How to design sales incentives that actually change behavior

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Sales incentives should do more than pay people for what already happened. They should shape what happens next.

Join us on Wednesday, August 5, 2026 at 12:00pm ET / 11:00am CT / 9:00am PT to hear Dr. Mike Ahearne, one of the world’s leading experts on sales performance and compensation design, as he challenges thinking about incentives, contests, and spiffs and shows how leaders can design programs that motivate different segments of the sales force in different ways.

You'll learn how to:

Design sales incentives that motivate each segment in different ways
Recognize how repeated “near misses” can affect motivation, retention, and performance
Use non-cash incentives, loss framing, status, and goal structures to drive stronger behavior change
Build incentive plans that are targeted, understandable, and fair
Improve performance by helping salespeople better understand how they are measured, rewarded, and progressing toward goals

Our speaker

Dr. Mike Ahearne

Professor of Marketing and C.T. Bauer Chair in Marketing and Entrepreneurship
University of Houston

Mike Ahearne is widely recognized for his work on sales force effectiveness, sales compensation, and the use of artificial intelligence to improve sales performance.

He has advised more than 200 companies across industries including technology, healthcare, financial services, and consumer products on sales strategy, compensation design, and sales organization effectiveness. Prior to academia, he was a partner at ZS Associates, the world's largest sales and marketing consulting firm, and held roles in marketing research and sales operations at Eli Lilly and PCS Healthcare.

Mike has authored more than 50 articles in leading journals and is the author of Selling Today: Partnering to Create Customer Value, the world's best-selling professional selling textbook, used in more than 40 countries and translated into 15 languages. His insights on sales leadership and sales technology have been featured in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Fortune.

Earlier in his career, Mike played professional baseball with the Montreal Expos and was an Academic All-American collegiate wrestler.