# Design a sales contest or SPIFF that doesn't backfire

A short-term sales incentive tied to one behavior, with rules, budget, and guardrails against sandbagging and gaming.

- Topic: Leadership & Management
- Framework: Few-Shot
- Level: Standard
- Tags: Sales, Finance, Fill-in Template
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/design-a-sales-contest-or-spiff-that-doesn-t-backfire

## Prompt

```text
Help me design a short-term sales incentive (contest or SPIFF).

**Goal:** [the one behavior or result to change, e.g. sell a new product, book more first meetings, close multi-year deals, pull deals into this quarter]
**Why now:** [business reason]
**Who's eligible:** [roles, teams, number of people]
**Duration:** [e.g. 4 weeks]
**Budget:** [AMOUNT]
**Current baseline for the metric:** [NUMBER]
**Past incentives and what happened:** [DETAILS]

Design the incentive:
1. Pick one clear metric that maps to the goal and is measurable in the CRM.
2. Choose a structure (threshold, tiers, team-based, leaderboard, lottery for qualifiers) and explain why it fits. Avoid winner-take-all if it would demotivate most of the team.
3. Set rewards and a payout cap that fit the budget; show the cost at expected and best-case participation.
4. Write rules that prevent gaming: sandbagging deals before the start, pulling deals with heavy discounts, splitting deals, logging low-quality activity, booking deals that cancel. Include a clawback or qualification rule.
5. Plan the launch, weekly progress updates, and recognition moments.

Return:
- A one-page rules sheet I can share with the team.
- The cost model.
- A table of gaming risks and the rule that blocks each.
- How I'll judge if it worked after it ends (lift vs baseline, side effects).

Confirm tax treatment of rewards and fit with the comp plan with finance or HR.
```

## What to fill in

- business reason
- roles, teams, number of people
- e.g. 4 weeks
- AMOUNT
- NUMBER
- DETAILS

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