Sales Conversation Mastery with Andrew Sykes

Andrew Sykes is founder and CEO of Habits at Work, a training company based in Chicago that arms revenue-responsible teams with conversation skills and high-impact habits. He is a master of conversation who helps salespeople and organisations sell more, faster, and keep customers happy, longer. 

He grew up in South Africa where he qualified as the youngest actuary at the time and, starting at the tender age of 22, built one of that country’s largest healthcare consulting businesses. As a professional salesperson of 25 years, Andrew has studied and practiced the art of habit creation in organisations and in his own life. 

This work culminated in the Behavioral Research and Applied Technology Laboratory (BRATLAB), whose team of psychologists and actuaries seek to understand which habits really matter to sustain high-performance and organisational growth, and how to help people to practice those habits. 

He co-authored The 11th Habit, a book that shows how to design a company that makes it easy and natural for employees to prioritize and care for themselves, and perform at the highest level as a result. 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,” ranked by Inc. Magazine as one of the “Top Ten” courses in the United States.

Key Points of This Discussion

• The importance of conversation mastery in the age of technology 
• How the art of conversation can give salespeople a winning edge
• Recognising the different types of conversations
• The power of the reconnaissance conversation in sales
• Andrew shares some examples of best practice approaches
• Respecting the buyer and listening before we pitch
• The concept of the pathway conversation  
• The key components of a milestone conversation
• What Andrew believes the future of sales looks like
• Leveraging powerful customer feedback    

You can find Andrew here on LinkedIn.