left-handed employees.
3. Reward the teams that score the highest on a quiz given at the end of the State of the Company presentation about the content shared.
4. Have a wall at your event covered with historical artifacts from your company history, with QR codes next to the artifacts. Employees scan the QR codes, then answer trivia questions about those historical items for points towards prizes, teaching them about your company history.
5. If your All-Employee meeting includes your employees’ families, get them involved in some of the challenges and rewards, so your employee’s families have more good feelings about your company. Or, while attending family members can play, only employees themselves can compete towards prizes. Your choice.
6. Using our staff-scored challenges, give points to the teams whose people complete the caused-based activity you host.
7. Offer points for employees taking a selfie with a 10 year or greater veteran, so newer employees can better visualize a long career with your company.
8. Offer points for employees taking selfies during the event with funny props, and then share those photos on the big screen when you bring everyone back together.
9. If your all-employee meeting is to celebrate a milestone anniversary (like 10 or 25 or 50 or 100 years), include game challenges such as trivia games about company history, or selfies with the longest-serving employees.
10. If your all-employee meeting is driven by a company merger, group employees from both companies into every team, to help them get to know each other.
11. If your all-employee meeting is driven by a company merger, create Trivia questions about the best of each companies’ history and products to help both companies’ employees to better value the merger.
12. If your all-employee meeting is driven by a company merger, include photo challenges that reward employees for taking a picture with someone from the other company, to help them get to know each other.
13. If your all-employee meeting is only for employees from one large department that has never met in person, fill the game with fun challenges, like unusual group selfies or trivia games with mostly funny questions, and a few company history questions thrown in.
14. If your all-employee meeting is a holiday party, give teams points for selfies wearing clothing or props about that holiday, and for answering trivia questions about that holiday.

12 Team Building Ideas For Regional Manager Meetings

1. Create teams that compete for prizes, where the team members are all from one region, which makes teams easy to group (the West, the South, the Northeast), or from across different regions so they get to know new colleagues they otherwise might not know yet.
2. Create teams where your regional managers are combined with employees from other departments that support them, so they can create better relationships that lead to greater collaboration and increased productivity.
3. Include a photo challenge that rewards your regional managers for taking a selfie with another regional manager who started working for your company in the same year.
4. Strengthen your regional managers’ attachment to your company with a trivia game played for points towards prizes with questions about your company’s history of achievement.
5. Give teams points towards rewards for when their team members complete the DEI or other training, giving your regional manager teams greater motivation to complete a necessary task they might otherwise avoid.
6. Group your regional managers into teams, and give the team a prize that scores the highest score on a quiz given directly after the keynote presentation about the content shared.
7. Using our staff-scored challenges, give points to the teams that successfully role play a negotiation, a manager/employee interaction, or the team that has the most members who complete a role play exercise.
8. Give your regional managers or franchisees a fun experience with entertaining and low-stress challenges that reward them with points towards prizes for taking funny group photos or playing an easy, trivia game with only funny questions about the event location (such as Disney trivia if in Orlando). They will associate the fun with your company, making them care more for your company.
9. If your regional managers meeting attendees are franchisees, create a photo challenge that offers points for attendees who take a selfie with the newest franchisees, so your new franchisees feel welcome and they get to know their peers who can help onboard them faster.
10. Using our “game within a game” capability, offer a team building scavenger hunt to find objects or complete an Amazing Race-style journey to create friendship and fun. 
11. Create sub games around the content, learning objectives and preferred behaviors for each regional manager team. Use leaderboards and rewards to celebrate and bond the best players and teams.
12. You can decide where game content applies to all regional managers teams versus a specific team (such as product-related info for products only offered in the south versus the north)

7 Team Building Ideas For Customer + User Conferences

1. Group your customers into teams to help instill community, and so your customers gain a network that can help them use your product better to solve their business problems.
2. Combine your customers and employees into teams to create stronger bonds between customers and your employees, so your customers are more emotionally attached to your company, and your employees feel more satisfied because they can see the difference they are making in your customers’ lives.
3. Include a photo challenge where your customers win points towards prizes by taking selfies wearing company-branded clothing (shirts, jackets, vests, hats, sun glasses), bonding them with each other and your company.
4. Reward teams of customers who complete a staff-scored challenge about how to best use your product to solve a problem in a certain situation.
5. Reward teams of customers who scan QR codes placed next to your new products that trigger videos about your new product.
6. Give your customers a survey about new product ideas or customer satisfaction to make them more appreciative towards your company.
7. Offer really cool company swag at the conference as prizes so they will be reminded of your company’s awesomeness all year long.

5 Team Building Ideas For Training

1. Create games that blend in challenges around the training content you want them to learn, with challenges that create greater interaction between your employees, plus teach them about your company history, achievements, mission, values, and culture.
2. If you set up a game for training for key employees that you give regionally around the country, include challenges like fun photo challenges that reward employee interactions between training sessions to promote greater team building.
3. If you host your training at your headquarters, include in your game a selfie photo of your training group or teams wearing branded gear in front of the big company sign or a statue of the company founder. Give the photo to each new employee after the event, and use the photo for internal newsletters or websites.
4. Set up your training attendees into teams, and have these teams compete for the highest quiz scores given after training breakouts, to motivate them to retain your content more and to help each other learn better.
5. Include in your training event game points towards prizes for attending team-building activities and social events.

5 Team Building Ideas For Any B2B Corporate Event

1. Include and display team leaderboards in your game, to create competitive rivalries with other teams, motivating them to work together to beat their colleagues, win prizes, and rank well on the team leaderboard.
2. Include and display “My Team” leaderboard in your game, to cause attendees to find colleagues at the bottom of the team leaderboard and encourage them to play, or help them complete their activities to improve the team score.
3. Offer instant winner prizes to every team that completes certain tasks, to motivate and reward teams for completing challenges or earning a threshold of points. 
4. Create incentive for your teams to work together in the game by offering a “first to finish” prize for the first one or more teams that finish a series of challenges.
5. Give points towards prizes when attendees attend social events within your conference or meeting, motivating them to get to know these people in a less official capacity.

Use These 60 Ideas To Strengthen Team Building At Your B2B Corporate Events

Some B2B corporate events, like Sales Kickoffs and All Employee Meetings, often want team building to be their top objective. But not all event types do. 

Other event types, such as Customer + User Conferences and Training, may put learning or sales growth as their top objectives – but still include team building as a secondary, yet important objective. 

We hope you found these ideas insightful and useful. If you want our help implementing these ideas using our APG event gamification platform at your events, click here to download our APG brochure and video.

As a Sales or Marketing leader, you know that sales kickoff meetings (SKOs) present a unique opportunity to set goals, teach the team critical new skills, and build camaraderie. 

Gamifying your Sales Kickoff meeting creates a fun opportunity to engage your attendees around your event content and change behavior. 

The friendly competition will help your easily distracted reps focus. Individual and team leaderboards will provide them with recognition and bragging rights.

Drawings and instant rewards will help those in the middle of the pack stay engaged. 

How do you use games and gamification to achieve your SKO objectives? 

Let’s dive into how gamification will transform your next sales kickoff into an unforgettable event.

Gamification boosts your sales team’s engagement and retention

So, how do we keep their attention? Consider role-playing games as your sales kickoff meeting defibrillator. They will breathe life back into the room.

