Effective Spiff Ideas to Boost Revenue for Sales Teams

Devin M. · 2025-07-07T18:08:52.474Z

Hey there! Working on some Q3 internal spiffs for my sales org of 14 AE’s across the US. We have a lineup of 10 solutions but the majority of our sales come from our 3 core products. My concern with spiffs is, if done incorrectly, they don’t drive more revenue but instead they just move the source somewhere else. For instance if I spiff a specific product, then reps will likely spend more time selling that one product rather than other products. This wouldn’t increase the overall revenue but instead just shift it. What are some Spiff ideas that you have used in the past with sales teams that have actually worked? I’m really curious if I’m thinking about this the right way or if there are some outside the box solutions. Thanks!

Effective Spiff Ideas to Boost Revenue for Sales Teams | RevGenius

7 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Tony W.
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If the goal is to drive total revenue, I would agree that a spiff probably won’t drive a major impact if it’s just another thing. I’m guessing your team already has a commission component so if they could have “sold more”, they probably would have already. That said, are those 3 products kind of the core set and can the others be added on? I’ve found spiffs to be useful for things like add on products/services, and cross sell opportunities. If you have 10 solutions, but only 3 are sold, can the others be added on? Sometimes the added focus on an add on product or two with clear messaging and incentive can be a great way to do a spiff. The spiff creates the short term focus that otherwise might be challenging when first trying to acquire a new customer.
❤️2
Tony W.
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You can also structure the spiff later so there are multiple winners, more like a bonus. I would suggest making it meaningful, either a large $ payout or an expensive gift or experience.
🙌1
Nicolas L.
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I agree with Tony W. on this one.. in my experience spiff on add-ons produced a positive result, insofar as it does not canibalize the underlying offering of course. Another idea is to set the spiff around deal source (to boost a given motion) or other performance indicators such as sales cycle, so you sell the same product mix but faster
Jared R.
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You can also think through a spiff accelerator - meaning you need to be at 100% of goal to get spiff or to enable a bigger spiff. Spiffs I don’t believe are incentives to hit goals but to encourage a certain short term activity (ie just launched a new product and you’re not yet goaled on it so we are rolling out w a spiff to start). Compensation structures should be the core driver towards revenue goals. If you set goals for all 10 products (or the core ones that you’d like for focus to be >the 3 here selling) as a component for compensation (in addition to the overall target that will drive habits) Ie At FedEx we had a goal of x And we had that broken down sub goals for express / ground / international that rolled into the big goal. If you weren’t at 95% of the 3 “products” you played “to the left” a lower commission total for x overall goal vs being at 95% and being able to “play to the right” That may be half the payout if you hit your overall goal but ground was below 95% as an example. So folks made sure to balance the gates if they wanted to make their complete commission. Ground they may be at 200% / express 105% / overall 108% but if international was at 80% they got a lesser payout . So they’d push to get that to 95% (some slight leeway of course) Devin M.
Jared R.
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Harder to have 10 gates vs 3/4 but you get the sentiment
Jared R.
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Worked really well for a fortune 100
Jared R.
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Incentivize the habit you want to build.

Tony W.
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If the goal is to drive total revenue, I would agree that a spiff probably won’t drive a major impact if it’s just another thing. I’m guessing your team already has a commission component so if they could have “sold more”, they probably would have already. That said, are those 3 products kind of the core set and can the others be added on? I’ve found spiffs to be useful for things like add on products/services, and cross sell opportunities. If you have 10 solutions, but only 3 are sold, can the others be added on? Sometimes the added focus on an add on product or two with clear messaging and incentive can be a great way to do a spiff. The spiff creates the short term focus that otherwise might be challenging when first trying to acquire a new customer.
❤️2
Tony W.
·
·
You can also structure the spiff later so there are multiple winners, more like a bonus. I would suggest making it meaningful, either a large $ payout or an expensive gift or experience.
🙌1
Nicolas L.
·
·
I agree with Tony W. on this one.. in my experience spiff on add-ons produced a positive result, insofar as it does not canibalize the underlying offering of course. Another idea is to set the spiff around deal source (to boost a given motion) or other performance indicators such as sales cycle, so you sell the same product mix but faster
Jared R.
·
·
You can also think through a spiff accelerator - meaning you need to be at 100% of goal to get spiff or to enable a bigger spiff. Spiffs I don’t believe are incentives to hit goals but to encourage a certain short term activity (ie just launched a new product and you’re not yet goaled on it so we are rolling out w a spiff to start). Compensation structures should be the core driver towards revenue goals. If you set goals for all 10 products (or the core ones that you’d like for focus to be >the 3 here selling) as a component for compensation (in addition to the overall target that will drive habits) Ie At FedEx we had a goal of x And we had that broken down sub goals for express / ground / international that rolled into the big goal. If you weren’t at 95% of the 3 “products” you played “to the left” a lower commission total for x overall goal vs being at 95% and being able to “play to the right” That may be half the payout if you hit your overall goal but ground was below 95% as an example. So folks made sure to balance the gates if they wanted to make their complete commission. Ground they may be at 200% / express 105% / overall 108% but if international was at 80% they got a lesser payout . So they’d push to get that to 95% (some slight leeway of course) Devin M.
Jared R.
·
·
Harder to have 10 gates vs 3/4 but you get the sentiment
Jared R.
·
·
Worked really well for a fortune 100
Jared R.
·
·
Incentivize the habit you want to build.