Three decades of passion for sales - creating results that make a real difference
My name is Henrik Henriksson and I am a partner at Adviser Partner. My career started with an ultimatum from my father and an ad in the newspaper - "We equip you for any job in business". I applied, was completely taken during the interview and started my sales journey by knocking on doors and selling vacuum cleaners the same day.
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I quickly realized that sales was my thing - I loved it and had a knack for it. I was particularly struck by the realization that I am responsible for my future, I decide how good I want to be and can be. After that educational start, I moved on to the telecom industry, where I worked as both a salesperson and a product manager.
Then I took the step to start my own business. The first company in the security industry was aimed at shops and private individuals - we grew to four offices in Sweden and 80 salespeople. The next adventure was to start and list a small group of companies in office-related services, everything an office could need. To maximize sales in all the companies, I also started a call center that became our sales engine with assignments for ourselves and for external customers where we conducted both direct sales and longer sales processes over the phone.
In 2008, we were integrated into Adviser Partner, and I became part of the team. With over 30 years of solid sales and sales management experience, I understand the tough and lonely work that salespeople and especially sales managers face - a job with high demands on drive and perseverance. That's why I'm passionate about educating, training and coaching you to your full potential.
My clients span all continents, from global companies with international operations to smaller retailers. Whatever the size, what drives me every day is to see my clients achieve better results and, not least, increase their sales. With energy, competence and authenticity, I commit myself fully to each assignment - just like when I tackle the slopes on the mountain bike or swing the club on the golf course.
Contact me at Adviser Partner and let's create concrete results together.
"During the spring and summer of 2020, we have hired AP to achieve an even better structure and uniformity in our meeting with customers with the aim of increasing our sales.
The training has been very educational and easy. Henrik has varied theory with real-life examples with subsequent training and role-playing, which has been very good and appreciated by both KAM and AM who participated in the training."
Director commercial lines
Gjensidige
"At Nordic Finance, we are a company that empowers small and medium-sized businesses to grow through the right financing, whether it's financial leasing or renting.
We are an industry leader and have experienced a steady increase in our sales over the last few years. Despite our success, we realized that it was necessary to take our sales process to the next level to continue increasing sales and strengthening our position in the market. Therefore, we turned to Adviser Partner and Henrik Henriksson to help us take the next step.
Henrik quickly showed a genuine curiosity for our business and process and really wanted to understand our challenges. He helped us to focus on the right areas and to give our salespeople the tools to take control of the sales process.
Through a clear commitment, they have helped us develop our sales team to become more high performing and structured.
Through group work and good training sessions, we have clarified our offers and gained better control over our approach to our suppliers and customers."
Sales Manager Sweden
Nordic Finance
"For me, Hogia stands for the personal salesperson. We live by the motto helping companies to develop. We are not looking to have the most customers, we are looking to have satisfied customers with a solution that actually streamlines their business. Our business concept speaks of a long-term approach and presence. We know our customers and they know us. Performing as a salesperson at Hogia does not only mean quantity, there must be quality as well.
In Adviser Partner, we have found a perfect partner to ensure quality and quantity in the sales process. Adviser Partner acts extremely professionally and takes the time to familiarize themselves with and help us understand where the shoe pinches. They always use relevant examples and start from our world when he trains us. Every training session has received full marks in the subsequent evaluations.
I have worked mainly in sales all my life. Today I have the privilege of working as a Sales Coach - internal coach for our sales managers. Having the opportunity to work with both sales and people means that even after 20 years in the same group, I still find it great fun to go to work."
CEO
Hogia
"Adviser Partner has helped our salespeople become twice as effective"
To achieve a more consistent sales level over time and to find effective keys for individualized coaching, Eniro enlisted the help of Adviser Partner. Johan Malmström, Sales Director, says that the collaboration has had a great effect on several levels.
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Johan Malmström has worked at Eniro since 2004 and has followed the transformation journey, from a catalog company to an online company, within Marketing Technology. For the past four years, he has taken on the role of Sales Director, which means responsibility for the entire sales organization in Sweden with a strong focus on modernizing the business model.