Games help increase retention, provide a fun and interactive break from lectures and presentations, transition smoothly from one session to the next, and make learning easier.

Not only that, but you’ll also be doing your attendees a favor. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) promotes fun and games as essential tools for a happy and healthy adulthood. Besides being good for your health, here’s how gamification can positively impact your business:

• Increase engagement and motivation of the sales team. 
• Reinforce critical messages from the meeting interactively. 
• Foster collaboration, communication, and knowledge sharing among the sales team members. 
• Promote healthy competition between teams and individuals. Competition helps drive higher performance and reach targets faster and more efficiently. 
• Recognize individual achievements through rewards such as badges or points system for completing tasks or reaching milestones during the kickoff meeting session games/activities. 
• Generate interest in new products, services, and offers. You can create challenges around them during game activities at the kickoff.
• Provide instant feedback on performance to increase learning retention throughout the event. 
• Quickly identify high performers to reward with additional incentives during or after the SKO.
• Establish trust within teams that encourage cross-team collaborations post-kickoff meetings.
• Rejuvenate the sales team’s motivation levels post-meeting to achieve targets set during the kickoff.

Hands-on learning has roots in the earliest teaching methods. And it’s one of the best ways to remember and apply information. Blending these techniques into your SKO will pump energy back into the room and inspire salespeople to hit the ground running.

Experiential learning is an effective method of sales training 

Experiential learning combines traditional classroom-style instruction with hands-on activities. These activities let your salespeople practice what they learned in real-world scenarios.

According to Gabe Zichermann, author of Gamification by Design, gamification increases employee skill retention by approximately 40%. It works so well in sales training because using games for learning gives participants a more immediate and meaningful understanding of new products and services. All while practicing their sales techniques in realistic situations with colleagues.

Experiential learning increases knowledge retention and motivation and improves job satisfaction and productivity. The trial-and-error nature of experiential learning gives participants a safe place to fail. Then they can learn from their mistakes — leaving them better trained for success.

The collaboration time creates an engaging experience that helps sales teams hit goals faster with greater confidence.

Top Types of Experiential Learning Games

To gamify experiential learning, consider peppering real-life challenges with fun elements. Here are five examples of experiential learning games and when to use them:

1. Role-Playing Games

These allow teams to practice sales pitches and strategies in a safe environment.

2. Scenario-Based Challenges

These can simulate the team’s customer situations in the upcoming quarter or year. 

3. Team-Building Exercises

These bring teams together by encouraging them to practice working together towards common goals. 

4. Negotiation Challenges

These give your sales team a chance to hone their negotiation skills by simulating scenarios where they must think of creative solutions to reach an agreement on pricing, terms, etc. 

5. Quizzes & Trivia Contests

These are fun ways for teams to test their knowledge about the company’s products, services, industry trends, and more with friendly competition.

6 steps to designing a game around your SKO Objectives

Think back to childhood (if you ever were one). Did your teachers use Jeopardy-style games to review for tests? Did you play trivia games with friends? How about teamwork games like Pictionary or Charades?

Chances are that you still remember some of those experiences and the knowledge that came with them. When we design games for our SKO, we want to create simple, fun activities in our games that will help our sales reps learn. The games will produce the greatest ROI when challenges and activities are linked to our objectives. Here are some steps to help you get there:

1. Define your sales kickoff objectives

Make sure you document the main goals of your sales kickoff meeting.  Here are 10 possible learning objectives for your SKO meeting: 

1. Understand the company’s current sales goals and strategies
2. Develop a clear understanding of the company’s products and services
3. Learn how to utilize customer feedback to increase sales opportunities 
4. Create an effective plan for tracking and managing leads
5. Practice effective communication techniques for engaging customers 
6. Identify key areas of improvement in individual performance 
7. Review best practices for presenting product offerings to potential customers  
8. Brainstorm creative methods for building relationships with clients 
9. Identify tips and tricks that can help close more deals faster  
10. Celebrate successes, recognize achievements, and motivate team members

2. Align gamification activities with your learning objectives

Identify activities that players can complete in your event that reinforce your learning objectives. 

Where can gamification help your sales team learn new skills? 

• New sales methodology
• New CRM tools and sales processes
• New products and services
• Sales techniques
• Customer profiles
• Market Intelligence

Be sure to mix up the types of activities that you want people to complete. With SocialPoint, you can create the following activities:

• Check-in at a physical location (visiting a booth, attending a session)
• Live Trivia games (where everyone plays together)
• Quizzes (that you take on your own time)
• Post pictures of photos and teams working together. 
• Visit booths in the resource fair or product fair
• Earn points for completing role play exercises
• Earn points for beating sales quota (announced at the award ceremony)
• Respond to poll questions. 
• Take a survey.
• Participate in a word cloud.
• Caption this photo.
• Download a document

Click for a list of ideas from other SKOs.

3. Align points and rewards with SKO objectives

Some of you will create a list of 20-40 activities, and others will have 5-10 activities. While there is no magic number of activities – it’s important to make sure that you align your points and rewards with your SKO objectives.  

• Rank order your SKO priorities, regardless of the number of activities.
• Ensure that your points and reward system rewards the higher-value SKO objectives, not those with the most activities. (Commonly, sales leaders need to ensure booth passports have fewer points than other activities, even though there is a lot of activity with a booth passport).

With SocialPoint, it’s super easy to align points and rewards. You can assign points to each challenge or activity. Then, you can group activities around a reward to create separate games within your big game. So, you can give people an entry into a drawing for visiting 10 booths, then reward players with an entry into a second drawing (for a larger prize) if they visit 20 booths. At the same time, players will compete for individual and team supremacy on the leaderboard. 

4. Develop the game content

There are three elements of your game content:

• Challenges and activities: Create the content for your game including images, graphics, trivia questions and more. 
• Rewards and recognition: Leaderboards, drawings, instant win prizes, and spin-to-win prize selection. 
• Branding and themes. SocialPoint’s platform is entirely customizable to reflect your brand identity, from graphics and brand logos to labels and content personalized to your event. (Or you can use one of SocialPoint’s many themes!)

5. Clear communication

Make sure everyone knows what’s going on and when. One common mistake is that people launch their game without any instructions or information about the game, its goals (for the player), and the rewards.  

• Communication is key to making sure your attendees are engaged and learning. 
• Use visual cues, announcements, or dedicated platforms to communicate updates, leaderboards, and achievements.
• Make sure that players know how to play and how to win.

6. Evaluate the effectiveness of the games

How did it go? 

• Use the SocialPoint dashboard to track the number of players, challenges completed, and rewards earned. The dashboard will break it all down by challenge for you. So, you can see which activities resonated and which fell flat. 
• Use the data and reports to measure your impact. Use reporting to measure the impact of each activity and download all of the User Generated Content, such as pictures, poll results, and survey results. Use that content in your post-event followup communication.

5 ideas to keep the audience engaged

Keeping participants engaged and motivated is crucial for a successful SKO. Marketing Promotions Manager of Greystone Communities, Danielle Yarde, said she used this to her advantage by incorporating SocialPoint games at her event. “The challenges allowed us to incentivize content comprehension and strengthen team building.” 

