We helped FP-Tuotteet turn the work of skilled salespeople into a shared solution-selling approach. Once the new way of working became part of everyday sales practice and management, orders grew by 18% during a market downturn.
Growth in orders over 12 months
More orders than in the previous 12 months
The whole team on board with growth—no cutbacks during the downturn
CEO recommends Voitto
At FP-Tuotteet, delivery was already running smoothly and the salespeople were skilled. The next opportunity for growth was to create a shared approach to solution-focused selling. We built it on FP’s own strengths: sales playbooks and weekly management routines. Within a year, orders turned into 18% growth in a challenging market.
When the market slows down, the first reaction is often to do more: more outreach, more proposals, more selling. FP-Tuotteet went in a different direction.
FP-Tuotteet is a leading Finnish manufacturer and supplier of space-division solutions. Its movable walls and glass partitions divide spaces in hundreds of schools, offices, and public buildings across Finland. The company had extensive experience, strong customer expertise, and skilled salespeople. The opportunity for growth lay in turning the individual efforts of skilled salespeople into a shared approach to solution-focused selling—one that delivers value to the customer throughout the entire buying process, not just once a request for proposal is already on the table.
In project sales, there is one rule that never bends: the deal is often decided early in the buying process. Whoever delivers value to the customer while direction is still being chosen plays by their own rules. Everyone else competes on price.
This is the story of how that was done—and why the most important change ultimately wasn’t the playbook itself, but the way it was managed. A playbook means a shared, documented way of working: what gets done, in what order, and by whom.
At FP-Tuotteet, the post-order phase was already in good shape. Once an order was placed, a clear process reliably carried the project to completion—something the company had invested in for years. The salespeople were skilled and did the right things in their own territories. The biggest growth opportunity was clear: the best practices of individual salespeople could be turned into one shared way of working. FP-Tuotteet’s own practices provided the foundation, and Voitto’s outside perspective refined it into the final model.
The connection with Voitto came through a trusted colleague’s recommendation. Still, the first thought was the same one many experienced leaders have: would this just be an off-the-shelf template with the client’s name swapped in?
Doing the same work with an in-house team alone would have taken more time and cost more than doing it with a professional partner.
The work began with interviews with management and salespeople. We mapped out the customer’s buying process and, through workshops, identified the situations in which FP-Tuotteet had won deals, and why. The turning point was a workshop where lost proposals were broken down and rebuilt: where more value could have been delivered to the customer, and how the same deal could have been won.
The difference matters. The approach wasn’t built on assumptions about how customers were thought to buy. It was built on what had actually happened in FP-Tuotteet’s real customer situations.
This is how Voitto works. We don’t bring a ready-made sales model into a company. We first find out how deals actually get won, identify the best practices, and combine them with our own experience in solution selling. From there, we build a shared way to do and manage sales—so that good sales performance doesn’t depend on a handful of top individual performers.
FP-Tuotteet’s customers don’t all follow the same buying process. Some are long processes where needs and solutions take shape gradually. Others are shorter and based on a request for proposal. Based on our findings, we built two playbooks for FP’s sales team—one for each situation. At the same time, we agreed on how accounts would be managed and how time would be directed toward the deals where FP-Tuotteet creates the most value. The most important decision was to focus on the deals where FP-Tuotteet is strongest, and to spend time winning those.
Both playbooks share the same core idea. A salesperson’s job isn’t just to present a product or submit a proposal. Their job is to understand what the customer is trying to achieve, help the customer make better decisions, and build a solution that delivers real value to the customer.
The change is already visible day to day. FP-Tuotteet is now involved more often in the early stages of the customer’s buying process and gets a say in the conversation before the solution is effectively locked in. A recent example is a school project in the Helsinki metropolitan area, where the client knew from the start that they wanted FP-Tuotteet’s solutions. Because the groundwork had been done carefully, the client chose the solution based on how well it met the project’s needs. As a result, the project got a product that works reliably in use, with no surprises.
Once the playbooks were ready, many projects would have ended there—but this is where the most important phase of the project actually began. Together, we built a weekly sales management model: weekly, monthly, and quarterly meetings, along with tracked metrics that keep the playbook alive every week.
The playbook defines what the right things are. Weekly management makes sure they get done every week. The salespeople have made the model their own, because it was built around their own needs.
About a year into the partnership, the results are showing. Despite the market downturn, FP-Tuotteet’s orders grew by 18%: over the past 12 months, orders totaled €1.4 million more than in the previous 12 months. The win rate has increased significantly now that time is focused on winnable deals. The order book has turned to growth, and more new business is coming in than is being invoiced.
Alongside the numbers, something at least as important happened. The entire sales team started changing how they worked, in the middle of a downturn. Even experienced salespeople were willing to challenge their old habits, learn from each other, and build a better way of selling together.
When the market turns to growth again, FP won’t approach it the same way as before. It now has a ready-made playbook, a shared understanding of its customers, and a team that sells together. A good market helps everyone grow. Real competitive advantage is built when growth doesn’t come on its own.
The development continues under FP’s own steam: salespeople are getting a clear weekly calendar, incentives are being redesigned to also reward early-stage work in the buying process, and new tools are helping identify upcoming deals even earlier. The model has also sparked interest more broadly within the group as an example of how to manage sales.
Many business leaders recognize the same pattern: skilled salespeople doing the right things, each in their own way. It’s nobody’s fault—it’s a natural stage in a growing company’s journey. FP-Tuotteet’s story shows that the next step isn’t found in some ready-made model from elsewhere. It’s found in the organization’s own best practices, brought together into a shared playbook, and in weekly management that keeps it alive week after week.
Here’s one question worth thinking about right now. When your salespeople start their Monday morning, do they know what needs to happen this week for a deal to close three months from now?
Let’s go through your situation and see what a shared playbook and weekly management could look like for your sales. Let’s start with a conversation. The first conversation is free of charge.
