Salesforce Champions: The Key to Successful Salesforce Adoption
When it comes to using Salesforce effectively, every organization needs Salesforce Champions — enthusiastic employees who understand both your business processes and the Salesforce platform.
These people can become one of your most valuable resources for driving Salesforce adoption.
They understand why the organization is using Salesforce. They see the value it can deliver. And, perhaps most importantly, they want to help their colleagues succeed.
A strong network of Salesforce Champions can provide the peer support, encouragement, and practical knowledge that no single administrator or trainer can provide on their own.
What Is a Salesforce Champion?
A Salesforce Champion is someone who actively supports the successful use and adoption of Salesforce within an organization.
Salesforce Champions can come from almost anywhere.
They might work in:
- Sales
- Sales Operations
- Sales Management
- IT
- Training
- Customer Success
- Other business functions that rely on Salesforce
They don't necessarily have to be the most technically knowledgeable people in the organization.
And they aren't necessarily your highest-performing salespeople.
What matters is that they understand the value of Salesforce, are willing to learn, and genuinely want to help others use it effectively.
What Makes a Salesforce Champion?
Salesforce Champions are often easy to spot during the implementation and training process.
They ask insightful questions.
They take notes.
They want to understand how things work.
They make suggestions.
And they tend to be genuinely interested in how Salesforce can improve the way their organization works.
Some of the characteristics you might see in a Salesforce Champion include:
- Active engagement during Salesforce implementation discussions
- A willingness to suggest improvements
- A clear understanding of the organization's vision for Salesforce
- Genuine enthusiasm for learning and using Salesforce
- Previous Salesforce experience from another organization
- An understanding of business processes beyond their own individual role
- A willingness to help colleagues adopt new technology
- An ability to identify adoption roadblocks and pain points
- A reputation as someone colleagues naturally approach for help
- Strong overall competence and credibility within the organization
One characteristic is particularly interesting:
Your best Salesforce Champion isn't necessarily your top salesperson.
In fact, the highest-performing salesperson can sometimes be one of the poorest adopters of a new system because they have already developed ways of working that they believe are successful.
A Champion is different.
A Champion sees the bigger picture.
Salesforce Champions Are Natural Influencers
Salesforce Champions tend to be people who are respected by their colleagues.
They're the people others naturally turn to when they have a question.
"How do I do this?"
"Where do I find that?"
"Why does Salesforce work this way?"
"Have you figured out how to do this yet?"
Those informal conversations are incredibly valuable.
Your Salesforce administrator may understand the system better than anyone else, but they can't be everywhere at once.
A network of Salesforce Champions extends your organization's ability to support users by putting knowledgeable, enthusiastic people closer to the teams actually using Salesforce.
That's particularly valuable in larger organizations.
How Do You Identify Salesforce Champions?
Champions often reveal themselves during the implementation and training process.
Pay attention to the people who:
- Ask questions that demonstrate they're thinking beyond their own role
- Want to understand why something is being done a particular way
- Volunteer to help
- Offer suggestions for improvement
- Experiment with the system
- Understand the organization's broader business objectives
- Show enthusiasm about helping colleagues
- Raise concerns about adoption and usability
- Become the people others ask for help
Your Executive Sponsor and other key stakeholders can also help.
They often already know who the natural influencers are within the organization.
You don't necessarily need a formal application process.
Sometimes you just need to pay attention.
How to Motivate Your Salesforce Champions
Identifying Salesforce Champions is only the beginning.
If you want them to help drive adoption, you need to give them a reason to stay engaged and provide them with opportunities to contribute.
Here are five ways to do that.
1. Give Champions Early Access
Involve your Champions early in your Salesforce rollout.
Give them opportunities to see new functionality, participate in training, and provide feedback before changes are introduced to the broader organization.
This gives them a chance to learn before everyone else and helps them become a resource for their colleagues.
2. Recognize Their Contribution
People like to be recognized for making a difference.
Formally acknowledge your Salesforce Champions and make their role visible within the organization.
