LeapComp - Sales Performance Management Blog

I had a discussion today about what was the origin of the word ‘SPIFF’. It seems like everybody using spiffs has a different idea on how it should be spelled (spiff versus spif) and what it actually means.

Last year I mentioned that SPIFF might stand for Sales Performance Incentive Fund, Special Performance Incentive Fund or Special Performance Incentives for Field Force, among many other potential meanings.

I also linked to a Wikipedia article citing the following etymologies:

An early reference to a spiff can be found in a slang dictionary of 1859; “The percentage allowed by drapers to their young men when they effect sale of old fashioned or undesirable stock.”

Another later reference to the term “spiff” comes from an article in the Pall Mall Gazette of 1890 on the practices in London shops:

… a “spiff” system is usually adopted, spiffs being premiums placed on certain articles, not of the last fashion, indicated by a marvellous heiroglyphic put on the price ticket. These marks are well known by the assistant, and the almost invisible mystic sign explains why an article, wholly unsuitable, is foisted on the jaded customer as “just the thing.”

The Wikipedia article mentions how the word spiff seems to be connected with the use of the word in that period to mean a dandy or somebody smartly dressed (hence spiffy, and to spiff up - to improve the appearance of a place or a person).

I also read somewhere that the word “spiff” could also come from from the verb ‘to spiflicate’: To confound, silence or dumbfound - 1785 Francis Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

In summary, the word spiff is most likely not an acronym, but did have a negative connotation; selling undesirable items.

Of course, nowadays, spiffs are commonly used as a way of incenting sales reps to sell a specific item and can be used effectively to move inventory, introduce a new product to the market, encourage selling higher margin items, teach the sales reps to sell an item they wouldn’t sell normally, or influence their behavior in one way or another (such as selling a combination of items together).