To drive adoption and keep your implementation top of mind, you should plan on hosting regular training sessions with end-users and executives that reinforce processes and highlight key features. Here are a few suggestions to help you get started incorporating ongoing training into your corporate culture:

• Include Salesforce training in your new hire curriculum—create your own, or leverage our free on-demand training modules.
• Take 5 minutes at the beginning of every team meeting to highlight an important feature or introduce new functionality.
• Create quarterly “refresher” training for end-users to reinforce process changes. Check out our Sales, Marketing and Support process maps for additional resources.
• Include Salesforce.com’s end-user training, “Sales Rep Essentials” in your yearly training events. This 2.5 hour on-demand class will get your entire team on the same page and up to speed on the latest productivity-enhancing features.
• Hold an executive “Reports and Dashboards” seminar to help them learn to extract and interpret key metrics from Salesforce. Check out this Dreamforce presentation for an introduction to Dashboards and be sure to read the Reporting and Dashboards Blog for the latest developments.
• Create a periodic skills test for your reps. Topics could include lead qualification, objection handling or case resolution. You might consider role playing against fictional contacts and companies in Salesforce or using your Sandbox edition so reps can log calls and send emails, documenting their work. These exercises are also a great opportunity to reinforce useful features and open best practices discussions. You might also consider a small reward (e.g., gift certificate, Starbucks Cards) for participation and top performers.

If you want to make the investment in training but don’t have time, salesforce.com’s education team offers a wide variety of training options.

• All Salesforce Administrators and any heavy users or “power” users should be trained on the application. Our most popular class, Administrator Essentials, will cover all the basics of configuring the Sales, Marketing and Support modules so you can get started right with best practices from the experts. You’ll gain context for how each application works together, and reassurance that the customizations you make can adapt as your business changes.
• New Feature Workshops: Salesforce.com is constantly introducing new applications, improving existing products and evolving the force.com platform. You’ll want to sign up for a New Feature workshop to keep up with the latest developments, implement key features and train end-uses on the newest improvements.
• Custom Training: For larger implementations or more complex rollouts, Salesforce.com will bring the classroom to you. We offer custom curriculum development, train-the-trainer sessions and periodic refreshers, all tailored to the way you operate your business.

Finally, you should leverage the free on-line training courses listed below. These will help prepare you for additional training, will assist end-users in getting started and keep skills fresh.

• Salesforce Fundamentals (ADM 100)
• Sales Representative Training (SFA 101)
• Customer Support Training
• Reporting Fundamentals (ADM 120)
• Synchronization Fundamentals - Outlook 2.0 (ADM 140)

If you want to send a link to a particular segment of the training, here's a simple little trick you can use. By adding ?slide=# to the end of the URL as seen below, the user will start with that particular slide. http://salesforce.breezecentral.com/p60375660/?slide=4

Downloads

• Designing a Training Program (Word Document)