Photo: Ian Sane

Let me quickly paint the picture of two Salesforce training events:

Scenario 1

The attendees who arrive have never used Salesforce before. The instructor asks them to login but several haven't received their "welcome" emails. The instructor spends the first 30 minutes trying to get people set up and logged into the system.

Nobody is the least bit familiar with how Salesforce works so the instructor has to keep repeating instructions to make sure that everyone is in the right spot.

Everyone feels overwhelmed by the amount of new information and the information retention level is low.

Scenario 2

All attendees arrive at the session already having logged into Salesforce so getting everyone up and going takes just a few minutes.

The most common concern I hear when I talk to existing Salesforce customers is "lack of use"---available Salesforce licenses are just sitting around unused, even though the organization has already purchased them.

Does that sound familiar?

Did you (or someone you know) purchase Salesforce, follow the rollout guide, and do all of the recommended training sessions only to have your team avoid using it? Have you resorted to pleading, and maybe even "mandating" its use?

Letting licenses sit around unused is not only a waste of money, but it also means you're probably not getting any of the productivity gains you had hoped for when you adopted Salesfoce. It is a double hit to the gut---a big expense and no productivity gain.

So, the question is - why isn't your team using Salesforce?

This is a follow up article to our previous post, which basically said that if your team isn't reading the Salesforce documentation you are writing, stop wasting your time writing it. 

And that's because Salesforce documentation isn't about getting something down on paper---it is about getting information into the hands (and heads) of the people who need it. Which means that your job doesn't stop after you type your last sentence. It stops when your team is successfully using your documentation to get things done in Salesforce.

So here are some tips to make them WANT to use your documentation, and have them asking for more.

I saw this comment on a guest blog post that Jonathan wrote over at Button Click Admin:

I worked soooo hard on good roadmap directions, and people still just call me first to walk them through it. Maybe one day they’ll get sick of me saying, “Did you read the directions?” and stop calling. Maybe?

As a Salesforce Admin or Super User, you really don't have a lot of free time on your hands. If people in your organization aren't reading the documentation you are writing, then I would suggest that you stop writing it.

Yep, you heard me correctly---stop.

As we talked about in a previous post, just setting up a Lunch and Learn isn't going to guarantee you an effective Salesforce implementation. You need to make plans to address 4 areas:

• Introduce Salesforce
• Remind team members about what they learned
• Absorb new members of the team
• Adapt to changes in how your organization uses Salesforce

To help you plan how you are going to attack these four areas, we  prepared a sample spreadsheet you can download and fill out. The spreadsheet helps you identify

One of the key components of an effective Salesforce implementation is a good training plan. But too many organizations spend all of their time focusing on their training meeting and not enough time developing a training and support plan.

What's the difference?

A training meeting is just a meeting. It is a one-time event with a defined audience and a defined purpose. A lot of planning, money and resources go into these events - but if you overlook the real goal, your training event might end up