The new sales process was translated into the group's 5 different languages

The sales organization received solid support to accelerate sales

You might think that it takes miracles to make a journey like ESBE has, but in reality it's just a matter of a few important components being right; from management's attitude and a positive market, to sales managers and salespeople with the right structure and motivation.

ESBE is a genuine Swedish industrial company headquartered in Reftele outside Gislaved, with sales in more than 50 countries. It is one of Europe's leading manufacturers of hydronic solutions, and had a turnover of SEK 600 million in 2021. The sales force's 50 employees work with wholesalers and OEM companies. Sales Manager Jörgen Thelin joined ESBE in 2019, with the mission to change and accelerate sales.

Mission to transform and accelerate sales

When Jörgen started his assignment, the business was already making progress and was steadily increasing its turnover at a moderate pace. However, the management wanted to accelerate the development and take a larger market share in the European market. Jörgen was given a great deal of responsibility for this venture, but also a great deal of trust and free rein to develop the sales and marketing teams.

Jörgen's 3 P's – A structure for heart and brain

Jörgen had worked for a long time as a sales manager, but now he needed to take his assignment to a new level. He believes that it is just as important to work with heart as with brain when it comes to sales. From this, three mottos emerged:

Pride – Feeling proud of what we do

Passion – When there is fire in the eyes of a salesperson who walks through the door

Performance – The processes in CRM and structure in other words how we process customers

New sales process based on value-based selling

Together with Mindit, we developed a new sales process that is fundamentally based on value-based sales. – In Sweden, we had Mindit train all salespeople during the pandemic and we wanted to show that it was an important investment; we ran it live in a conference room with space for 350 people, even though there were only 17 of us!

Then it has become very useful that we developed a structured and documented sales process. Not least when new salespeople are being trained. It has become so central that we have translated it into all the different languages for our subsidiaries.

60% increase in sales and Export Hermes

As a result of a positive market development, many new businesses and several different measures, sales have increased by a total of 60% since 2019. In 2020, they received the Export Hermes award – an award for established, successful export companies – which is one of several acknowledgements that they are doing a lot right.

Results of working consistently and following up on the effort

All salespeople in Sweden went through three training modules and then we followed up the initiative by implementing it in our foreign sales teams. It has been well received and the results are coming gradually. Some are absorbing different parts of the message step by step, but it is constantly moving forward!

Great trust has led to a 25% annual increase in total sales

Between 2017 and 2020, ESBE had an annual increase of approximately 8% in its total turnover. In the last two years, it has been around 25%.

– It has been a fantastic journey and I am so grateful for the trust and opportunities I have been given to develop sales at ESBE.

“Living value-based selling in everything we do”

We incorporate the same structure into our company presentations, product presentations and other marketing communications. It gives an extra boost to the salespeople to adopt a new methodology. It worked very well for both wholesale and OEM salespeople.

Choose the projects we really want and go all out to win

When I started at ESBE, we had a hit rate in OEM deals of 30% from lead to closed deal. Then we chose to focus on three customer areas and not run after everything.

Together with all other measures, it led to an increased hit rate of 70%!

Our own development was in line with what was happening in the outside world

Our focus on three customer segments increased our market shares within these segments. This, combined with the energy transition in Europe and a kind of “Putin effect”, has taken the company on an amazing journey.

Pride & Passion: Internal marketing is just as important as external marketing

We worked a lot on pride through employer branding – creating films and internal communication, with the aim of increasing pride and passion for ESBE and for what you do every day. I think you have to start there, before you go out and do everything else right.

From hidden gem to local pride and known on the world market

ESBE has always been well known in Gislaved municipality but relatively unknown in the region as a whole. We have developed our marketing communication and now have over 15,000 followers on social media. This has paid off! From being relatively unknown, we are now a bit of a local celebrity that creates pride; I started to understand it when the local radio station in Jönköping got in touch and wanted to do a report about ESBE.

The ultimate reward was when we became 1 of 20 companies to receive Deloitte and Nasdaq's award – Sweden's Best Managed Companies for the third year in a row. – It felt absolutely incredible to see ESBE's logo on Nasdaq's domed screen in Times Square in New York. This journey has been anything but perfect!

Tips for other managers in a similar role

• You must first understand what needs to be done and then do it. 😊

• Work with both your heart and your brain with your employees: The concrete and theoretical may feel easy, but you have to bring the feeling too!

• As a sales manager, you are more of a businessman than a salesperson – that's where the idea of value-based sales comes in to create higher profitability in your business.