Category Archives: Sales Compensation Insights

Spiffs represent a method of incentivizing certain kinds of sales rep behaviors and outcomes. Also known as a Sales Performance Incentive Fund, the Spiff is a concept dating back to as early as the mid 1800s and used by manufacturers as sort of kickback program to retailers that sell higher volumes of certain product lines.

It is well known that you have to pay at, or more likely a bit above market levels in order to attract the best sales talent in the business. There are numerous surveys that indicate what sales reps are getting paid and there is always anecdotal feedback that comes to an employer either via its

When trying to attract top sales talent to your company, offering competitive compensation is critical. This usually means offering an achievable total compensation which is at or above what other competing employers are prepared to offer the sales professional(s) you are seeking to hire. The definition of competitive compensation gets a little blurry when hiring

Many sales organizations will periodically experience a windfall sale. In some cases the win fell into the lap of one of the sales reps and in other cases, the sales person played their cards right, the stars aligned and the big sale occurred. Back in my earlier days as a sales manager, I had a

We have written about the linkage between money and sales rep behavior (see links below), but money is not the only way to motivate your sales team members and there may be times when you need to motivate using additional methods or alternatives to financial rewards. Here are some of the key ways to motivate