Here are five ways SocialPoint can help you engage your sales team:

1. Team-based competitions

Break your sales team into natural work groups. Players will play individually, but their scores will be aggregated into a team score on the leaderboard. This format encourages teammates to support each other and helps them complete challenges, so their team wins. Offer prizes for the team that earns the most points. 

2. Leaderboards

Use SocialPoint’s digital leaderboards to track individual and team progress throughout the event. Leaderboards recognize players for doing well and motivate others to work harder to climb to the top. Even if players aren’t vying for the top spot, they don’t want to lose to Steve!! (everyone has a Steve on the team.)

3. Trivia and Quizzes

Use gamified trivia games and quizzes to reinforce important information shared during presentations. Checking in with attendees keeps them engaged and helps them retain critical information. Also, the points earned for correct answers create differentiation on your leaderboard, reducing the number of ties. With SocialPoint, we can track quiz questions by learning objectives, so you can easily see if people are learning and understanding your main concepts.

4. Experiential Learning Activities

Incorporate interactive sessions into the event — such as live demos or role-playing exercises — that allow attendees to participate and engage with the material hands-on. Take your facilitator’s rubric for scoring these activities and translate them into game points. Time and time again, we hear that sales reps are more focused when they earn points for participation in these activities.

5. Visit the Resource and Product Fair

Some of you will set up resource fairs or product fairs for sales reps to go meet the sales operations team, see the products, meet the marketing team, meet the IT team, meet the benefits team, etc. Use SocialPoint to create QR codes for players to check-in or take a quiz after visiting these locations. 

Incorporating challenges, games, and rewards into the event creates a fun and competitive atmosphere that motivates your sales team to learn, collaborate, and succeed. 

5 tips for using games to boost learning and team building 

If you want to make your sales kickoff event more engaging, effective, and memorable, consider using gamification. Here are some tips for using gamification at a sales kickoff event:

1. Choose suitable and activities

There are a wealth of game types and activities to choose from. Choose fun and activities relevant to your company’s industry and appropriate for your participants’ age and experience level.

2. Make sure the games are challenging but not too difficult

You want to challenge participants without causing frustration. Games that are difficult but engaging are sure to leave your attendees happy.

3. Keep the games and activities short and fun

Sweet and quick games are sure to keep attendees’ attention. Like a shot of espresso, it quickly packs a punch of energy, keeping everyone alert and energized.

4. Use prizes and rewards to motivate participants

People are more likely to participate in games and activities if prizes or bonuses are involved. Add bragging rights, and it becomes a great day for many on your team.

5. Encourage participants to have fun

Make sure your participants are having fun by encouraging friendly competition and engagement. Interactive leaderboards and the Spin-to-Win prize wheel will add to the excitement. Once the event is over, gather feedback from attendees by sending surveys or polls.

By following these tips, you can use gamification to make your sales kickoff event more engaging and productive.

3 game formats to build teams, skills, and knowledge 

Blend different types of game formats into your sales kickoff meeting agenda to match the content’s purpose and create a memorable event. Take a look at these exciting game formats and their use cases:

1. Amazing Race

One of the unique features of The Amazing Race is that teams are given clues, then they have to advance to the next location and complete a challenge to get the next clue. If they are the first team to reach the final destination, they win.  

You can build these types of games with SocialPoint. Here’s how:

• Create a QR Code Scavenger hunt in SocialPoint.
• Set up the QR codes so that each clue is revealed after they scan the QR Code. Clues can include videos, links, links to locations in google maps, or simple phrases. 
• Once they arrive at the destination, identify the team-building activity (or pit stop) they must complete before scanning the next QR code. For example, post a photo of the team – doing X in front of Y. 
• For your final clue, send the team to the location of your party. (Because each Amazing race should end with a party!! )

The great part about an Amazing Race style scavenger hunt game is that you can use it for team building, a Pub and Grub crawl evening event, or an education adventure. 

2. Photo Scavenger Hunt

Photo Scavenger hunts are a lot of fun for everyone. Sometimes people just want a list of activities and like the challenge of figuring out how to complete all of the tasks. Photo Scavenger hunts are well suited to team building because it allows the group to work together to find the objects, setup the shots, and complete the task. 

You can build photo scavenger hunts with SocialPoint. Here’s how:

• Create a Photo Challenge for each photo task in SocialPoint.
• Upload an example picture of the photo that you want players to shot that you want players.
• With SocialPoint, you can set up points, rewards, and leaderboards for completing the different photo challenges. 
• Players will post photos to complete the challenges to earn points.
• The photos will be posted into a branded photo gallery that can be displayed on big screens or online. You can moderate any duplicates or inappropriate photos.
• Once they complete the challenge, they can return to your final destination for a party or reception. You can show photo galleries on the big screen, draw prize winners with the drawing wheel and show the leaderboard. 
• It all adds up to a great time together.

3. Team Trivia

Team trivia is a classic for a reason, and it can be easily adapted for a sales kickoff event. Here’s how to play: 

• Divide your organization into teams. 
• Each group takes turns answering questions in a variety of categories. 
• The group with the most points at the end of the game wins. 

Here are a few tips to have a successful sales kickoff meeting:

• Customize questions to reflect your brand and objectives. 
• Set challenging yet achievable questions.
• Encourage your team to have fun and be competitive.
• Remember to give prizes at the end because who doesn’t love a prize?
• SKO Bonus points: A couple of weeks later, keep the momentum going by sending the payers a copy of the same trivia questions. This way, they can assess how much information may be retained while providing a refresher. It’s a fun and interactive way to reinforce their knowledge and keep them engaged in a friendly battle of wits.

Hosting a Team trivia game can boost your sales team’s enthusiasm for the upcoming sales year while testing their knowledge of your company and products.

Role-playing and scenario-based activities for sales kickoffs

Role-playing games are the most effective way to simulate real-life sales situations that your sales reps will experience daily. In our experience, when you tie these role-play activities to a game (points, leaderboards, and rewards) your sales team will pay extra attention.  If they are on a team, they will encourage their teammates to also give their best. 

Role-Playing Scenarios

• Develop scenarios that mimic real-life situations that your salespeople may encounter daily.
• Have teams take on different roles of potential customers and use their pitching skills to close a deal while considering the customer’s needs, budget, timeline, etc. 
• Ask them to act out these scenarios in pairs or small groups as if they were talking to an actual customer.
• Next, debrief to discuss how it went and where to improve.

Mock Sales Pitch

• Divide the team into two groups and have each group develop a sales pitch for a fictitious product or service.
• Provide the teams with information about the product or service, customer background, and market conditions.
• Let each team present its pitch to the rest of the group.
• Then, give them feedback on what worked well and what to improve. 

Negotiation Exercise

• Create a negotiation situation between two “buyers” (played by your team members).
• Give teams an imaginary budget for a B2B sale.
•  Next, ask them to negotiate with suppliers within that budget while maximizing value for their company. 
• Ask them to get the best deal possible from one another while still maintaining good relationships with each other through effective communication strategies such as compromise and active listening skills. 

Customer Service Simulation

• Work together as a team to role-play different customer service scenarios, such as dealing with demanding customers, handling complaints effectively, upselling products or services, etc.
• Afterward, discuss any mistakes made during the simulation. Then, everyone will know how to handle similar situations in real life. 

