8 Steps to Creating a Culture of Adoption

It’s one of the biggest questions you face as a Salesforce leader: You’re responsible for your team not just using but correctly using Salesforce, how can you create a culture of adoption to make it happen?

Not to worry, Spekit CEO Melanie Fellay has broken it down in this quick 20-min Q&A session on Salesforce user adoption best practices! Not feeling like a video? We’ve pulled our favorite eight tips for you below.

Step 1: Understand that you are the salesperson

What? No…

Yes! You are an internal Salesperson in your organization! It is your job to sell your users on why Salesforce is going to make their life easier and ultimately get their buy-in. Think about it, if you build the most robust and comprehensive solution that should be a game-changer for your org but no one is using it, does it really make a difference? That’s why the first step is to put on your sales hat.

Step 2: Sell the “why”

To sell people on using Salesforce every day, they and you need to understand the “why.” What value will it give to them? What impact does user adoption have on the business? This means talking to all the different teams using Salesforce. Find out what concerns they have, what’s holding them back and what success would look like for them. Finding out the challenges will lead you to create solutions people want to use.

Step 3: Start from the ground up

It’s easy to assume that your best bet to drive better adoption is to start from the top with the leadership team. However, your best bet is to start from the bottom and work your way up. Why? In order to show leadership why this initiative is useful and how it will make a positive impact when it comes to top-line objectives, you will need to have some buy-in from users first. If day-to-day use in Salesforce is low, how can you convince leadership they should direct more money and resources into it?

Step 4: Make it fun

Creating a culture of adoption does not have to be painful. Make it as fun and easy as possible for users to drive home the value of Salesforce. Start with creative ways to do training sessions or communicate changes. Instead of the same old email packed with details, try having lunch and learns, do an internal competition, or recognize achievements. The sky’s the limit! Get creative, have fun, and make it as painless as possible.

Step 5: Find internal advocates

It’s much easier to get people on board if their coworkers are already excited about the tool. If someone on the Sales team is using Salesforce to crush their number, other reps will want to jump on board as well. Identify someone (or multiple people) on each team who already are perceptive of your adoption initiatives. This will make it a much easier lift and drive usage from within each team.

Step 6: Identify the quick wins

Start with the low hanging fruit. What would make your users’ lives easier right away? Maybe it’s a dashboard on the homepage that consolidates all the information they need to know at the beginning of every day. Maybe it’s as simple as an email template they can use that will get them to work in Salesforce and not around it. Find out what small action you can take to make their job easier and keep them from falling back on outdated legacy systems.

Step 7: Leadership buy-in

After you have buy-in from the bottom up, it’s time to take your initiative to leadership. When it comes to selling the leadership team on a project you are undertaking in Salesforce, lead with math. Yes, math. Identify a top-line objective and tie your initiative to it. Then show them why it mathematically makes sense. For example, if you are implementing a new solution, try something along the lines of the following:

“By implementing (INSERT TOOL HERE), we can save (x) minutes on every doc that gets created. Every rep creates (5x) docs per week so it will save (x) amount of time per month!?”

The formula for executive buy-in:

Identify a top business objective + showcase how this project ties back to that + why does it mathematically make sense = leadership buy-in!

Step 8: Reinforcement

Salesforce adoption is a continuous process. Every time you make a change, an update, implement a new tool, etc. you will need to get buy-in all over again. Make it a continuous process. Don’t wait until people stop using it, keep them moving forward and recognizing value with every change that comes. Hold quarterly training sessions, communicate with users face-to-face (or video call!). This will be the difference between short-term and long-term adoption.

And just like that, you’re well on your way to driving Salesforce adoption in your organization. Get ready to feel like a rock star.