Back
Halloween Sales Contest Ideas, Examples, and Templates
Q4 can feel all kinds of scary—it’s the end of the year, and you’re hustling to hit goals before the clock runs out. How can you increase team productivity and morale during a high-stakes season and—dare we say—make it fun? Here are eight fun Halloween contest ideas and remote-friendly prize ideas to help your team have a *monster* Q4.
You can run just one sales contest, or be bold and run multiple contests simultaneously! Ambition automates competition scoring and tracking for you, so you can see the standings in real-time without missing a beat. If you're not an Ambition user (...yet 😏), you can also run competitions manually in a spreadsheet.
1. 🔪 ASSASSINS GAME
This contest idea comes to us from our friends at MemoryBlue. The Assassins Contest gets everyone competing against each other and themselves. This is great for cross-team competitions (AE vs SDR is a good example!). Because the whole team is playing but goals are customized to each individual, you level the playing field, and anyone who puts in the work can win.
The setup: You can run this contest for just a few weeks or all month long. Here’s how to play:
Assign the assassins: Every SDR gets a “target” they need to “eliminate." Every SDR is also targeted by somebody else! You don’t know who is targeting you. You only know who you are targeting. (Think Secret Santa, but...more competitive.) Set customized goals: At MemoryBlue, all reps try to hit 125% of their current goal. For example, if their current goal is 10 Meetings Set a week, then they'd need to book 13 meetings. But the goals are personalized for each rep. Get started: On Monday, every rep starts working toward their goal. They're competing in blind head-to-head competitions, and whoever gets to their individual goal the fastest is eliminated. Winners and losers: As soon as a rep hits their goal, they submit their score and find out if they were "first" or not. The following Monday, "obituaries" are shared for the people who lost. Note: If neither person hits their goal, no one is eliminated. And if there's a tie, no one is eliminated. Either way, you assign new pairs at the start of every week. The final round: When only two assassins remain, they'll compete in a final round. Winner takes the grand prize!
The prize: Give the winner 2 tickets to a Halloween-themed mixology class.
Download the template for this game here!
2. 🔥 ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK?
This contest idea keeps your reps in the dark—they don’t know what they’re competing on. You won’t tell them the scoring metrics or weight. All they know is that this is something they are regularly scored on as part of their scorecard. It could be dials, connects, talk time, meetings set, new opportunities or something else! The benefit of doing a secret metric competition is that reps will focus on every single KPI in their scorecard, which will deliver results in both activity and objectives.
The setup: Managers secretly select the metric and tell the reps that at the end of the day, they'll drop a leaderboard in Slack or over email to show off the winner of the secret metric. Simply pick a scorecard metric or the overall activity or objective score from their scorecard, and keep your eye on the leaderboard!
The prize: Keep the "in the dark" theme going with a fun mystery contest incentive. The top three reps get to play "Deal or No Deal" to select their prize on a team Zoom call. The manager has 10 total envelopes filled with prizes that can range from low value to high value. The first place rep chooses their envelope first, then the second place rep chooses, and finally the third place rep chooses. The manager opens one from the pile of 7 remaining envelopes, and gives each rep a chance to decide if they want to blindly trade in their envelope for the one that is revealed or wait until the next reveal. The reps may choose to trade in or stick with their own envelope to the end to see what they get. Hosting in front of the team on Zoom is a fun culture opportunity that involves your whole team and gives everyone a chance to cheer each other on.
3. 🎃 THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS
The goal of this competition is to get meetings with clients who currently use a competitor. Savage? Maybe. Smart? Absolutely. If you can get meetings with accounts that currently use a competitor and show them why your product is better, how easy it is to switch, and maybe even offer a buyout, you could become your competitor's nightmare. It helps your team learn better competitive selling skills and targets a buyer that is already sold on the concept of what you do. Even if you don't land the deal right away, you might gather intel for your CRM about when their contract is up, and what functionality or features the customer believes the competitor does better.
The setup: Individuals can compete against each other or in teams of 2 for a quarter-long contest. Points are accrued for every meeting booked with a client that is under contract with a competitor. Run this contest from October to December, and become your competitor's nightmare before Christmas.
The prize: Cold hard cash is a great Q4 prize incentive, because a lot of people look to spend more disposable income this time of year, and if you reward the top finishing duo only, it can be affordable. This coco-baking experience is an alternative option that’s on brand for the holidays (plus, you can do it remotely!).
