Do You Know Your Player Type? Why Most Recognition Programs Fail 3 Out of 4 Sales Reps

Sales leaders often put time and budget behind incentives to drive performance. That usually includes recognition programs, SPIFFs, competitions, and team shout-outs. These strategies can work, but typically only for a specific kind of salesperson.

If some reps seem to light up when there’s a leaderboard and others barely react, it’s not a performance issue - it’s a motivation mismatch and the problem isn’t the incentive. It’s that most recognition programs are built around a narrow assumption that every rep is motivated the same way. That’s where player types, and a theory borrowed from gaming, can provide a much-needed shift in the perspective.

From Online Games to Sales Teams: How Bartle’s Theory Crossed Over

In the early 1990s, researcher Richard Bartle studied multiplayer games and realized that players weren’t all motivated by the same things. Some were there to win. Some wanted to explore. Some liked helping others. And some were quietly trying to master the game itself.

He categorized players into four core types based on their motivation:

• Killers – driven by competition
• Achievers – focused on personal goals
• Socializers – fueled by connection
• Explorers – motivated by curiosity and discovery

Originally meant to understand gamers, this theory soon found relevance beyond the screen; in classrooms, workplaces, and now, in sales. Whether you’re playing a game or working a sales funnel, motivation shapes behavior. And when you understand what drives someone, you’re in a better position to support their growth and performance.

Real-World Scenarios: How Player Types Show Up in Sales Teams

Every sales team has a mix of personalities. Here’s how Bartle’s player types translate to common sales behaviors, with real scenarios that sales leaders will recognize.

1. Killers – The Competitors

Killers are the classic sales archetype—driven, fast-paced, and always gunning for the top. They’re the ones who thrive in a competitive environment, where performance is public and winning comes with status. Leaderboards, contests, and ranking reports are more than just tools—they’re fuel. A Killer rep will often check the team stats before their pipeline, constantly asking who’s leading and how to get there faster.

These reps are energized by visibility. Give them a tough target and the tools to track their performance in real time, and they’ll push themselves to the top. But if all recognition happens behind closed doors, or the focus shifts too much to team-based collaboration, they might lose interest or motivation. Killers need space to compete—and to be seen doing it.

2. Achievers – The Goal-Setters

Achievers are internally driven. They care less about where they stand compared to others and more about whether they’re improving over time. These reps often have their version of “success” that goes beyond hitting quota. Maybe it's reducing their time-to-close, increasing their email reply rates, or becoming better at handling objections. The key thing is progress—measurable, visible, and personal.

When recognition focuses on growth and mastery, Achievers flourish. They respond well to performance dashboards, progress bars, and milestone tracking. What doesn’t work? Recognition that only celebrates the top 3 reps. If they’re consistently improving but not “winning,” they risk feeling invisible. Sales leaders who recognize steady, upward momentum will get the best out of this type.

3. Socializers – The Collaborators

Socializers bring energy to the culture of the team. They’re relationship builders who care deeply about connection, community, and shared success. These reps are the first to congratulate a teammate, share tips, or organize a team lunch. Their motivation doesn’t come from the prize at the end—it comes from being part of something meaningful with other people.

To motivate Socializers, you don’t need more competitions—you need collaboration. Peer-to-peer recognition, shared goals, and team shout-outs go a long way. On the flip side, if the culture gets too focused on individual performance, Socializers can feel disconnected or overlooked. They want to win as a group, not as a lone wolf.

4. Explorers – The Innovators

Explorers are your natural experimenters. They get excited about testing new messaging, building outbound sequences from scratch, or tackling an untapped segment. Their curiosity leads them into areas others might avoid, and they’re often the first to find creative solutions to tricky problems.

They’re not driven by rankings or rewards—they’re driven by possibility. Give them space to think outside the script, and they’ll often bring valuable insights back to the team. Recognition for this group should highlight creativity, risk-taking, and the courage to try something new. But if your sales process is overly rigid or doesn’t value innovation, Explorers might disengage—or take their creativity elsewhere.

Why Bartle’s Theory Is More Relevant Than Ever

Sales teams today span multiple generations, and that changes how motivation shows up.

• Younger reps (Millennials, Gen Z) often value purpose, growth, and recognition from peers over status or money. They’re often Socializers or Achievers.
• Mid-career reps might lean into competition and recognition for performance, especially if they’ve grown up in sales cultures built on KPIs and visibility.
• Experienced reps may prefer autonomy, exploration, or self-driven goals over short-term contests.

Trying to motivate everyone with the same approach not only risks disengagement, but it can also create a culture that celebrates one type of success while ignoring others that are just as valuable. Bartle’s framework isn’t about labels. It’s about understanding what makes someone tick and adjusting how we recognize success accordingly.

We Asked Our Team: What’s Your Player Type?

To bring this idea closer to home, we asked people across SalesScreen what their player type is. Some knew right away. Others had to think about it. But it was clear: different people are driven by different things.

🎥 Watch the video below to hear our team’s answers:

This kind of self-awareness is powerful. When teams understand each other’s player types, it opens the door to better collaboration, coaching, and support. It also challenges leaders to think more broadly about what motivation looks like.

Gamification Is How You Reach All Four Types

Done right, gamification is more than just points and leaderboards. It’s a way to create a flexible, inclusive recognition system that taps into multiple types of motivation at once.

At SalesScreen, we’ve built gamification tools with this exact approach:

Instead of relying on one tactic, gamification allows you to layer recognition. That means a rep who thrives on competition gets that fix, while a teammate who’s motivated by growth or collaboration isn’t left out. And it’s not just about feel-good culture. When recognition is aligned with motivation, performance becomes more consistent, engagement increases, and burnout decreases.

Rethinking How We Recognize Success in Sales

If you’re only motivating one kind of salesperson, you’re probably missing out on what others could bring to the table. Not because they lack talent, but because their motivation isn’t being activated. You don’t need a new comp plan or a reinvented sales strategy. You just need to shift how you think about recognition.

Start with a simple conversation. Share Bartle’s theory with your team. Watch the video together. Ask each rep what motivates them. Use that insight to tweak how you coach, celebrate, and build incentive programs. The more your recognition reflects the real personalities on your team, the more likely you are to see results, without burning people out in the process.