- We have gone from a catalog mindset to implementing marketing automation in our sales processes. In my role, I work closely with the sales managers towards the right revenue, few key figures and a healthy organization, Johan explains.Background information
Eniro operates in a competitive industry and has a large number of orders to win - while at the same time needing to deliver quality. Johan is convinced that focused and continuous training is one of the pillars of achieving a strong sales floor.
- What motivates me most is to see others grow into their roles and move forward.
I work on the basis of the motto to push through small changes often.With several different sales departments to coach, Johan realized early on that Eniro needed to implement a common process and game plan for each area and take sales training to a new level. Hiring Adviser Partner was a natural choice.
- Adviser Partners share our approach to sales, have an eye for detail and are good at explaining.
Challenge
The sales organization has faced challenges with peaks and troughs in its work. In addition, in a complex business with a large number of customers, the onboarding process was often lengthy.
- We needed to achieve a more consistent, long-term sales level and find accurate tools that would quickly get our employees into each customer project.
Solution
Adviser Partner was brought in to provide consultation and training at management level on effective sales practices. Since then, they have followed up with another program to refine the coaching and implemented a sales training program that includes all salespeople in the Swedish organization. The training made Eniro go to the core and focus on the sales call itself.
- Adviser Partner has gotten us to train more on an individual level and sent us concrete tools on how to be more specific in our training. They have helped our sales managers to more quickly pinpoint where in the process their salespeople need to be trained and helped employees better understand why our approaches look the way they do. In addition, they have equipped us to directly implement new hires into Eniro's sales strategy. We train, work and live with the tools from the Adviser Partners program.
Outcome
The collaboration with Adviser Partner has had a major impact on several levels.
- Adviser Partner has met all our expectations and more. Today, it is possible to get new employees to perform at a high level quickly and the sales training has contributed to consistency over time, our peaks and valleys are much smaller now than before, Johan explains and adds:
- We have also increased our hit rate and our sales figures. Adviser Partner has helped our sellers become twice as efficient. If we compare April 2020 with April 2021, each salesperson has sold 97% more this year. In terms of number of employees, we have never been as good as we are now, we are many who deliver a lot.
Employees have also noticed clear differences when applying Adviser Partners' tools in their sales processes. The feedback Johan has received has been positive throughout.
- Our salespeople have found that they have gained both skills and money, which is the best effect you can get from sales training. People who are more engaged and want to contribute are incredibly valuable. In the long run, I know that this will have a positive impact on our staff turnover with employees who want to stay because they feel good and have fun.
Frequently asked questions
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Good reseller networks are built by having really good PAMs (Partner Account Managers) who understand that the real end product of their work is not to sell to the reseller but to create resellers who sell according to set sales targets or more.
The key to good partnerships lies in understanding that a partner is someone with whom you have a long-term relationship, where there is a commonly agreed vision and most importantly where both parties are winners.
The way to do this is by creating an understanding in your own sales force that their job is basically to act as Sales Manager for the partner, manage the people at the partner and get them willing to create high activity, often talk about your products and services, actually recommend you more often than others in the same category.
In addition, monitor the partner's figures on an ongoing and regular basis and be interested in their processes.
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All salespeople should be measured. Whether your salespeople are beginners or experienced, they should be measured, if you don't measure you will be blind in your sales management. Without control of the main statistics, sub-statistics and quality statistics, you do not know if you are at full potential or if there is more to be gained, in short, Yes, all salespeople should be measured.
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A sales force should be measured in three main areas, activity, average deal and close rate. Activity to understand if we're running fast enough, average deal to know if it's possible to sell more to those who are already buying, and close rate to know if we're good enough at the craft.
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Yes, absolutely, a variant of measuring customer visits could be to measure the number of sales processes started.
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Salespeople are among the more difficult roles to recruit as a salesperson can just sell themselves. Specifically, we recommend that you look at four main areas.
