Benefits and Compensation

How SPIFs Spawn Whalewatching … and Act Like Drugs

SPIFs are also a little like heroin, Dimisa says: The more you get the more you want, and it’s difficult to kick the habit. It’s hard to take the SPIFFs away.

DiMisa is Senior Vice President, Sales Effectiveness Practice Leader for Sibson Consulting, and author of best-selling business book “The Fisherman’s Guide to Selling.”

What’s a SPIF?

SPIF stand for Sales Promotion Incentive Fund, or other similar wording. Essentially, says Dimisa, it’s an award for anything outside the strategic compensation plan. For example, there’s a new product, so there’s an extra incentive to get it launched.

Companies are spending more on SPIFs and awards today than they have in years past, Dimisa says. In one Sibson survey:

  • 72% of surveyed companies rewarded sales people with SPIFs
  • For 80% of respondents, these programs make up 3% – 10% of total incentive dollars paid: the average was 7 %

Typical SPIF awards are paid on the following items:

  • Renewal of contracts or customer satisfaction
  • Percentage over a target
  • Net sales
  • Strategic products
  • Contract length
  • Team accomplishments

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Award and Recognition Programs—Non-Cash examples

Don’t forget non-cash rewards, Dimisa says. They may be a way to reward employees without breaking the bank. Some of the non-cash awards he has seen include:

  • Article in company newsletter
  • Six-month first class upgrades
  • Lunch Paid for all in top sellers
  • Airline club memberships
  • Conference attendance
  • Removal of “bad accounts”
  • Sales employee of the month
  • Event tickets
  • Gift certificates
  • Home computer
  • More senior/prestigious title
  • Time off
  • Bottle of wine
  • Recognition meals
  • Company spokesperson
  • Flowers to the spouse
  • Plaque with top reps’ names
  • Sales contests
  • Weekend trip for family
  • Training award
  • Parking spot for top performer
  • Periodical subscriptions
  • Upgrade of company cars
  • Round of golf
  • Company stock
  • Team outings
  • Corner office
  • Top assignment
  • Six-month yard service
  • Letter from supervisor
  • Larger territory
  • Dinner with spouse
  • Dinner with the CEO
  • Club memberships

Which ones might be good incentive payments for your reps?

Assessing the pay mix and determining all the factors involved in incentives—always a challenge, but the solution always starts with the basic information—the job description.

Job descriptions are critical, yet all too easy to back-burner. What’s the state of your job descriptions? Concerned they might not be up to date and ADA-compliant? … Actually, with BLR’s new program, they are.

BLR has now released its collection of 500 job descriptions, formerly only available in the classic, but shelf-filling, Job Descriptions Encyclopedia, in a program called SmartJobs on CD. That’s cause for celebration—your job descriptions are a click away from being done.

And we’re talking about virtually all of them, covering every common position in any organization, from receptionist right up to president. They are all there in BLR’s SmartJobs.


Most disliked chore checked off! More than 700 prewritten, legally reviewed job descriptions are ready to go at the click of your mouse. Use as is—or easily modify, save, and print. Pay grades already attached. Try BLR’s remarkable SmartJobs program at no cost.


These are descriptions you can depend on. Our collection has been constantly refined and updated over time, with descriptions revised or added each time the law, technology, or the way business is done changes.

Revised for the ADA, Pay Grades Added

BLR editors have taken apart every one of the 700 descriptions and reassembled them to be ADA-compliant. And now they’ve added pay grades for each job, based on BLR’s annual surveys of exempt and nonexempt compensation, as well as other data.

According to our customers, this is an enormous timesaver, enabling them to make compensation decisions even as they define the position.

SmartJobs also includes an extensive tutorial on setting up a complete job descriptions program, as well as how to encourage participation from all parts of the organization. That includes top management, employees, and any union or other collective-bargaining entity.

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Very important these days are the updates included in the program as a standard feature—essential at a time of constantly changing laws and yes, emerging technologies. And the cost of the program is extremely reasonable, averaging less than 66 cents per job description … already written, legally reviewed, and ready to adapt or use as-is.

You can evaluate BLR’s SmartJobs at no cost in your office for up to 30 days. Just click here and we’ll be delighted to send it to you.

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