Weekly Spiff: Split the Floor. Pick Your Teams. Let Them Fight It Out.

Team Competition

Here’s something you already know but might not have thought about this way: some of your staff will never chase an individual prize. It’s not that they’re lazy. They just don’t want to be the person standing up front collecting a $50 bill while everyone watches. But tell them their team is down by three sales and they need to close something before lunch? Now they’re moving. So, if you’ve got a larger team (five salespeople or more) let’s take advantage of that instinct this week.

HOW TO RUN THIS SPIFF

• Split your staff into two teams. Mix your strong sellers with your newer people — you don’t want a team that’s obviously going to win by Wednesday, because then everybody quits.
• Pick what you’re scoring: total sales, number of transactions, add-on sales, custom jobs booked — whatever you’re trying to push that week.
• Post a scoreboard somewhere everyone can see it. Update it daily. A competition without a visible scoreboard is just a regular week with a promise at the end.
• Winning team gets a prize. Cash bonus. Lunch at a nice local restaurant. Gift cards. An afternoon off.
• Losing team has to do something mildly embarrassing but harmless. Clean the cases. Wear a funny hat on Monday. Sing the winners a song at the morning meeting. Keep it light. Think “good-natured fun,” not “HR conversation.”

What this encourages: Teams create accountability without you having to enforce it. You don’t have to tell Sarah she’s been slow this week. Her teammates will handle it — nicely, probably, because they like Sarah, but they also like winning. That’s peer pressure doing your management job, which is honestly the best kind of spiff there is.

One note: Switch up the teams every time you run this. Same people together every time and it stops being a game and turns into a turf war.

DISCLAIMER: Spiffs are not appropriate for every store, but can add a sense of excitement to the sales process for some. It depends on your store, and it depends on your staff. If you haven’t tried these, give it a try and see what happens. But if you do try it, make a big deal of it.