SPIFFs to kick off ‘24

Get your year off to a fast start

DEAR STAGE 2: You shared an example of a team-based SPIFF last summer and we implemented one. It’s the first SPIFF we’ve ever run, and it worked well for our team. Are there other SPIFFs we should be running in Q1 to get the year off to a strong start? ~HELP MOTIVATING

DEAR HELP MOTIVATING: I’m so glad to hear your first SPIFF went well and you’re excited to try out the next! A quick cautionary note… SPIFFs work great when 1) they are aligned to your business goals and 2) the team is engaged. 

I want to flip your question on its head and ask you to reflect on what specific behavior you are trying to drive now to kick off the year. If you can answer that, then by all means run a SPIFF, but don’t run a contest just for the sake of it. New and novel is fun for the team and you want to avoid fatigue around SPIFFs by running them too often. 

If you do decide to roll one out, make sure you set a defined period, educate everyone on the SPIFF (we recommend reviewing live in a team meeting or All Hands AND sending an email out to document it), and beating the drum on a regular basis — weekly leaderboard? Reminder in weekly team meetings? Check in during 1:1s?

With that said, a few ideas depending on what you are trying to accomplish:

Drive a new behavior

Maybe you want to incentivize multi-year deals, upfront payment or increased pipeline volume coming from outbound prospecting. These are all great things to drive with a SPIFF!

Example: Fast Start Bonus

Behavior Change: We close 60% of our revenue in the 3rd month of every quarter and need to smooth out the trend

SPIFF: 1% additional commission for deals that close in Month 1 of the quarter or $1500 one-time bonus if you close 50% of your quarterly quota in Month 1 of the quarter

Top performers

Every rep has a quota, but how do you keep your very top performers driven to keep pushing to do more? I’ve seen “side bets” work really well. Ask a rep what he/she thinks she can deliver in a month/quarter and really push that – we’re talking 150%, 200% or even higher. 

Example: Gucci Shoe Award

Side Bets: Pick a few reps on the team and give them a shot to set a crazy target. Make it clear what they win if they do it. You can include as many people as you want, but the idea is to keep it relatively small and have other members of the team ask to set his/her own stretch goal in the next period. 

SPIFF: Anyone who calls a number at the beginning of the period and hits/exceeds it, wins a pair of Gucci shoes. 

This is honestly ridiculous as I write it, but it sure worked. I remember the shopping trip with 4 people rolling into Gucci, trying on shoes and picking the pair they wanted. It was a HUGE motivator and you wanted to be part of that trip the next quarter. 

Finally, remember that your team is made up of individuals who are all motivated by and care about really different things. Many people in sales are money motivated —that’s great, it’s easy to SPIFF. But you can think about other angles here — public recognition (ex: LinkedIn recommendation), 1:1 time/exposure (ex: lunch with a founder), family time (ex: day off), feeling connected/known (ex: dinner at your spouse's favorite restaurant). 

Get creative and figure out what works for your business — until next week!