Andrew Sykes
CEO and Founder of Habits at Work, Professor at Kellogg School of Management
Andrew Sykes is the founder and CEO of Habits at Work, an experiential sales training company on a mission to make sales the most trustworthy profession on the planet by empowering sellers to practice and embody the mindsets, skills and habits that build and maintain trust.
Andrew is a Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and part of the Kellogg Sales Institute Executive Education Team where he teaches the award-winning course “Entrepreneurial Selling.”
Andrew has been a salesperson, entrepreneur, speaker and behavior change expert for 30 years, having begun his career by building South Africa’s largest healthcare consulting companies. As a world-renowned expert on habits, Andrew co-authored The 11th Habit, distilling the work of the organization he founded – the Behavioral Research and Applied Technology Laboratory (BRATLAB) – which seeks to understand which habits really matter for sustained high performance, competitive differentiation, trust building, organizational growth and how to help people practice those habits.
Opening Main Stage
Changing Habits: The Ultimate Goal of Sales Compensation Plans
How to think about habit change beyond, but including, the use of compensation.
During this session, Andrew will dive into the results of two decades of research in the Behavioral Research Applied Technology Laboratory (BRATLAB) on how humans think, feel, and act, and how we ultimately create new habits. Why habits? Because compensation plans are intended to change behavior over time, and importantly, should support salespeople (and managers) in not just creating these habits, but improving the skill with which they practice them.
Andrew will share some of the surprising conclusions from their research to help you design better sales compensation plans, but also to think more broadly about your role and toolkit for creating habits beyond the “carrot of compensation”. By the time you leave this session you’ll have a new view on how to create habits, at scale, over time. And you’ll be inspired by how your role, advice and influence can expand and amplify your impact on the ultimate goal of your work: driving more profitable growth for your organization, while attracting and retaining the best sales talent in your industry. And don’t be surprised if you change your mind about some important topics around motivation along the way!
Ryan Mullins
Professor, Clemson University
Ryan Mullins is an award-winning author, professor, and consultant focused on helping organizational leaders improve sales force performance. Ryan has conducted research projects with Fortune 500 companies, providing data analysis, recommendations, coaching and training interventions. He has consulted with companies, both domestic and international, across industries such as healthcare, hospitality, technology, consumer packaged goods, industrial goods/services, media advertising, construction and logistics. This real-world engagement has helped Ryan be recognized as a noted researcher, an insightful speaker to sales organizations and also enabled the delivery of innovative teaching in the classroom. His work has earned him many accolades as an accomplished sales researcher and contributor to industry practice.
Closing Main Stage
Beyond the Dashboard: Measuring the True Impact of Sales Compensation
As a compensation leader, one of the toughest questions you face is: Did our plan drive these results—or was it something else?
In this dynamic closing session, we’ll introduce a causal inference mindset that helps you go beyond dashboards and surface-level metrics. Learn how to apply real-world techniques to test plan changes, uncover hidden outcomes (like burnout), and confidently measure ROI.
Whether you're optimizing pay mix, designing SPIFFs, or running contests, you'll leave with actionable insights to help build smarter sales compensation strategies—and the tools to track what’s truly working.
Join us as we close out the event with fresh thinking and practical approaches that will elevate your impact and influence.