In February 2024, Salesforce expanded its portfolio by acquiring Spiff, an app that helps sales teams streamline their incentive compensation management and commission calculations. As companies face increasing competition in hiring top sales talent, they realize the importance of augmenting their compensation strategies with transparent tools to drive sales performance. 

A former Salesforce Ventures portfolio company, Spiff is designed to simplify the compensation planning process for sales organizations. The app integrates natively with Salesforce and offers tools to manage compensation plans, provide commission calculations, and help sellers and management collaborate effectively. By integrating these features directly into CRM, Spiff ensures that sales teams can easily access and understand their projected compensation, leading to improved performance and accountability.

Let’s explore how Spiff not only creates transparency with compensation planning but also acts as a sales coach, empowering both sellers and management to exceed their goals.

The top five benefits of using Salesforce Spiff

Spiff’s capabilities extend beyond basic compensation management, helping sales operations teams manage the setup of territories, teams, quotas, and versioned commission plans. It also allows for the creation of bespoke commission rules, product-specific incentives, and payout rules  that ensure compensation is closely aligned with sales performance.

In addition to the pre-built features below, Spiff can be integrated with other data from CRM, as well as ERP and HRIS systems to bring data about sales performance all together in one mobile-accessible spot. Key features include:

1. Territory and team management: Spiff supports the configuration of territories, teams, and quotas, enabling tailored incentive structures that motivate sellers across various roles: field reps, inside sales, and territory managers. This alignment fosters a competitive yet cohesive sales environment.
2. Commission rules and product-specific guidelines: The application offers robust features for establishing commission rules and product-specific criteria, allowing organizations to customize their SPIFF models and drive targeted sales efforts.
3. Commission simulator and calculator: Spiff offers a commission simulator via a snazzy Lightning component that can be embedded within Salesforce opportunities. This tool helps sales reps estimate potential earnings based on different deal terms or product combinations, empowering them to optimize value for both clients and their own compensation.
4. Revenue intelligence dashboards: Spiff’s toolset offers comprehensive dashboards that provide insights into potential earnings for individual sellers and the overall sales team. This visibility allows for strategic planning and performance tracking over various timeframes, such as monthly, quarterly, or annually.
5. Seamless integration with enterprise platforms: With a library of more than 50+ pre-built connectors to platforms like Slack and NetSuite, Spiff can orchestrate data between systems to simplify sales operations — plus it supports XLS and CSV files as well! These connectors can enhance communication around commission requests and ticketing, stream in revenue data for calculating actuals from ERP and HRIS systems, and much more. Spiff also supports integration with sales enablement tools like Salesforce Maps, boosting productivity by providing geographic insights and optimizing sales strategies.

How Salesforce Spiff supercharges sales enablement

Spiff is not just a tool for managing compensation; many of its product features help teams drive sales success through alignment with sales enablement programs. For example:

Motivation and engagement: By providing transparent compensation plans and real-time insights into potential earnings, Spiff empowers sales teams to stay motivated. When sellers can see how their efforts translate into compensation, they are more likely to engage fully in their sales activities.

Revenue intelligence for data-driven decision making: Spiff integrates with and helps drive Salesforce’s CRM Analytics-powered Revenue Intelligence dashboards. These dashboards help equip sales leaders and individual contributors with essential data about their territories, assignments and progress, which enables them to drive informed decision-making to meet their quarterly and annual plans. This data visibility allows teams to optimize their approach to meet and exceed sales targets — and celebrate those who are leading the pack!

AE empowerment: In addition to calculating commission in real-time, Spiff also offers an embedded sales commission simulator directly via Lightning component. This commission simulator allows sales reps to explore various deal structures before finalizing them – and it encourages them to think strategically about how to meet customer needs while achieving their own financial goals.

Customized incentives for diverse roles: Spiff’s ability to set up tailored quotas and commission rules for different sales roles ensures that all team members, from field reps to inside sales, are aligned with the company’s objectives. This customization fosters a culture of collaboration and accountability within the sales organization.

Integration with existing tools: By seamlessly integrating with Salesforce and other productivity tools like Slack and Salesforce Maps, SPF enhances the overall sales workflow. SPF offers a comprehensive library of connectors to conventional tools like Excel and Google Sheets, as well as real-time accounting platforms like NetSuite and Workday. This capability allows SPF to leverage external data sets for commission calculations, ensuring that compensation is driven from actual performance rather than just quoted figures in Salesforce.

The acquisition of Spiff by Salesforce marks a significant step forward in transforming how organizations approach incentive compensation management and sales enablement. With its robust features that drive transparency, motivation, and data-driven decision-making, Spiff equips sales teams to thrive in a competitive landscape. By seamlessly integrating with existing tools and leveraging external data sets, Spiff not only simplifies the compensation process but also empowers sellers to optimize their performance. 

Learn more about how you can start leveraging Spiff at your organization.