Cross-Team Team Building

• Divide teams into smaller groups and have each group plan a creative introduction to the company’s B2B product or service to potential customers.
• When finished, the groups can present their solutions to the rest of the team. This activity encourages inter-team collaboration and fosters trust among members.

Market Analysis Challenge

• Ask teams to analyze the current B2B products or services market trends, competitors’ offerings, customer preferences, etc.
• Then, have them brainstorm strategies to promote your product or service amidst this competition. 

Pitch Presentation Challenge

• Ask teams to create a presentation outlining the benefits of your company’s B2B product or service compared with similar offers from competitors.
• Afterward, they can present it convincingly enough to win over potential buyers by highlighting its unique features and benefits over other options available in the market.

To incorporate these into your gamification with SocialPoint, your facilitator can translate their scorecard for these activities into points for your game.  Then, you can easily upload the points via spreadsheet into a staff-scored challenge. 

Motivate your salespeople by gamifying your SKO

By incorporating interactive games in your sales kick-off, you can help your team reach new levels of growth and achievement.

One way to be proactive is to ensure your sales kickoff meeting isn’t dull. Experiential learning games, trivia, and passport challenges are excellent ways to gamify and motivate your salespeople at sales kickoffs. Not only do they bring teams together, but they also build trust. Games are also fun to help folks practice sales techniques and hone negotiation and customer service skills.

Ready to help your salespeople stay at the top of their game? Learn how SocialPoint can liven up your next sales kickoff.

Hosting a sales kickoff meeting (SKO) costs a pretty penny.

Sending even one salesperson to a sales kickoff in Chicago ranges from $500 to $2,000 for airfare, meals, hotel accommodations, and ground transportation. That doesn’t even include event production costs (and inflation isn’t doing anyone any favors). 

Now, think of how many events you have attended that left you bored and zoning out. What a waste, right? That’s not what you want for your 200-500 person sales team in Chicago.

But what if all of your salespeople — the people who propel your company’s growth — learned while having fun? The odds of the salesperson using that content later increase exponentially. Interested? 

Here’s how to plan a sales kickoff meeting that leaves you reaping the benefits all year.

What is a sales kickoff meeting?

It’s a new year with new goals to meet and services to sell. But it won’t happen without company buy-in. SKOs are internal company meetings that provide the training and motivation needed to kick the year into gear.

SKO agendas often include the following: 

• Review of last year
• Plans for the upcoming year
• Discussion of market dynamics
• Overview of competition
• Role-playing sessions to improve selling skills 
• Internal business partner networking (including IT, HR, Marketing, and the like)

All your best brains are in one building during a sales kickoff meeting. There’s ample opportunity for sales greatness. But SKOs can go wrong if they’re not well-planned and engaging. This results in listless salespeople ready to bolt at the first opportunity.

How can you combat drowsiness and increase retention? Keep reading to learn how gamification can turn your SKO into a raging success:

What causes sales kickoff meetings to fail? 

To drive real success, be intentional in your planning and strategy.  Along with failing to meet your sales team where they are, this is often where sales kickoff meetings fall short. Here are five common pitfalls of SKO planning:

• Poorly planned agendas can often leave attendees feeling confused, disengaged, and frustrated.
• Failure to set and share clear goals before the sales kickoff meeting leaves teams struggling to meet expectations after the meeting.
• Too much emphasis placed on product knowledge and not enough on how to sell the product through customer service and negotiation skills training hinders success rates.
• Not enough post-SKO follow-up results in confusion about the next steps or how best to execute plans discussed during the sales kickoff meeting.
• One-way presentations from leadership or executives exacerbate a lack of engagement during sales kick-off meetings without opportunities for salespeople to interact with the content and each other.
• Relevance: Salespeople want to understand how the presentations relate to their day-to-day job and overall goals. 
• Too much information: If you present too much content during the kickoff, all the new information without enough discussion or processing time may overwhelm your salespeople.
• Lack of interaction: Without engaging activities, such as games, breakout groups, or networking opportunities, more entertaining options may distract your salespeople.
• Keeping their attention: Since salespeople are usually on the go, they struggle to focus during long meetings.

Combine all those with their addictions to the computers everyone keeps in their pocket, and you may end up with salespeople checking their phones instead of paying attention.

Big Picture Ideas To Improve Your Sales Kickoff Meeting

With goals, objectives, and lack of interaction as the main problems with sales kickoff meetings, let’s start with ideas to improve your SKO. 

1. Set Clear Objectives

Define specific goals and outcomes for the kickoff meeting to ensure everyone is aligned.

2. Pick an awesome theme

Wrap your ideas into a theme that helps tie everything together for your sales meeting. Examples include: All Systems Go, Breakthrough, Accelerate, etc. (See 52 Themes)

3. Tell Stories About Your Company and Customers

1. 1. Success Stories: Share success stories from top-performing sales reps to inspire and motivate the team.
   2. Guest Customers: Invite satisfied customers to share their experiences and provide testimonials.
   3. Executive Keynote Address: Have the company executives deliver a motivating keynote address to emphasize the importance of sales.

4. Find an Inspiring Keynote Speaker

Invite a dynamic and inspiring speaker to deliver an engaging keynote address. This is typically an author, sports figure, or someone who climbed a mountain on a pogo stick.

5. Inspirational Videos

Incorporate motivational videos or success stories into the agenda to inspire the team.

6. Energizing Icebreakers

Start each day with energizing icebreaker activities to create a positive and engaging atmosphere. Some folks host a dance party or use a DJ to boost the energy in the room.

7. Interactive Q&A Sessions

Conduct interactive question-and-answer sessions to address sales reps’ concerns and provide clarifications. Do this at the end of each session. Even plant a few seed questions if you don’t get input immediately. 

8. Live Polling and Surveys

Use interactive polling tools or surveys to gather real-time feedback and insights from the team.

9. Team-Building Exercises

Incorporate team-building activities to foster collaboration and create a positive team spirit.

Ideas to Improve Product and Market Knowledge Training

Providing training on the market and products is essential for your SKO. You want to make sure that you hit the ground running here and make it rock.

10. Customer Insights

Share customer insights and feedback to help reps better understand customer needs and preferences.

11. Market Trends Analysis

Share insights and analysis of market trends to keep the team informed and ahead of the competition.

12. Market Analysis Challenge

Ask teams to analyze the current B2B products or services market trends, competitors’ offerings, customer preferences, etc.

13. Product Demonstrations

Conduct live product demonstrations to showcase new offerings and generate excitement.

14. Industry Expert Panel

Organize a panel discussion with industry experts to provide valuable insights and perspectives.

15. Cross-Team Team Building

Divide teams into smaller groups and have each group plan a creative introduction to the company’s B2B product or service to potential customers.

16. Pitch Presentation Challenge

Ask teams to create a presentation outlining the benefits of your company’s B2B product or service compared with similar offers from competitors.

17. Sales Collateral Showcase

Create a dedicated area to showcase sales collateral and materials reps can access and utilize.

Ideas to Improve Sales Skills Training

You constantly need to refresh and update your organization’s sales skills.  Improved sales skills will help your team create new opportunities and increase pipeline velocity. 

18. Peer-to-Peer Learning Sessions

Facilitate peer-to-peer learning sessions where sales reps share their experiences and learn from each other.

