Adoption is the foundation of any software ROI. Over the last 10 years, studies found that between 30-70% of CRM projects failed. The scary reality is that the most widely-used sales tool is a 40-year-old piece of technology: EMAIL. Jarrett O'Brien, Jive Software's Sr. Product Marketing Manager, takes you through the 10 Steps to Sales Software Adoption. Jive is the world's #1 social business platform. We help employees, customers and partners connect, collaborate and communicate to achieve breakthrough results in sales, marketing, customer service and workforce productivity.

1. 10 Steps to
Sales Software
Adoption
Jarrett O’Brien
Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Jive

2. Adoption is the foundation of any
software ROI. Over the last 10
years, studies found that
between 30-70% of CRM
projects failed.
And, the scary reality is that the
most widely-used sales tool is a
40-year-old piece of technology:
EMAIL.

3. Why have traditional sales tools
failed to gain ADOPTION???
CRM  Transaction focused and historical data
 Primary value is for management.
 Not used by experts who support sales
CMS
 Built for authoring, not accessing information.
 Static repositories and one directional.
 Not collaborative / based on a selling situation.
 “Just in case” training versus just in time.
LMS  Doesn’t reflect real selling or learning from peers.
 Content is out of date and costly

4. Value: CRM is ONLY Valuable for Some
All roles enable sales and drive deals
low value + low adoption
= ROI
VALUE
Dashboards
Sales
Customer Process
Data
Manage Track Data /
Region Notifications Leads
Forecasts: Track Call
Campaigns
Incoming Activities Planning
Revenue Segment
Forecasts Opps / Act Customers ???
Executives Sales Mgmt Sales Marketing Experts

5. DEEP USE CASES
Create and verify them with sales and
create high-level benefit statements for
audiences with key metrics to track.
Creating / Giving Presentations
New Sales Process
RFPs / Proposal / Presentations
Sales Playbooks Seller
Challenges Competitive Intelligence
Buyer Collaboration
Objection Handling and ?’s
Ops / Finance / Legal
Deal Rooms / Team Selling
Cross Selling
Selling New Products
Sales On Boarding
Sharing Wins Territory Inconsistency
Field Communications

6. CREATE A PLAN
Treat deployments like external
campaigns. Develop an adoption
roadmap (Top-down & Grass Roots)

7. GET SALES TALKING
Make sure sales are communicating in
the tool at every level where they used
to in email or on phone calls:
 Executives need to have bought into
social and contribute content in order to
create the culture. Video blogs are a great
way to accomplish this.
 Sales leadership groups can also
collaborate and share monthly best practices
or create regional groups.
 Create a sales mentoring program to
incent top reps to share with newbies and
cross-pollinate best practices.

8. SEED THE FIELD
Plant new content in your new system
and shut down locations where they can
access old content.
DON’T HAVE CONTENT???
 Ask questions about topics
and elicit responses from
sales and experts.
 Have ideation jams on
missing sales collateral.
 Crowd-source content to
create the best pitches and
proposals.

9. RAISE THE BARN
Have in-person & virtual events and let
sales submit content, whittle it down to
the best messaging.
Leverage Your People:
 ‘Like’, rate, and and socialize
the content
 Create polls to vote on top
content.
 Track impact stats to see
what was really the best

10. RECORD EVERYTHING
Videotape and record live events,
QBR’s, sales call, etc. Serve them up as
a series for those who couldn’t make it.
Don’t Miss the Memo:
 Sales Leadership Video blogs
 Weekly Sales Calls
 Top reps doing the sales
pitch

11. ADD VALUE TO SYSTEMS
Sellers have already adopted other
tools; make sure your new solutions are
integrated with all systems.
On Boarding Enablement Deals / Accts
App Specific Web Integration Any Browser
PPT Word Desktop Integrations Outlook XLS
Deep App Specific Integrations
LMS CMS CRM
Event based training  Static content  What Transaction focused 
Situational learning Matters and Interactive People with Deal Hub

12. ACCESS ON THE ROAD
In the world we live in you need to have
access from any mobile device,
including smart phones and tablets.
Give your team
members the ability to
create content, ask
questions, present
pitches, and
accelerate the deal,
online or off.

13. MAKE IT FUN
Use gamification to create contests,
assign missions, and give rewards for
behaviors you are trying to incent.
Leverage Your People:
 Incent behaviors with
missions.
 Track progress.
 Award badges and prizes.

14. EXPERIENCE IS EVERYTHING
If it isn’t as easy to use or slicker than
the tools sellers know and love, don’t
roll it out. Try BEFORE you BUY.

15. Do you have other ways that you
have rolled out software to sales
with high adoption rates?
Comment below to add to the
discussion. Also, download
our free best practices paper
on Sales Enablement: click
here.