When buying a gym membership, most people left to their own won’t go. Likewise, when learning a new system or improving understanding of a program, the same can happen due to lack of the right tools or motivation. Whether enhancing your mental or physical fitness, trainers can provide education, motivation, and accountability that helps to build an individual or team’s capabilities.
Trainers and internal champions must drive participation and help employees see the benefits Salesforce can bring to their daily work routines. This requires an individualized approach and effective communication before, during and after the training occurs.
So how do you ensure you get an engaged group that actually wants to learn and understand Salesforce? Usually this process starts long before training – take notice of what skills are available on your team, what you need to accomplish, and what gaps (individually or company-wide) exist. Then, break your trainees into working groups and clearly communicate what they’ll learn. In training, use varied methods to ensure the material sinks in, then be diligent in your follow-up to ensure those new skills are being used correctly.
Salesforce Training Sessions: What to do Before
You’re committed to training your team (either in part or whole) on Salesforce – great idea! The platform your team uses daily should be as effective as possible to support the organization’s management and operational success. However, it’s not as simple as scheduling a session and taking your team through lessons. Before kickstarting your training, first consider:
Plan to Tackle Current Skill Gaps
With no “one-size fits all” approach to training, your role as a leader is to first establish a baseline of skills and determine what gaps exist. If there’s a process that’s not getting done accurately or part of the program that’s under-utilized, this is a great place to start. Experienced Salesforce trainers, such as Focus, typically start by assessing strengths and weaknesses to better understand how to customize training. Once you’ve figured out who will participate and what they will learn, ensure you send an agenda for the meeting so they know what to expect and why it will be valuable to them.
Plan the Salesforce Training Date(s)
Remember that your team needs to accommodate training into their schedules while still keeping up with other job functions and vacation schedules. If the session is planned on a time or day when few people are available, your staff won’t receive the support needed. Carefully consider when your staff will be most available, and if needed, schedule several sessions on the same topic to reach the widest group possible.
What to do During Salesforce Training Sessions
It’s training day – time to learn! As a leader in this process, there’s two important factors to consider: not everybody has a positive outlook or impression on training, and everybody learns in different ways. To provide effective Salesforce training, you must make the material personally valuable, interesting and get buy-in to ensure people are committed to the change.
Start with “Why”
Human psychology makes it so that if people don’t understand why a change is happening, they will be much less likely to participate or feel committed to new processes. Especially when introducing new digital technologies, people can be very resistant to doing anything new. As a trainer, you need to start training sessions by outlining your agenda, telling people how this change will benefit themselves or the organization, and let them know they’ll be supported every step of the way. Get buy-in from your team early or risk having people not fully comprehend the material.
Adapt Delivery Methods to Best Suit Audience
The key to great training sessions is delivering material in a way that makes sense to participants. Some will learn well through a visual walk-through, whereas others may need to do it themselves multiple times before the process is cemented. As a couple best practices, consider asking how people like to learn and present the material to them that way, or combine multiple sensory-based learning systems for maximum retention.
Focus incorporates many learning styles with each of their users. If you prefer seeing, we will demonstrate, if you’re more kinetic we will instruct but let you touch, click and practice. We also do 1-on-1 and group sessions to create interactive thoughts and questions amongst the team. All of this incorporates real life situations and puts them into practice so the material resonates. Who doesn’t love to work with real life situations and train and get some work done at the same time?
What to do After Salesforce Training Sessions
Learning doesn’t stop when the Salesforce training sessions conclude! To firmly establish these new skills and processes in the minds of your trainees, there must be a coordinated follow-up. Provide your team with the resources they need for fast reference, and solicit feedback to ensure your next session is even more impactful!
Provide Additional Salesforce Resources
Once your lesson is complete, provide carefully considered resources to attendees such as Salesforce Trailhead assignments and support manuals. These resources should align to the learning objectives of the session and include the important information discussed. Make sure that the resources are stored in an easily accessible area for all attendees; this allows staff to reaffirm their knowledge when needed.
Solicit Feedback to Improve Salesforce Processes
At the end of your lesson, it’s imperative to solicit feedback. This enables you to improve your training session(s) for next time and identify other areas worth covering. For trainees, it also helps to solidify what they’ve learned and retain their new skills. Actively soliciting feedback also serves as a way of making employees feel heard, which assists in improving staff wellness during the change process.
Collaborate with Focus to Create Effective Training Sessions
Focus has years of experience in Salesforce and sales management training. If your team needs Salesforce support and training, our dedicated team is here to educate, motivate, and provide accountability in their learning process. If expanding your team’s Salesforce skills through training and implementation of new processes, contact Focus. Our team of dedicated Salesforce experts can help outline your next steps to Salesforce success.