19. Live Sales Challenges

Introduce live sales challenges where teams compete to win new business or secure deals.

20. Expert Workshops

Invite external experts to conduct specialized workshops on negotiation, closing techniques, or other relevant topics. (examples include: Jill Konrath, Grant Cardone, Jeffrey Gitomer, Jeb Blount, and Mike Weinberg) 

21. Sales Forecasting Exercises

Engage the team in sales forecasting exercises to enhance their analytical skills.

22. Networking Opportunities

Create networking sessions to facilitate connections among team members and encourage knowledge sharing.

23. Sales Panel Discussions

Arrange panel discussions with top-performing sales reps to share their strategies and answer questions.

24. Innovation Showcases

Highlight innovative ideas or new approaches to sales that can drive performance.

25. Role-Playing Scenarios

Develop scenarios that mimic real-life situations your salespeople may encounter daily.

26. Negotiation Simulation

Create a negotiation situation between two “buyers” (played by your team members).

27. Customer Service Simulation

Work together as a team to role-play different customer service scenarios, such as dealing with demanding customers, handling complaints effectively, upselling products or services, etc.

Ideas to Improve Processes and Tools Training

Ensuring that your sales reps are using your technology tools and following your core processes is critical to the scalability of your organization. Here are some ideas to make this less of a drag. 

28. Sales Tools and Technology Showcase

Demonstrate new sales tools and technology to improve productivity and efficiency.

29. Sales Process Refresher

Review and reinforce the sales process to ensure a consistent and effective approach.

30. Sales Playbooks

Provide sales playbooks or guides that outline strategies, objection-handling techniques, and sales tips.

31. Stump the Expert Session

Have an open session where sales reps can stump the expert

32. Turn IT Security Training into a game

IT security training can be like going to the dentist. Some sales organizations turn it into a game, so it’s fun rather than feared.

33. Sales Team Presentations

Allocate time for individual sales teams to present their strategies, successes, and plans to the reps. These breakout sessions will be unique to each sales region.

Ideas to Improve Post-Event Followup and Retention

For most of you the post event is probably the greatest opportunity to improve your sales reps performance. Why? SKOs tend to be a tidal wave of information. Providing resources, webinars and followup helps reinforce your key messages. 

34. Publish reference materials and resources

Ensure everyone can access relevant materials and resources they need to succeed. It sounds easy. But many don’t do it. So, publish those one-pagers, tutorial videos, and other digital documents. It will help your sales team translate training into their day-to-day work.

35. Continue using your theme in post-event messaging

Since you created an awesome theme, continue to use it in your post-event messaging and follow-up. It helps remind the sales team of our great time at your event.

36. Followup Quizzes

Use trivia challenges to review action items discussed during the meeting because trivia can give you quick data to help you track progress.

37. Get Feedback from Attendees

 You probably already knew this one, but it’s worth repeating. Capture feedback by surveying your attendees. Their input will help you make improvements for your next event.

38. Continuous Learning Opportunities

Promote ongoing learning by providing resources, recommended books, or online courses.

Ideas to Use Gamification to Improve Engagement During Your SKO

According to Gabe Zichermann, author of Gamification by Design, gamification increases employee skill retention by approximately 40%. It works so well in sales training because using games for learning gives participants a more immediate and meaningful understanding of new products and services. All while practicing their sales techniques in realistic situations with colleagues.

Here are several ways that you can use gamification 

39. Team Competition

Friendly team-based competition allows players to play individually while their scores roll up to an entire team score. Use challenges or simulations that test sales skills and encourage collaboration. Use leaderboards to see how teams compare to each other. And how players compare to each other within a group. 

40. Trade Show Passport game

Encourage players to visit your trade fair, product fair, partner stations, or booths.

41. Scavenger Hunt

Hide physical objects throughout your event. Let players find those objects and scan a QR code to earn points. This creates a fun way to move people throughout all of the parts of your event space without making it seem like a chore. The QR Code makes it easy to track who found each object.

42. Amazing Race to Pub and Grub

Create an Amazing Race that journeys players through your city’s bars, restaurants, and hotspots. Use clues to help them find each location. End with all teams sharing photos and celebrating at the final social event.

43. Quiz series

Create a series of trivia quizzes on market knowledge, product knowledge, and sales skills. Use a cumulative leaderboard to summarize the points from a player’s quizzes with one total score.

44. Role Play and Simulation Mastery

Allow players to earn points for their performance on role-play activities in your conference. Translate your facilitator’s scoring rubric for the role play and simulations into issues for your game leaderboard. 

Conclusion

Smash your sales kickoff meeting goals with SocialPoint

Why settle for a boring, run-of-the-mill sales meeting when you can level up by using some of the ideas above.  If you want to take your Sales-kickoff meeting to another level – consider gamification. From thrilling team-building challenges to exciting individual competitions, there are endless ways to make your event a game-changer. 

These suggestions are just the tip of the iceberg on what you can accomplish with SocialPoint. Talk to our team today about how we can help you boost your sales team’s performance through gamification.

Wandering trade shows to have your passport card stamped is like playing with a kid who jumps out to surprise you. The kid keeps doing it so much that you expect it and get bored with feigning surprise. Then the kid wonders why you don’t find it fun anymore. And you’re both annoyed with each other.

That is because it’s expected. It’s the norm. It doesn’t surprise and delight. 

Most trade show passport games are pretty standard. The big shock is actually winning something from the drawing that filling your passport card qualifies you for. So, it doesn’t matter what you call it — Bingo, Treasure Hunt, or whatever — the game’s mechanics are still the same (and predictable).

Most have the following elements:

• Player registration
• QR code check-in
• Prize-winner generator

And while SocialPoint also has these features, it offers much more. Read on to learn how SocialPoint users add a dash of spice to set their games apart from typical passport games.

Benefits of SocialPoint

SocialPoint combines ease of use and valuable metrics that help you keep up with your leads while making the experience enjoyable for trade show attendees. Here’s how you can use SocialPoint for trade show success: 

• Get data to track participation and gameplay.
• Create a paperless digital experience that is easy to use.
• Add activities to your passport checkins such as: trivia quizzes, surveys, posting photos, polls, and more.
• Show calls to action after they check-in such as document downloads, videos, links to a website and more.
• Automatically capture players who qualify for the drawing and put them into the reward. 

The no-fuss nature of SocialPoint’s passport game frees time for you to do what you came to do — interact with potential customers. 

5 ways to make your passport game better than ever

As a trade show organizer,  you must drive traffic to your show floor and keep them there. Here are five ideas that our SocialPoint customers have implemented to make your passport game an exciting and engaging experience:

Tip 1 – Give exhibitors a secret code

If there is one thing that introverts excel at, it’s the ability to run from booth to booth, scan, and earn points — all without talking to a single exhibitor. It’s one of the most frustrating weaknesses of a QR Code scanning game. 

Instead, assign exhibitors a secret QR code to share with players for one drawing entry. The extra point is an incentive to help attendees escape their comfort zones and strike up a conversation.

Tip 2 – Hide objects around the trade show floor

In an amped-up version of Eye Spy, attendees search the trade show floor for objects hidden by the exhibitor. Include scavenger hunt clues or a list of objects, and set the attendees loose. Once they find the objects, they can scan the QR code located on the object to earn their points. 

