Case Study: Clayton Homes achieves stunning sales productivity increases with Ambition

Ambition Creates Stunning Increases Across 4 Sales Productivity Metrics

Clayton Homes, a Berkshire Hathaway company and national leader in affordable housing, faced a challenge getting its 60‑person inside sales team to improve camaraderie, transparency and performance—especially among middle and lower‑tier reps. Sales Director David Schwall sought a fair, engaging way to incent the team and modeled a summerlong contest on fantasy football to drive participation and visibility.

Schwall implemented Ambition to score reps in real time from three Salesforce metrics (calls to high‑potential leads, percent of calls converting to appointments, and percent of leads transferred to retail). Managers drafted teams, weekly leaderboards ran on office TVs, and the contest produced sustained gains: outbound calls rose 18%, appointment rates doubled, transferred calls increased eightfold, and retail visits from inside‑sales referrals climbed over 200%, along with stronger peer accountability.

Clayton Homes

Ethan Bernstein

Harvard Business Review Author