Author: Domagoj Markovina
You invested time and money implementing and tailoring your new CRM to perfectly fit the needs of your sales team. You got the product catalogue set up, the dynamic pricing works and personalized proposal and contract templates look great.
And your sales team still isn’t using it.
They’re building proposals and contracts in Word, tracking deals in spreadsheets and emailing contracts back and forth. The CRM sits there, mostly empty, while you wonder what went wrong.
Here’s the thing: your team isn’t resisting just because they’re stubborn – they’re resisting because you’re asking them to change their habits without giving them a good enough reason to make the switch.
Why Sales Teams Ignore CRMs?
Most CRM rollouts fail because they add work without adding value – at least, that’s how it feels to your salespeople.
They already have a process – it might be messy, but it’s familiar. Even when new CRM is fully automated and (in your view) has the most intuitive user interface ever created, you’re still asking them to learn something new, enter more data, and click through more screens.
What do they get in return? That’s the question you need to answer.
Start with What They Hate Most
Don’t try to get your team to use every CRM feature at once – pick the one thing that wastes their time the most. For most B2B sales teams, it’s often building proposals.
Your reps are often copying old proposals, updating prices manually, and fixing formatting for hours. They hate it – so show them how the CRM fixes this.
Build a number of standardized proposal templates with your product catalogue already loaded and set up the dynamic pricing so it calculates automatically. Then sit with the best sales rep and create a real proposal in minutes instead of hours.
That’s when people start paying attention.
Make It Faster, Not Just Better
“Better” is subjective. “Faster” is obvious.
When your CRM actually speeds up their work, people use it – when it slows them down, they find workarounds.
Test your workflows with real salespeople before you roll them out. Watch them build a proposal from scratch – count the clicks. Time how long it takes – if it’s slower than their old method, fix it.
Your dynamic pricing should pull up instantly. your product catalogue should be easy to search and your contract generation from an accepted proposal should be one button, not five steps.
Get Your Top Performers First
Don’t mandate CRM usage right away. Start with your best salespeople. Pick two or three reps who are already hitting their numbers. Show them the automated proposal and pricing features and help them set it up. Be directly contactable during the initial period when they’re getting used to the new system – you will be able to react quickly to any issues and you will get meaningful feedback on what needs fixing still.
When they close deals faster, other people notice. Sales teams are competitive. If the top rep is using a tool, others want to know why. This works better than any training session.
Remove the Old System
You can’t run two processes at the same time. If your team can still build proposals in Word, they will.
Set a deadline. After that date, all proposals go through the CRM and all contracts get tracked there. Make it the only option – e.g. If management approval is part of the proposal process make it mandatory that it gets tracked in the system. This sounds harsh, but it works – people adapt quickly when they have to.
Just make sure the CRM actually works first – nothing kills adoption faster than forcing people onto a broken or unfinished system with many lose ends.
Show Real Results
Track a few key metrics and voluntarily share them with the team:
- Time to create a proposal
- Deal cycle length
- Contract turnaround time
When people see the numbers improve, they trust the system more, and they start looking for other ways to use it. Tip: display those key metrics as dynamic dashboards in the new CRM so that each person can see them change in real time as they log in.
Listen to Complaints – and Act on Them
When someone says the CRM is too slow or too complicated, don’t dismiss it, but instead ask them to show you exactly what they mean.
More often than not, they’re right – the workflow is somewhat clunky, the pricing rules are confusing at first and the catalogue is not easy to navigate.
Fix what you can – often miniscule changes in the system have great effect on usability. For things you can’t fix or simplify, explain why and log them as future enhancements. People accept limitations better when they understand the trade-off and long-term view.
Make a CRM Champion
Pick one person to be the CRM champion – this is not a manager but someone who actually uses it every day, and keen to make the best use of it.
This person becomes the go-to for questions from the whole team. They know the workarounds, they help people when they get stuck, and they push for improvements.
Pay them for this work, add it to their job description – don’t just pile it on top of their regular work.
Give It Some Time
CRM adoption doesn’t happen in a week – it takes months for new habits to form. You’ll see resistance at first and that’s normal. Some people will complain and other will try to stick with the old ways.
Keep pushing the benefits, keep improving the workflows and keep showing results – it’s a positive feedback loop which works.
Most sales teams get to about 80% adoption in three to six months. That’s often good enough – you don’t need perfect compliance from day one. Eventually event the IT sceptics will on get onboard.
What Success Looks Like?
You’ll know your CRM rollout worked when people stop asking for help and start requesting new features, or when they complain if the system goes down.
That’s when the CRM becomes part of how your team works, not something extra they have to do.
Your proposals move through the pipeline faster, your pricing stays consistent, and your contracts renewals don’t fall through the cracks. And your sales team spends more time selling, which is the whole point.
It’s not magic. It’s just making the tool (well) worth using.
We don’t just install software; we fix the habits and workflows that drive adoption. Contact us today for a free discovery call, and let’s get your team out of Word docs and into the pipeline.
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