But the codes lead them to more than just points. By using SocialPoint, exhibitors can include customer messages, media, and a CTA. 

Tip 3 – Assign points to activities such as surveys, photo challenges, or trivia

Scan + points + ”Next” = Yawn.

With SocialPoint, players can complete engaging tasks to earn points rather than just scanning their way through the lines for points and mini-candy bars. Here are a few tasks attendees can do:

• Post a selfie to the event hashtag and the exhibitor.
• Complete a survey about their pain points.
• Compete in a photo challenge.

Danielle Yarde, Marketing Promotions Manager for Greystone Communities, credits SocialPoint for the positive feedback about Greystone’s conference. “The challenges allowed us to incentivize content comprehension, strengthen team building, and add value to our sponsorship packages.”

Tip 4 – Spin the prize wheel to get more points

Why leave it to chance? 

Because sometimes, chance adds the perfect amount of suspense. One clever SocialPoint customer uses the virtual prize wheel to gift players more points. After spinning the prize wheel, it lands on a fun task for the attendee to complete. Once the attendee has conquered the task, they win the points connected to that task.

With SocialPoint, Danielle could save her sponsors money and provide additional value. “Instead of asking our sponsors to make an additional investment in prizes, we used the prize wheel as an opportunity to give attendees bonus points, Danielle said. “We used four recurring options for point values on the wheel  — 25, 75, 100, and 125 — and let attendees spin for bonus points. Whichever point value they landed on, they scanned a separate QR code for the points.”

Tip 5 – Assign higher-level sponsors more points than regular sponsors

Create an incentive for exhibitors to purchase the higher-level sponsorship by awarding more points to attendees who visit their booths. You’ve incentivized them to pay for the higher level by awarding more points to higher-level sponsors.

Attendees will want to visit their booths, resulting in more leads for the exhibitor. The return on investment (ROI) pays for itself, and it’s a win-win-win for you, the exhibitor, and the attendees trying to win prizes and meet businesses who can solve their problems.

It’s all fun and games with SocialPoint

And that’s how trade shows should be.

Offering prizes and points for novel activities make trade shows more entertaining and attendees more likely to connect with exhibitors. With SocialPoint’s passport game, you can make trade show passport games more exciting for attendees and effective for exhibitors.

How can you use SocialPoint’s passport game to help your trade show stand out? Learn more about SocialPoint’s Digital Trade Show Passport and get creative today.

Most new student orientation programs want to help students make a successful academic and social transition to the university community and university life. The best orientation programs help reduce student attrition. Engaged students are retained students.

Many of the programs try to drive students to university buildings, greenspaces, the student union, and other campus highlights. But you can go beyond that.

We’ve partnered with a number of universities to design more creative campus scavenger hunt for their new student orientation. Here are some of the best ideas:

1. Get to know the buildings on campus: Getting people to learn where the buildings are located is campus scavenger hunt 101. So have them visit your Business, Art, Science, Law, Engineering, and Education buildings. There are a variety of QR code challenges that you can create, such as:

• Visiting a popular lecture hall.
• Finding a factoid about the alumni whom the building was named after.
• Standing near a popular arch on campus.
• Answering trivia about the alumni for whom the building is named.
• Take a picture with your favorite piece of art.
• Take a picture with a student heading to an interview (Business school).

2. Campus library: Ask students to visit the library and take a picture in the stacks. Since it’s during orientation week, they won’t have to be as quiet!
3. Career center: Getting a job after graduation is a parent’s goal for their son or daughter’s college career. Let’s make sure they know where the career center is.
4. Founder statue: It seems like all campuses have a statue of the founder or another legend on campus. Have the students strike a pose at one of these statues.
5. Mascot: Challenge your students to find the school mascot on campus and take a picture. It could be a painting, sticker, or statue. If you’re really lucky, it will be a live person in costume!
6. Legendary campus sites: Some campuses have legendary sites such as the Block M on the diag at Michigan, Touchdown Jesus at Notre Dame or the Sample Gates at Indiana University. Your campus probably does too! Set a QR code near that famous location that asks students to post a photo of themselves at this site. 
7. Student union: Many student unions are full of interesting activities and things. So, you could choose one or two places inside for students to visit to make sure they get to know the building better.
8. Sports stadium: Ask students to scan the QR code in front of your sports stadium and take a picture with their new friends. (Stadiums are really big so let them know what entrance has the QR code.)
9. Get to know the university clubs & groups: Setup a QR code for each of the campus clubs and university groups. Then have students earn points for visiting the clubs.
10. University swag: Everyone needs to know where to buy university swag. You can have players scan a QR code that gives them coupons for sweatshirts, t-shirts, hats, sweat pants, koozies, and other products emblazoned with your university’s logo.
11. Attending orientation courses: Give players points for attending courses on safety, smart spending, alcohol and sexual violence, healthy eating, technology, or getting advice about transitioning to campus life.

Want a smoother experience for you and your new students? Set up your campus scavenger hunt game to use QR codes rather than an app.

The best thing about a QR code scavenger hunt is that players only need to use their phone’s camera to play. It’s so simple: Scan the code. Complete the challenge. Done.

• Because there is no app to download, players more easily participate with just their camera’s phone and a web browser.
• Players need to visit specific physical locations to scan the QR code. 
• Points, Rewards and more can still be delivered through the web browser.

New students are excited and nervous about starting college on your campus. Unfortunately, with a dull new student orientation, they will also be bored. 

By hosting a fun scavenger hunt as part of their new student orientation, you’ll make sure they learn useful knowledge and bond better with their fellow students, increasing student retention.  

Learn more about how a SocialPoint scavenger hunt can help your college or university by going here.

New employees are awesome! They breathe new life and energy into organizations. Recruiting and selecting the right people was a huge investment. You want to make sure that they stay and live up to your expectations. 

Whether they are summer interns, new college graduates, or experienced employees, helping new hires get acclimated to your company and your processes will boost their morale, help them from feeling overwhelmed, and make them productive faster. 

So, let’s make new employee orientation fun. Instead of a series of boring PowerPoint presentations, let’s create a fun new employee orientation scavenger hunt. 

Here are our 15 best ideas for new employee orientation scavenger hunts:

1. History of your company. Have players scan a QR code near the founder’s statue that opens up a quiz about the company’s history. Quizzes can include photos, videos, and more. Players earn points for the number of questions they get right on this challenge.
2. Strike a pose with your company’s founder. While teams are in front of the statue, have the players strike a pose with the company’s founder. Then submit that photo for points. This can be done with any landmark on your corporate campus.
3. Product and industry trivia. Create trivia quizzes about your industry, or your company’s products and services. This will help round out the new hire’s understanding of the company and its industry.
4. Get to know your office or campus.  Setup QR codes around the office or across the campus that encourage teams of new hires to go discover the campus. When I was in the FCG program at Ford, it would have been fun to see everyone’s photos from the test track, at the HQ building, or at a plant.  At 3M, on the other hand, we could have checked in at different locations on campus.
5. Check-in at presentations.  Nearly all companies have some form of standard onboarding courses that cover policies such as safety and security. While players may not be enthusiastic about attending these courses, give them points for attending – we are sure they will be there.
6. Quiz after safety and security presentations: Of course, if you add a quiz at the end of these courses, that will cause them to pay attention even more closely.

