User Adoption... without a team using your tool the way you plan for them to use it no implementation inside of a CRM will be successful. Throughout the first several Salesforce Implementations I did years ago, this was never addressed and always led to issues with usage after the fact at go-live. So here are some easy steps to ensure that those teams are aligned on making the change.
Give/Get Philosophy
Everyone who works in Sales, whether they admit to it or not, is motivated by Money. My first sales gig, many years ago, I'd kill myself to make a little more than the next person, hit that next payout tier, etc... Same thing should be recognized within Salesforce. When you ask for the next text field, or process to be done, you should ensure that they see the reason for it. Specifically, that they will make more money by following your change as it will take them time to learn then do... time away from their families and making money.
For every additional ask that you are going to make of a Sales Person, or end user in general, ensure that you can complete the phrase... "If you do X... you will get Y..." and Y better be good.
Address Management Strength
You can't assume that your Sales Management team wants to manage to picklist values (I mean, who does??), but it's vital that you have Executive buy-in to the new process you are suggesting. Put pressure on the Manager to stress test what they will do if users don't follow along to this process. Ideally as a Revenue Operator, you'll recognize that there are items you should "Manage To" and items you should "Build To" so that you don't have a system that's plagued by too many automations and restrictions. (Here is a link to another article around this idea.)
An example would be a Long Text Opportunity Loss Description required when a user moves the Stage to Closed Lost. The users may type "x" to fill the validation rule requirement of there being a value in the text field, but your managers may want you to require a certain length of the string. This is an example of an admin being asked to quickly fix a larger problem where users don't see value and management doesn't want to "deal" with it. Discover these things early in a project and build with your eyes open.
Bring in Power End Users for Testing
When there is a big system change, and the team will need training on the new process, it's vital to have a person on "the inside." When you aren't in the room, or slack channel, and the reps are talking about how the new system sucks, it's important to have someone there with ownership.
For that reason, you should identify a person in the End User Group that the other users will LISTEN to. This could be a top performer, experienced Sales Person, etc... but they should be looked at as the person to follow on the team. Include them in the process, and have them provide feedback on the system that inspire several changes (size doesn't matter). When the platform goes live, they will have higher adoption which will increase the adoption across the rest of the team.
Post-Go-Live Support
You know what sucks... when you are selling and busy, but you can't use the system that is supposed to make your life easier... For that reason, develop a clear go-live plan, over communicate it, provide training, and set aside resources for a few weeks afterwards to handle immediate questions as they come up. Develop a ticketing system (you can do this with a custom object in your salesforce instance) and allow users to complain and see where their tickets are in the process. It is easier than ever to do this, so don't miss this component.
I love Revenue Operations because it is the combination of something concrete (platform logic) and unendingly complex and chaotic (human psychology). You are building for people, like a structural architect, and adding an extra escalator where it won't be used is as much a waste of time as a process that isn't adopted by the end users. At The Sales Nerd we take a Revenue Operations Approach to Salesforce+ Consulting. If you have a project where change management is a concern, reach out and we can talk through the best strategy.
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