Fact: Sales training can be so, so painfully dry. And HP wanted to boost the enthusiasm of their computer sales teams. So, we gamified it.

I’ll mention a little scare we had in our second year. You see, year 1 achieved 100% participation and high engagement but also offered Starbucks cards for perfect scores—a little kicker we’d thrown in. In year 2, we were told we would have no Starbucks cards. Yikes.

Which meant we really had to make this sucker fun. Which led to customized avatars and a wild photo shoot with crazy costumes.

Not only did the two-time award-winning program (year 2 and year 3, btw) continue to see 100% participation, data and testimony confirmed that sales folks often retook the training in order to create (hilariously) different avatars that changed when they altered their inputs or improved their scores.