7. Two truths and a lie trivia. A great way for new hires to get to know each other and other teammates is to have them submit two truths and a lie questions for a trivia game that can be played with everyone.
8. Networking. If you organize a networking reception for new hires and senior leaders, give your senior leaders QR codes that new hires can scan when they have met that person.
9. Team activities. Have your scavenger hunt challenges include activities that the teams have to complete together for points. In our experience, teams get to know each other during these shared experiences. Examples of activities could be: Complete a trust fall, making a skit or presentation, solving a fun problem, solving a puzzle in 5 minutes, etc. 
10. Stump the expert. There are several experts in an organization that people need to know. It could be IT support, building security, a key team member, etc. Have players go visit that person to get to know him (or her) and ask them questions. Then, they can scan a QR code for points. 
11. Which character are you? Create a poll challenge where players answer a question such as: Which “The Office” character are you? Michael Scott, Dwight Schrute, Andy Pernard, Pam Beesly or Jan Levinson? Of course, if you don’t like “The Office” you could choose any show that you think will resonate with your new hires. 

12. Lunch hotspots. Have players submit a team photo at one of the off-campus lunch hotspots in the area. These hotspots can be great for players to get to know the world around your workplace. 
13. Social hotspots. Send players with a map to the best social spots where employees like to congregate after work.

14. Hydration challenge. Hydration is important for good health. Ask players to share a picture of themselves staying hydrated drinking water from a company-branded water bottle. 
15. Brand love. Share love for your brand. Ask players to post a selfie in their favorite <our brand> gear or t-shirt on your social media channel. Make the post public and tag it with #ourhashtag and take a screenshot and load it back to the game!

These next few ideas are definitely worthy of your consideration. However, our team felt that they didn’t apply to all companies.  So, use them for inspiration – even if you they don’t apply to you:

16. Visit your corporate museum. 
17. Visit a mural sharing your corporate mission.
18. Visit your company’s original skunk works.
19. Find a place that is meant for their employees’ relaxation and enjoyment. For example:

• The company gym.
• A serene fountain on campus.
• Bike racks for commuters.
• The start of a walking path on your grounds.
• A basketball, tennis, or volleyball court on your campus.

New employees are excited and nervous about joining your company. Unfortunately, with a dull new employee orientation, they will also be bored. 

By hosting a fun scavenger hunt as part of their new employee orientation, you’ll make sure they learn useful knowledge and bond better with their fellow employees, making them more productive and more likely to stay.  

Learn more about how a SocialPoint scavenger hunt can help your company by going here.

Team building may sound like a fluffy activity to some, but when you purposefully strengthen your group, “team building is the most important investment you can make for your people,” according to Brian Scudamore on Forbes.com.

When you see all the benefits from team building combined into a single list, it’s simply staggering. To start, here are 16 benefits that apply to team building in general:

1.   Build trust and respect
2.   Boost productivity
3.   Strengthen company culture
4.   Increase employee engagement and retention
5.   Forge stronger bonds
6.   Prevent future conflicts
7.   Reduce errors and increase quality
8.   Better problem solving
9.   Increase communication and cooperation
10.   Enhance collaboration
11.   Boost job satisfaction
12.   Increase motivation and output
13.   Foster personal growth
14.   Reduce stress and burnout
15.   Enhance creativity and innovation
16.   Increase company profits

While some of these benefits appear to matter most to businesses (such as “increase company profits”), almost all apply to any group of people that could perform better with greater teamwork.

So, we know team building is exceptionally worthwhile. These 16 benefits listed above apply to any well-designed team building activity.

However, there are 6 additional valuable benefits worth explaining in more detail that you also get when you choose a scavenger hunt.

1. Strengthen bonds between cross-functional teams

Scavenger hunts are a creative way to bring cross-functional team members together in a competitive shared experience that may or may not have anything to do with work.  

Working together on a scavenger hunt helps strengthen teamwork when natural communication and collaboration is weak, or when the group acts more like a collection of isolated individuals than a cohesive team. 

“It’s these kinds of moments…that help people break out of their shells and think of themselves as part of the team. “ – Entrepreneur 

You have probably heard the saying Together Everyone Achieves More (T.E.A.M.). In today’s world that has never been more true. From marketing to sales to supply chain to engineering, your organization’s long-term success relies on these cross-functional teams working together to solve hard problems. 

So, whether your team is made of strangers or long-time colleagues, put them onto a scavenger hunt team, and they will spend an hour or two building mutual trust as they have fun working towards a common goal.

2. Make it easier for people to know more people on their team

Who do people already know on their team? Mostly, it’s the employees in their department, especially people who sit by them. Beyond that, it’s the people who they interact with often as part of their job.

With a team building activity like a scavenger hunt, you can create teams of people who don’t know each other yet. And as Will Rogers said, “Strangers are just friends I haven’t met yet.” When the scavenger hunt is over, the friendships have only just begun.

Those new ties can create surprising new alliances between usually disconnected employees that lead to unexpected collaboration and innovation.

3. Help your team learn more about their teammates

When players are on the same team working towards a common goal, they gain a deeper understanding of each other. They see how teammates handle pressure, solve problems, exhibit creativity, and express themselves.

They can learn more about them as people too. One advantage of a scavenger hunt is that you can design challenges and activities where players gain points for sharing answers about themselves.  One very easy game to incorporate is Two Truths and a Lie.

4. Reward your team for a job well done with a fun game

You don’t have to choose to host a scavenger hunt just because you want the increased productivity, communication, and trust that comes with it. You may just want to give your team some on-the-clock fun time in recognition of their recent strong efforts or for a notable success. They’ll enjoy themselves, and recognize that you care about them, in a memorable fashion.

Oh, by the way – you’ll likely still get increased productivity, communication, and trust anyhow!

6. Increase retention from stronger friendships and common success

Experienced managers know that when a new employee makes a good friend at work, they are more likely to stay.

Research bears this out. According to a study by Future Workplace, “Those with few friends said they felt lonely either very often or always and disengaged in their work. Almost two-thirds said they would be more inclined to stay at their company longer if they had more friends.”

Scavenger hunts offer so many different ways for your people to discover the positive traits of their team members. During scavenger hunts, people can find out that their fellow employees have common interests, interesting backgrounds, appealing skills, and a sense of humor. 

Plus the experience of solving a unique challenge together creates new bonds that can endure.

Scavenger Hunts are a fun, versatile, and proven activity for promoting team building among your employees and other groups. Your people will have a great time, learn more about each other, and become a more trusting and productive team.

We hope you’ve found ideas and inspiration from this article with the wide variety of challenge ideas you can incorporate into your game to achieve the specific goals you want.

Perhaps the coolest feature of a scavenger hunt game is using your smart phone’s camera to take pictures for your hunt.

Why?

Because you get that magic moment at the end of the event watching your happy group review the game’s photo gallery. 

With that in mind, here are 30 of the best ideas you can use to integrate photos into your scavenger hunt:

Just because your team members are not running around a scavenger hunt location together doesn’t mean you can’t use the power of images to create sharing moments. Ask players to share photos that reveal details about themselves that will spark conversations and connections.  