Recognition doesn't necessarily have to involve financial rewards.
Sometimes simply giving someone a recognized role and an opportunity to contribute can be powerful.
3. Create a Champion Community
Give your Champions a place to share ideas, questions, solutions, and lessons learned.
The goal is to create a community where Champions can help one another rather than having every question flow back to the Salesforce administrator or project team.
Your specific tools may vary, but the principle is the same:
Connect the people who are helping others succeed.
4. Bring Champions Together
Consider holding regular Champion meetings or informal sessions where your power users can share what they're seeing across the organization.
What questions are users asking?
Where are people struggling?
What's working well?
What needs to change?
This creates another valuable feedback loop between your users and the people responsible for Salesforce.
5. Give Champions Meaningful Projects
Don't just ask Champions to answer questions.
Give them opportunities to contribute.
They might help test new functionality, provide feedback on changes, participate in training, document best practices, or help identify adoption problems.
The more meaningful the role, the more valuable the Champion network can become.
Salesforce Champions and Ongoing Training
One of the biggest advantages of having Salesforce Champions is that they can provide ongoing peer support after formal training ends.
That's important because Salesforce adoption doesn't end when training is complete.
People forget.
Processes change.
New employees join.
Salesforce changes.
And new functionality is introduced.
Your Champions can help bridge the gap between formal Salesforce training and the day-to-day use of Salesforce.
They can also play an important role in onboarding new employees.
Instead of every question going to the administrator or training team, new users have someone close by who understands both Salesforce and the way your organization uses it.
Train the Trainer
For organizations that want to build a more sustainable internal capability, a Train-the-Trainer approach can be particularly valuable.
Rather than relying entirely on outside trainers every time someone needs help, you can develop internal people who understand your Salesforce environment, your sales process, and the behaviors your organization expects.
Your Champions can become an important part of that internal training capability.
The goal isn't to turn them into Salesforce administrators.
It's to give them the knowledge and confidence to help others succeed.
Salesforce Adoption Is About More Than Training
This is where Salesforce Champions fit into the bigger Salesforce adoption picture.
Training matters.
But training alone doesn't guarantee adoption.
Your people need to understand why Salesforce matters.
The system needs to support the way they actually work.
Managers need to reinforce the expected behaviors.
And users need ongoing opportunities to practice and improve.
That's why we look at Salesforce adoption through three connected areas:
Process. Platform. People.
Your sales process defines how your team should work.
Your Salesforce platform should support that process.
And your people need the training, coaching, and change management necessary to adopt it.
Salesforce Champions sit firmly in the People side of that equation.
They help turn Salesforce from something the organization has implemented into something people actually use.
Our ProSell™ program brings these principles together through Salesforce training, reinforcement, and adoption support.
Don't Underestimate the Power of a Champion
A Salesforce Champion may not have a formal leadership title.
They may not be the organization's Salesforce administrator.
They may not even be the top salesperson.
But they can have enormous influence.
They're the person sitting beside a colleague who says:
"I don't know how to do this in Salesforce."
And instead of saying, "I don't know either," the Champion says:
"Let me show you."
That's adoption in action.
The technology matters.
The training matters.
The configuration matters.
But sometimes the difference between "Nobody here uses Salesforce" and "Let me show you how we do that" is simply having the right person in the room.
Build Your Salesforce Champion Network
If you're implementing Salesforce or struggling with Salesforce adoption, identifying and developing Champions should be part of your strategy.
They can help you:
- Reinforce training
- Support their colleagues
- Identify adoption barriers
- Provide feedback to leadership
- Support new employees
- Encourage consistent Salesforce usage
- Extend the reach of your internal Salesforce expertise
The key is to recognize these people early, give them the support they need, and give them a meaningful role in the adoption process.
If you need help developing a Salesforce training program or improving Salesforce adoption across your sales organization, we can help.
You can also explore our Salesforce Training Academy for instructor-led Salesforce training, or learn about ProSell™, our broader Salesforce training and adoption program.
Don't blame the users. Fix the system.
