Spiffs: What They Are and How to Do Them Properly

Let’s say you — a business owner — are about to launch your awesome, innovative, game-changing new product. You’re beyond excited, but your sales team seems less enthusiastic.

You need them to move X number of units to meet your company’s sales goals, but they aren’t as motivated as you’d like them to be. You’re at a loss for what to do next, so you start exploring your options.

在您的搜索中，您可能会发现所谓的Spift可能只是您问题的答案。在本文中，您将获得一些有关spiffs的看法，对它们随附的风险的理解以及如何有效使用它们的更好图片。

What is a Spiff?

Spiff stands for "Sales Performance Incentive Fund" (spelled with an extra "f" for some reason in some cases). It’s a short-term, incentive-based initiative meant to motivate sales representatives.

Spiff的概念归结为告诉您的销售代表，”If you move X amount of product or schedule X amount of demos or close X amount of deals within a fixed timeframe, you get a reward.“最使整洁激励的金融,但事情like prizes, vacations, and recognition can all serve as the basis for an effective spiff program.

尽管Spiffs可能是激励销售代表并在短期内为您的业务提供额外提高的强大资源。不能保证他们会工作，计划成功的人可能不会像您想象的那样简单。

Why Use Spiffs?

1.激励参与。

Employee disengagementis a very real concern for many businesses. Keeping employees invested and efficient can be a struggle. Spiffs are one way to address this issue. They have been known to encourage employee participation and lend themselves to active, competitive workplaces.

2. Spiffs are a good way to meet short term sales needs.

Spiffs are designed to help businesses meet or exceed sales goals in a short period of time. If your business is looking to have its reps quickly meet their sales quota, a well-designed spiff might be the way to go.

设计一个使整洁可能很难找到,但是there are certain steps you can take to ensure that your program is the best it can be.

如何做正确的问题

1. Understand your goals and define them clearly.

You should know exactly what it is you want out of both your sales team and the spiff itself. Once you understand your objectives, make them abundantly clear to your reps.

无论您想做什么 - 改善您的销售管道，完成更多交易，推广新产品或其他东西 - 您的代表需要确切地知道您要确切地了解它们，以使它们保持正确的轨道并努力努力what’s best for your business.

如果您有一个由15个代表组成的团队，那么明确定义的目标可能是他们在累积的季度结束时至少引进了700个新线索。该目标包含一个明确定义的可实现的数字，可以作为您的Spiff工作状况的参考点。

2. Understand and articulatehowyour reps should achieve your goals

您的代表需要知道他们应该做什么以及如何赢得激励措施。您需要告诉他们您对他们的期望 - 无论是出售特定产品，安排更多演示，还是其他可能有助于您实现目标的其他可能。

在我们的示例中，您可以指定您的代表带来的潜在客户，需要来自拨打电话。这样，您就可以将每个人都处于公平的竞争环境中，并激励他们利用过去可能对您的业务效果很好的特定销售方法。

Your reps should also know the figure you want them to hit. If they need to bring in a fixed number of leads by the end of the quarter, make sure they know exactly what that number is.

告诉他们，“如果您在第一季度结束时带来50个新线索，您将获得$ 1,000的奖金，”而不是"You can win a $1,000 bonus if you bring in a lot of leads this quarter."

3.确定谁可以参加

您需要为whois going to be involved in the spiff. Your reps need to know whether they are even eligible for the program to avoid any confusion.

如果您试图激励您的SDR到每个带来50个新线索，请对其进行特定的问题，并清楚地定义这些术语。当您不需要或期望他们时，您不希望其他类型的代表撤销其其他职责来参加Spiff。

4.确定激励措施本身。

What are the reps working towards? Is it cash? A vacation? A trophy? A gift card? You need to establish what they should be looking forward to. That’ll be crucial in helping motivate your team. If they only have some vague idea of what the incentive is, they might not apply themselves as much as you need them to.

在我们的50 leads for $1,000example, your reps would need to know exactly how much money they were working for. Only telling them they’ll receive a bonus for their efforts likely won’t produce the results you need.

5. Figure out a timeframe.

You need to have a picture of how long your program will last — for your and your employees’ sake. Spiffs are temporary. They are meant for short-term sales boosts. You and your employees need to know exactly what "short-term" is going to mean.

如果您想将自己的代表推向第1季度的50个线索，请确定该季度作为时间表，并具体将这些条款转移给它们。

6. Budget properly.

The cost of spiff programs can add up quicker than you might think. You should always be conscious of how much these kinds of programs could potentially cost you and plan accordingly.

如果您愿意为您的销售代表提供1,000美元的奖金，以带来50条线索，那么您最好准备赚钱。确保您的预算可以应付几个（如果不是全部）的代表，达到了这一里程碑。

7. See if it was worth it.

You need to have a plan in place to measure whether or not the program was successful. You should identify the metrics that best fit your sales goals and use them as a reference point. That way, you can understand whether or not you should implement a similar spiff in the future.

在这种情况下，最重要的指标是ROI。在我们的示例中，您需要查看Spiff是否真的带来了您要寻找的其他潜在客户，如果这些线索值得支付的奖金，实际上有多少代表采取了主动行动来赢得激励措施。

Even with these steps in mind, there are still some issues you have to account for.

潜在问题以及如何解决它们

1. Spiffs can lead to sandbagging

If your sales reps know that a spiff is coming, they may wait until the program starts to close deals they could’ve closed earlier. One way to manage this issue is to have your spiff be a surprise. Don’t let your sales reps know that it’s coming. That way, you can prevent them from essentially gaming the system and potentially losing out on deals they could deliberately wait too long to close.

2.太多的杂技可以吃掉您的预算

Though spiffs are good for sales in doses, there’s a reason they’re confined to short timeframes. Coordinating several spiffs can end up being costly, and the employee engagement they generate can have diminishing returns if your business uses too many. It’s recommended that you try to keep spiffs infrequent — generally just once or twice a year.

3.他们可以创建一个具有毒素竞争的工作环境

This effect is often the case with spiffs that have only one winner. Employees who are certain they can’t win may end up backing off of the competition as a whole, and this kind of "all or nothing" mentality may create tension between sales reps. One way to address this issue is to offer incentives that all employees can reach. For instance, you could reward any employee that exceeds his or her sales quota for the quarter.

就像我说的那样，计划中的一个可能并不简单。有很多活动部件需要考虑，成功计划的确切秘诀可能因业务而异。话虽这么说，您可以采取一些步骤，您可以注意的问题以及可靠的起点，以计划适合您和您的业务的SPIFF。