Here are 10 ideas for virtual scavenger hunt photo challenges:

1. Our furry loved ones are like family. Share a photo of your favorite pet if you have one.
2. Hydration is important for good health. Share a picture of you staying hydrated drinking water.
3. Gratitude. Upload something you are thankful for this week. 
4. Upload a photo of you enjoying the great outdoors. What did you do?
5. Favorite Plant. Indoors or outdoors, plants can help relieve stress. Share a photo of your chlorophyllic friend.
6. Have you seen our products out in the wild? Share a picture of yourself with our products in use or at stores. 
7. Share your love for our brand. Post a selfie in your favorite <our brand> gear or t-shirt on your social media channel. Make the post public and tag it with #ourhashtag and take a screenshot and load it back to the game!
8. Photo Contest:  Post your best photo of <band, your product, fun team experience>  to be featured on <our website> and be entered into a raffle. 
9. Sunny Day Challenge. Snap a pic of you wearing shades. Bonus points for rays of sunlight.
10. We all Scream for Ice Cream. Post a picture of you with your favorite summer treat.

The team, the team, it’s all about the team.  Team building is about helping people get to know each other and creating a shared experience through a fun adventure. Here are a few ideas: 

1. Everyone’s Feet. Share a photo of everyone’s feet. 
2. Be Active. Together. Share a photo of all the people in your group being active, such as doing a handstand or making a human pyramid. 
3. I Spy Challenge. Snap a pic of your group blending in with their surroundings!
4. Inception Challenge. Take a picture of your team – taking a picture of your team.
5. For Your Entertainment. Snap a picture with a street performer. 
6. Strike A Pose. Snap a pic of your team’s best Vogue pose in front of the <famous landmark in your location>.
7. Beer Flight Challenge. Snap a picture with your beer flight, or favorite non-alcoholic beverages.
8. Three Cheers. Snap a picture of your team clinking glasses together in a cheers. 
9. Abbey Road. Take a photo at a quiet street crossing of your team members recreating the Beatles’ famous album cover.

Victory! Take a photo of your best Rocky Balboa victory impression on the top of a big flight of stairs.

1. Return To Each Other. Share your favorite photo from your first night back together in person. 
2. Photo of the Day. Share the picture from your camera roll that best tells the story of your day.
3. Let’s Rock! Upload your favorite photo from your social event the previous night.
4. Together Again. Share a photo of friends and colleagues you are happy to see again.
5. Run Baby Run. Share a photo of your team at the morning 5k run.
6. Networking with Leaders. Share a photo of yourself with one of your new leaders. 
7. It’s Our Big Day. Take a photo in front of your XX anniversary display. 
8. Sponsor.  Earn X points for sharing a photo of you at one of your sponsor locations.
9. Packed House. Share a photo of the packed house at the general session.
10. Welcome First Timers. Take a photo of yourself and a first-time attendee at the conference.

Many platforms require you to download photos and then create your own slide show or photo gallery. It can take some time after the event is over to pull all of the content together. 

However, if you use a platform like SocialPoint, then your photo galleries will automatically be built for you. All you need to do is moderate the photos (if necessary) and share the link.  

Here are some advantages of using a SocialPoint Photo Gallery: 

Captions Add Context

If you use a software platform like SocialPoint, teams and players will be able to submit a fun caption with their photos. These captions add context to photos and give them greater meaning.  These captions will appear in the photo gallery with the photos. 

Share On the Web or Big Screen

With SocialPoint you can easily create a playlist and share the photos to a branded web link or on the big screen. Our scrolling photo display works perfectly on monitors and projectors, while our web display makes it easy to post the content on an internal or external website. 

Branded Photo Gallery

SocialPoint allows you to create branded photo galleries. These photo galleries can be customized with the graphics, colors, and more elements of your event. So, it’s easy to recognize a sponsor or tie the photo gallery together to your event theme.

We hope these 30 photo ideas make your scavenger hunt a more fun and memorable experience for your group, whether it’s a virtual scavenger hunt, team-building scavenger hunt, or a scavenger hunt held at your conference.

There is always so much joy and excitement on everyone’s faces as they relive the game through pictures that were captured during the event. The pictures help solidify the memories of that moment and day. The photo gallery (or slide show) brings all of those memories together into a shared experience.

Photos capture the magic of team building in scavenger hunts. Our photo gallery displays bring together all of those individual moments and turn them into a shared experience. 

SocialPoint’s new and improved Post-a-Pic feature makes it easy to capture those photos and turn them into a shared experience during your scavenger hunt recap and awards ceremony. 

Share the photos on a monitor or projection screen, or put them on your website. Or do both!

SocialPoint offers two different types of photo gallery displays to showcase your event’s pictures:

 

1. Website Photo Gallery: Photos can be displayed on a website with SocialPoint’s website photo gallery. The gallery shows the first 20 images and then allows the user to click on the show more button to keep adding photos to the screen. 

2. Scrolling Photo Player: The scrolling photo player was designed for monitors, projectors and screens that are shown to people. The photos can be shown in one- or three-row scrolling mode. You can attach a header and photo image on the screen to provide branding or highlight sponsorship. The scrolling photo player is web-based and can be embedded into a PowerPoint player or another option. 

• Photos Are Fun. Everyone loves to see the photo gallery from user-generated content at an event. Photos with people are a lot more fun for team building than landscape photos or photos of inanimate objects. 
• Simplify Your Life. Most platforms make you download the photos and create your own photo collage. With SocialPoint, once a photo is submitted you can approve the photo and display it in real time on screens around your venue or on a website. No downloading. No uploading. No fussing.
• Branding and Sponsorship. Your photo gallery displays can be branded with your colors, themes and logos, or the content of a sponsor. 
• Moderation Capabilities.  If you are going to show the pictures, you want to make sure they are (A) appropriate and (B) make sure that you don’t have 62 of the same picture. With SocialPoint you have four moderation options:

1. 1. Auto-Approve: Allows you to automatically approve all images as they come in. Then, you can go through and hide the bad photos. 
   2. Moderate Pictures: Hides all the photos until you approve them. This is perfect if you don’t trust the people submitting photos OR if you believe that you will get many of the same pictures. 
   3. Moderate Captions: Guests can caption their photos for the web display. Sometimes it’s nice to edit the captions in case of a misspelling or other error. 
   4. Build a Playlist: Create a playlist of pictures and order the best pictures first.

With these moderation options, you are in full control of your content and can make sure the best content rises to the top.

The Post a Pic-a-Pic can be set up in 5 simple steps:

 

Step 1: Define Your Photo Gallery Themes 

Your gallery templates will be created by default when your game is created. Go back and check the look and feel and make sure they match your game design.  If not, change them or create additional galleries.

 

Step 2: Create The Challenge

Create a Post-a-Pic challenge in your SocialPoint Scavenger Hunt game and activate the challenge. Now you are ready to go! Check to make sure that your gallery links were created and show your content.

 

Step 3: Complete The Challenge

When players see the challenge they will be able to submit a photo to earn points for completing the challenge.

 

Step 4: Moderate The Photos

You can moderate the photos and curate a playlist of photos to show either on a website or a large screen. Go to the challenge, click on the moderate button, and then go approve the photos and create your playlist. 

 

Step 5: Display Your Gallery 

Show the photos at the end of the event with either the website photo gallery or the scrolling photo gallery. Both displays allow you to showcase the captured (and approved) photos to the other game players.