GET THE TEMPLATE HERE
4. 🧟♂️ THE ADDAMS FAMILY VS. THE MUNSTERS
As marketing and sales become more aligned, the lines begin to blur for inbound and outbound SDRs and who they work with most. While about 60% of SDRs report to sales, a decent remaining portion report to marketing. Some teams are split with outbound reps reporting to sales and inbound reps reporting to marketing. Whether your inbound and outbound reps are on the same team or different, this is an inbound vs. outbound pipeline creation contest!
The setup: This is a team vs. team, month-long contest. The team generating the most qualified pipeline dollars at the end wins.
The prize: Host a Murder Mystery experience or an online tarot reading for the winning team.
5. 🍬 TRICK OR TREAT
Hosted on Halloween, this sales contest is a day-long event consisting of a series of mini-contest blitzes and goals held throughout the day. You can choose a series of activity and objective metrics that offer a wide number of reps the chance to win. This keeps your whole team engaged and on their A-game all day long.
The setup: Every hour or every other hour, a new mini-contest starts. You can run the mini-contests alongside a day-long contest based on meeting sets. Here’s an example schedule with metrics you can use for every hour of the day:
9-10 a.m.: Highest number of email opens
10-11 a.m.: Call blitz winner
11 a.m.-12 p.m.: Most LinkedIn connections or likes on a shared company post
12-1 p.m.: Highest talk time
1-2 p.m.: New leads converted
2-3 p.m.: First person to have an opportunity qualify
3-4 p.m.: Most meeting sets (Reps can be working toward this goal throughout the full day)
The prize: Each challenge winner gets a goodie bag with candy, gift cards, swag, and other items. If your team is in-office, you can drop the prize bag on the winner’s desk. If the team isn’t in-office but centrally located, the manager can drop the prize bag on the winner’s doorstep. Drive-by deliveries from a manager dressed in a pizza delivery or other costume is always a big hit. You can mail prizes to reps who work remotely.
6. 😱GOOSEBUMPS
This sales contest idea runs throughout Q4 and stops right at Christmas Eve. For AEs, this is based on closed won revenue; for SDRs, it’s based on pipeline generated. If you have a small team, you can run this as a head-to-head competition where individual reps compete against each other, but it works best if you can pair one high and one low performing rep together as a team.
The setup: This is a quarter-long competition with teams of 2 reps per team. Use a fantasy-style scoring system with brackets, and fill in the teams battling it out to the end.
The prize: At this time, there is unfortunately no Cameo for R.L. Stine available (I looked, and this would be a great prize), so something like this spooky storytime with Alice Cooper is a great option. Since the contest runs through the winter holidays as well, you could also choose a winter-themed prize in lieu of something spooky.
7. 🧙HOCUS POCUS
Put a spell on your sellers this quarter with a contest designed to pit managers against managers when it comes to call coaching sales development.
The setup: This contest centers on connect to meeting set rate. The manager team with the best ratio at the end of the month wins the prize.
The prize: Bewitch your team with a cameo from a Winifred Sanderson impersonator played at the company all hands or team meeting
8. 👻GHOST BUSTERS
This sales contest is all about hunting down your targets. Pair an AE with an SDR and have them call the top 3 logos they want to set meetings with this month.
The setup: Each team gets 50 points per meeting held with their target logos.
The prize: If your team is local, buy tickets to a ghost tour in your area or do a virtual ghost tour for remote teams.
5 Halloween-Inspired Sales Contest Prize Ideas
Need more ideas for your Halloween-themed contests? Incentivize your team to crush Q4 with some of these spooky prizes.
🧟 Murder mystery game
🍬Bucket of Halloween candy
🕷️Trick-or-Treat prize bags for threshold contests with multiple winners. Some bags are “trick” bags with nothing inside. Some bags are “treat” bags filled with candy, swag, or other fun prizes. If you choose this prize, make sure the competition you run gives people a high chance of winning. You don’t want them to leave totally empty-handed.
👹Monster seller: This is a good weekly prize you can do regardless of the competition you’re running. Whoever is the “monster seller” of the week gets a trophy.
🏚️ Virtual haunted house tour
🎃Cameo of a famous Halloween character
👻Here for the boo(ze): Buy the winner or winning team their drink of choice
