Dos and Don'ts of Spiffs to drive Sales adoption

Ami Arad

Nothing beats a fast start when it comes to convincing Sales to adopt something new, and the best way to get a fast start is to exploit the fact that salespeople are "coin-operated." The Golden Rule of Sales adoption, for better or worse, is:

The sales team's perception of the importance of the initiative is directly correlated to the value of the prizes for their adoption of it.

Here are some Dos and Don'ts for spiffs to guarantee that fast start:

DO: Create a few quick-win contests that reward achievements like "First Meeting Booked by Email," "First Meeting Booked by Phone," and "First Meeting Booked by Social." If your predictive model is set up, those meetings should get booked in the first day or two (we've seen it happen during training although we recommend all sellers pay attention!).

Consider one for "Meeting Booked with Highest Ranking Executive" to be awarded after the first week or two. Even if you sell into Directors, meetings will be booked with Sr. Managers, Managers, maybe Associates, so reward the person that books a meeting with the highest-ranking person. To win, a seller submits a screen shot of the email, social message, or some proof they had a phone conversation with the person to book the meeting -- don't overcomplicate.

DON'T: Only create a contest with a weeks-long or months-long duration (e.g. Most Meetings Booked in the First 30 Days). If news of success with 6sense isn't spreading within the first few days, momentum is lost, and by the end of the month, most will have forgotten there was even a contest. Now, we love the idea of Most Meetings Booked in the First Month since it rewards the tortoises, not the hare, but this should be in addition to the First Meetings Booked ideas above.

DO: Give away real prizes. Cash is the best 💰️. There is nothing more motivating to a salesperson than being called up in front of their peers, and having a senior Sales leader count off crisp $100 bills in front of jealous onlookers. $250 is fine ($1,000 if you run all four contests), but $500/each or more makes a statement that the company believes this new motion is important (see: Golden Rule of Sales Adoption). If you can't do cold, hard cash, gift cards that are good as cash are next best thing, and company swag should be your last option (see below).

DON'T: Give away cheap company swag as the only prizes. We know you're proud of your swag (we're proud of ours at 6sense!). But this is an initiative that will change the way your sellers do their jobs every day, and can have a huge impact on your business if it's adopted. You've likely spent five- or six-figures on the software; getting sellers onboard with it is not the time to get cheap. If you have to do swag, make sure the options for the winners are the best your company offers. It is better to do nothing than to announce this is a major Revenue Team initiative and so the company is offering a logo water bottle or fleece to the winners.

DO: Get creative! The suggestions above are generic and one-size-fits-all. You know your business and your sellers better than we do. What would motivate them? Maybe there's a more appropriate achievement than "book a meeting"? Maybe you want to do additional rewards like "Most Creative Outreach" or "Best Use of Personalization in an Outbound Message"? To ensure they're paying attention, maybe you include a hyper-specific award (Best Use of an Animated GIF in a First Email to a Prospect)?

DON'T: Not get creative.

DO: Make clear your company has made a big investment in this project so that they (your sellers) can all make more money. It'd be nice if you didn't have to bribe everyone with prizes to use something that will make them more effective at their jobs -- which for salespeople, almost always correlates to making more money -- but best not to rely on logic alone. Absolutely emphasize the time and money invested in their success with this initiative.

DON'T: feel like you need to run the spiffs all the time; they should be one-time prizes for the rollout to Sales to get quick wins that spread throughout the salesforce.

Any other dos or don'ts I'm missing?