1. their historical productivity, which is about understanding what they have produced in previous roles. If they have a history of actually producing results, it is unusual for them to have forgotten about them.
2. We recommend looking at their personality from the perspective of, will they stay, do they work with the rest of the team, are they smart enough to sell our solutions, do they have any character traits or qualities that make me wary of bringing them in.
3. We want you to look at whether they are outflow or inflow oriented which is basically about do they have more attention to what they are going to bring in or what they are getting. 4. important to understand if they have the knowledge that the role requires, do they know, do they know they don't know or do they think they know. Create understanding that they really know how to perform the tasks the role requires.
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Our recommendation is that KAM should be followed up on the usual sales statistics, their activity, average deal and closing percentage and in addition to that we recommend that the Chart of Accounts is a tool for internal follow-up.
The recommendation is that the sales manager and KAM with the right regularity look at the planned activities in the account plan, follow up that it is implemented, together decide if further efforts need to be made, follow up that sales are coming at the pace it is expected, together go through what we do to get potential sales we do not have.
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A really good sales meeting has a clear valuable end product. In other words, before you decide how the meeting will be conducted, decide where exactly you want the salespeople to be at the end of the meeting.
Let's say the end product is Engaged sellers who want to go out and sell more, if that's the end product of the meeting, how do you best build it.
Our recommendation is that the meeting should have three parts. First, what results have salespeople produced since your last meeting. Part two is Theme, a theme that is about sales, something that by attending the meeting will give the participants a better toolbox to do their job. Part three is about looking ahead and setting goals for the coming period.
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Our experience is that salespeople can be difficult to coach if they are not willing. Willingness comes from having a clear purpose for the work they are doing. If you find that you are having difficulty getting through with your coaching, it is good to first get to the bottom of whether they are willing or unwilling. If they are unwilling, it does not matter how good you are as a coach, the challenge is that they do not want to. By working with their willingness and understanding how to make them more willing, it automatically makes them more receptive to your coaching.
The art of sales coaching - three key insights to create exceptional performance
In this episode of We Love Sales People, I talk to Jonas Olofsson, CEO Adviser Partner, about what really creates high performing sales teams. The answer lies not in luck or star salespeople - but in the right coaching, in the right way. We'll walk you through three keys to success: distinguishing between education, training, and coaching - and using them in the right order; creating a willingness to change in the salesperson; and basing coaching on actual observation, not assumptions. Want to know how you as a leader can take your team from good to exceptional? Then you should listen to this episode.
Keys to sales meetings that inspire and deliver - Adviser Partner with Henrik Henriksson
In this video, I share how you as a sales manager create really good sales meetings that drive results. He shows how a sales meeting becomes more than just a check-in - it becomes a production meeting that ignites energy, inspiration and the will to sell. I go through the simple but powerful structure in three steps: clarifying the goal of the meeting, creating development through a relevant sales theme and ending with a focus on future results.
Do you want to lead sales meetings that make your team perform at their best - every week?
Watch the video and contact me to take your sales meetings to the next level!
Adviser Partner in collaboration with SSE Business Lab
Adviser Partner and SSE Business Lab shape the growth companies of the future - from idea to profitable sales
Since 2024, Adviser Partner has been a proud partner of the SSE Business Lab - one of Europe's leading incubators for startups and growth companies. The collaboration aims to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs by giving them the right tools to grow faster, build stronger business models and create sustainable sales.
With extensive experience in developing successful sales organizations, Adviser Partner provides advice, mentoring and workshops that help the companies in the SSE Business Lab to transform their ideas into profitable and scalable businesses.
"It is incredibly inspiring to follow these driven entrepreneurs on their journey and see how our expertise in sales makes a tangible difference," says Henrik Henriksson, partner at Adviser Partner.
The partnership with SSE Business Lab - home to successes such as Klarna, Budbee and Voi - is a step in Adviser Partners' commitment to supporting innovative companies in reaching their full potential.
Together we shape the growth companies of the future.
