More than 150,000 companies use Salesforce CRM—which means there are millions of people in need of Salesforce training.
Salesforce can be an incredibly powerful tool for your business or a drain on your time and resources. It all depends on how comfortable your team feels working within the CRM. But with the right Salesforce training, you can build confidence among your employees and give them the support they need to use Salesforce to its full potential.
We’ve compiled 35 articles and organized them into five categories:
- General Salesforce Resources
- Salesforce Implementation, Onboarding, and User Adoption Resources
- Salesforce Community Resources
- Salesforce Lightning Resources
- Salesforce Integrations, Apps, Tools, and Extensions
We have a lot of Salesforce training knowledge to share, so make sure you bookmark this page so you can refer back to it as needed!
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To take the stress out of planning, we’ve created a detailed end-user training checklist for Salesforce. Don’t worry, it’s free to download and use.
General Salesforce 101 Resources
Everyone starts somewhere. Our Salesforce 101 series takes it back to the basics to help Salesforce newcomers get started. This series is also great for experienced Salesforce admins in need of a quick refresher.
Salesforce is an incredibly robust CRM full of useful features, so it can be hard to know where to begin. Often, newbies get their account set up but only use a small portion of the tool. Partial adoption is such a common issue that Salesforce recommends establishing metrics to measure overall usage. Many of the suggested metrics are basic functions, such as creating opportunities or how often someone adds or updates a contact.
Our general Salesforce resources and articles cover the baseline activities people need to master in order to feel confident exploring the rest of what Salesforce has to offer:
- Salesforce 101 – The Beginner’s Guide To The World’s Best CRM
- Salesforce 101 – How To Import And Export Contacts On Salesforce
- Salesforce 101 – All About Merging Contacts on Salesforce
- Salesforce 101 – How To Manage Accounts On Salesforce Like A Pro
- Salesforce 101 – How to Create and Manage Leads in Salesforce Easily
- Salesforce 101 – Customizing Your Salesforce Leads Productively
- Salesforce 101- How To Manage Opportunities In Salesforce
- Salesforce 101 – 4 Useful Hacks To Manage Salesforce Email
Salesforce Implementation, Onboarding, and User Adoption Resources
Salesforce enterprise licenses cost $150 per user each month. If you don’t have a CRM implementation plan, onboarding process, and ongoing user adoption initiative, you’ll end up paying thousands each month for a CRM your team hardly uses.
Enterprise organizations will likely spend a few months on Salesforce implementation, so it’s important to plan out the process, set milestones, and schedule time to check in on the progress. Change management plan templates can be extremely helpful. Filling in templates allows you to visualize the implementation plan from start to finish. Plus, they remind you to justify each decision and report on the results.
You’ll also need a Salesforce onboarding strategy. Think of onboarding as your team’s first impression of Salesforce. They’ll need a product tour and guidance on how to make use of all the features. It can be an overwhelming and frustrating process, but our Salesforce onboarding best practices article below will make the transition a bit easier.
An ongoing salesforce adoption initiative is also particularly important for Salesforce because the company constantly releases new features and updates. People need continuous guidance to ensure they can be productive and feel confident using the CRM.
Check out our collection of implementation, onboarding, and user adoption articles so you can start planning for the transition:
- 11 Salesforce Software Onboarding Best Practices That Work!
- The 6-Step Salesforce CPQ Implementation Guide
- 17 Salesforce Software Adoption Strategies to Ensure Maximum ROI
- A Simple Salesforce End-User Training Guide (With a Free Checklist)
- 7 Steps to Humanize Salesforce Change Management
- How I Mastered Salesforce in a Week Using Whatfix Guides
- 5 Impeccable Reasons to Adopt Performance Support in 2020 For Salesforce
- Is myTrailhead Your Best Bet for Salesforce Training?
- Salesforce Trailhead 2.0: Adopting the Learning in the Flow Approach for Your Training Efforts
Salesforce Community Resources
Trailblazers love to talk shop, share tips, and discuss all things Salesforce. Breaking into the Salesforce community is a great way to stay up to date on upcoming feature releases, useful hacks, and general Salesforce knowledge.
Whether you’re looking for inspiration from Salesforce executives or hoping to learn something new from a Trailhead influencer, we’ve got you covered with these Salesforce community resources:
- 10 Marc Benioff Quotes That Will Motivate You to Achieve Greatness
- Follow These 7 Trailhead Influencers To Jumpstart Learning on Salesforce
- 11+ Salesforce Influencers: Up Close & Personal
- Up Close and Personal with Erica Kuhl, VP of Community, Salesforce
- 35 Top Salesforce Blogs and Podcasts to Follow in 2020
Salesforce Lightning Resources
When Salesforce released the Lightning upgrade, it promised significant improvements such as increased productivity and a more intuitive interface. Shortly after, Salesforce reported that people who switched to Lightning increased their win rates, collaboration, productivity, and conversion rates.
And yet, many companies avoid migrating from Salesforce Classic to Lightning. Upgrading requires a time commitment that not all people are willing to make because the migration can take anywhere from a few days to a few months. Plus, people need time to familiarize themselves with the new interface. These obstacles keep many enterprise organizations in Classic, unable to take advantage of Lightning’s additional features and capabilities.
Lightning migration does require an investment of time and effort, but the return will be well worth it. Read through our Salesforce Lightning resources to learn how to handle the upgrade:
- Upgrade Your CRM: Salesforce Classic to Lightning Migration 101
- Salesforce Lightning Migration and Fast User Adoption
- 3 Simplified Steps to Set Up Salesforce Lightning Permission Sets
- Top 23 Tools for Successful Salesforce Lightning Migration
- How to Write Secure Code for Salesforce LockerService Upgrade
Salesforce Integrations, Apps, Tools, and Extensions
There are a myriad of ways to customize and improve Salesforce for your team. With over 3,000 apps in the official Salesforce AppExchange, you’ll have more than enough options—perhaps too many.
But don’t worry: We’ve done the research to help you get started.
Below, you’ll find our all-time favorite Salesforce apps, along with the top integrations, sales enablement tools, and even Google Chrome Salesforce extensions:
- The Ultimate Salesforce AppExchange Guide for Sales People
- 15 Salesforce Integrations for Sales Teams in 2020 to Boost Productivity
- 11 Salesforce Integrations in 2019 for Service Teams to Improve Online Customer Service
- 29 Chrome Salesforce Extensions That Will Make You Highly Productive
- Top 20 Sales Enablement Tools You Need to Empower Your Sales Team
- 10 Spectacular Sales Tools on Salesforce in 2019 to Sell Smartly!
- 30 Phenomenal Salesforce Tools That’ll Make You a Productivity Magnet in 2019
- 10 Salesforce Productivity Tools in 2019 to Manage Docs & Paperwork Like a Boss!
- Salesforce Future: 8 Big Trends to Watch for in 2021
No matter where you are in your Salesforce journey, we’re here to help. Our Digital Adoption Platform is the secret weapon you need to increase sales productivity, decrease training costs, and give your team the support they need to learn Salesforce in the flow of work.
Sign up for a demo to see how Whatfix can revolution your Salesforce training and adoption programs.
