Article

Tips for Making Training and Support Do What They're Supposed to Do

by David Lee
President & Founder, Vertical Marketing, Inc.,

What is the real objective of CRM training? I ask my new trainers that question and nobody has ever answered correctly.

First, the obvious. It would be nice if students learned how to use the CRM system. I will get back to that point in a moment.

The REAL objective of CRM Training: To meet the organization's objectives for their CRM project. Thus, teaching the clicks is not the only thing, nor even the most important part of training. The most important aspect, and the most difficult for the trainer, is to sell the system. You must convince a group of doubters that they can actually use the system, that they should use the system, and that it will benefit them. A good CRM trainer must be motivational as well as informative.

Now back to actually learning. There are two key concepts:

1. You must teach the clicks or they will not believe that they can actually use the system.

2. Most of your class will forget most of the clicks that you teach almost immediately

Therefore, it is much better to have several short (1 to 3 hours) classes than an all-day marathon. It is even better to have the classes weekly for the first 3 or 4 weeks, so that your people will have been using the system between classes. They will definitely have better questions so the classes will be more interactive. That is more fun for the instructor and for the students.

Another benefit of spanning several days for training is that your VAR can audit the system before training. He can see who is using the system and who is not. He can see if the system is being used properly or improperly. ...

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About David Lee
Dr. David Lee is president and founder of Vertical Marketing, Inc., a CRM sales and consulting practice incorporated in 1987 with 5 offices world wide. Through VMI he has been involved in more than 1,000 CRM projects ranging in size from single users to thousands of users.
He has experience in all phases of the CRM life cycle including CRM baseline measurement and ROI analysis, sales process design, RFP development, system selection, system design and configuration, custom programming, Data cleaning and import, system integration, training and train-the-trainer, ongoing support, and rescuing faltering CRM projects.
Dr. Lee holds scores of CRM awards and certifications from customers, vendors and training organizations. He is personally certified on 7 CRM systems with separate certifications for specific modules and versions in many cases. He holds additional certifications and awards for countless third party applications. He is a Certified Sales Process Consultant and Certified Trainer.
Dr. Lee is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Northern Virginia and is working with the staff to develop a CRM course as a part of the MBA program. He is author of Microsoft CRM for Dummies as well as scores of articles and white papers on CRM subjects. He speaks on various CRM topics.
Prior to launching VMI, Dr. Lee held positions as a programmer/analyst, a US Army officer and as VP of Marketing for a Legal Time and Billing software company.
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