As Salesforce professionals, we are always learning. If we’re not gaining product knowledge, we’re brushing up on effective methods to apply our product knowledge. That’s how we solve business problems and add value to an organization. With that in mind, here are…

3 Podcasting Takeaways Guaranteed to Turn Badges into Buy-In

1. The best formula for building a demo 

LeeAnne Rimel, the demo guru at Salesforce, focuses on these three components when building a demo:

1. Business need: Thoughtful discovery is the key step of aligning everyone around the same solution. Clearly establish the overall business objectives and the existing challenges (pain points). This defines the business need(s), which should be documented and kept top-of-mind throughout your demo build.
2. Feature: This is your chance to flex those Salesforce muscles. But, be careful not to over-solution.
3. Impact: Highlight specific benefits to paint a picture of the future state. For example, if the business need is to increase revenue and the business spends 20 hours a week on manual reporting, show how Salesforce turns reporting time back into selling time through single-click report generation, anytime/anywhere access via Salesforce mobile, and scheduled report delivery.

Here’s a slide deck I use to frame the discussion (and keep myself on track!) when providing a demo. Feel free to borrow the format.

• On slide 2, define the business objectives
• On slide 3, detail existing challenges
• On slide 4, explain how the demo features address the existing challenges

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Finally, before heading into the demo, use slide 5 to outline the demo personas being covered (e.g., sales rep, admin, external user)

2. Dashboards drive adoption

More than just a pretty (inter)face, the rows of real-time insights drive org-wide adoption simply by connecting with Executive Management. Connecting leads to logins, and logins lead to buy-in, which helps to model the behavior for the rest of your organization.

Here are two tips for building and managing a great dashboard:

1. Establish leading, leaning, and lagging metrics that support the business objectives
2. As Marc Baizman recommends, simplify dashboard management by using the same report for multiple dashboard components which significantly reduces admin overhead and keeps your report folders a bit lighter

3. Relevance is key

To create a positive user experience, you need to understand how users interact with Salesforce to manage specific tasks. Mike Gierholdt’s SABWA method (Salesforce Administration By Walking Around) is helpful with uncovering the user-experience, building your BA skill set, and opening the lines communication between Admin and end-user.

Armed with SABWA insights, you can draw upon product knowledge to leverage specific features and enhance the user experience. To that end, Zayne Turner, Developer Evangelist at Salesforce, points to the utility bar and console app as two ways to win users over.

Applying the suggestions above guarantees increased communication, alignment, and relevance — keys to delivering maximum business value with Salesforce.