Most businesses I talk to think their Salesforce problems are people problems.
“Reps are lazy.”
“Ops are fussy.”
“Leaders don’t ‘get’ the system.”
In reality, almost every mess I’m called into comes down to design and ownership, not effort.
Here’s how I look at it when I’m brought in to fix Salesforce and turn it into an actual operating system for the business.
1. Reps don’t hate Salesforce. They hate how it’s been set up.
When I sit with sales teams and ask what they think of Salesforce, I usually hear:
- “It’s clunky.”
- “Takes too long.”
- “I’ll update it later.”
Underneath that are design decisions, not personality traits:
- 25+ fields on a page, many of which don’t help close a deal
- Stage changes that don’t trigger tasks, templates or handoffs
- Quotes and follow-ups still living in email, Word and Excel
- No views that help reps prioritise their day
On a recent project, we:
- Cut pages down to the minimum fields needed to move a deal
- Wired tasks, reminders and handoffs to stage changes
- Moved quotes and key templates into Salesforce
- Built simple views showing “who to call next” and “what’s about to slip”
Activity logging went from ~20% to over 90%. The “I’ll update it later” excuses disappeared.
Same people. Different design.
2. If you’re embarrassed to show your Salesforce dashboard, that’s a signal
From the founder / COO chair, the pain looks different:
- A “master” spreadsheet in ops or finance with the real numbers
- Forecast meetings that feel like arguments rather than decisions
- Dashboards you’d never put on a big screen in front of a board
That tells me:
- There’s more than one “source of truth”
- Stages and close dates are opinions, not facts
- Key work (pipeline, quotes, contracts) is happening outside Salesforce
Fixing that means:
- Killing shadow spreadsheets by moving those numbers into Salesforce
- Tightening stage definitions and close dates
- Making Salesforce the place where work actually happens
The end state is simple: one dashboard you’re happy to show anywhere.
3. If ops are running things from a spreadsheet, you don’t have a CRM
Ops and RevOps leaders often quietly admit:
- “I keep my own sheet with the real figures.”
- “It’s quicker to export to Excel and fix it than to build the right report.”
That usually means:
- Data is scattered across tools and tabs
- Salesforce doesn’t reflect the real sales / delivery process
- Critical checks (renewals, SLAs, follow-ups) still rely on memory
- Ops have become the human integration layer between systems
The fix:
- Centralise what matters: pipeline, renewals, key KPIs, SLAs
- Rebuild Salesforce around the actual process
- Automate renewals and follow-ups so “we forgot” stops being acceptable
- Let ops retire their shadow spreadsheet
At that point, ops move from “stitching numbers together” to “improving the machine.”
4. Most Salesforce failures start before anyone logs in
The biggest mistakes I see are baked into the brief:
- Vague outcomes like “get more out of Salesforce”
- No clear behaviour change plan
- Too many owners, no real owner
- Nothing being turned off (spreadsheets, old quote templates, old processes)
On good projects we flip that:
- 1–2 hard outcomes in 4–6 weeks (e.g. adoption %, forecast accuracy)
- One internal owner who cares about behaviour, not just tickets
- Explicit decisions about what moves into Salesforce and what’s retired
- A clear definition of what “live” means and when the old way stops
That’s how adoption goes from ~20% to 85%, forecasts land within 5–10% of reality, and leaders stop building board packs in Excel.
5. What “after you fix it” actually feels like
Most clients have never experienced Salesforce working properly.
After a good fix, here’s what it feels like:
- Reps argue about deals, not admin
- Leaders stop double‑checking every number in Excel
- Ops stop being the human integration layer
- Forecasts become boringly accurate instead of guesswork
You’re using the same platform and the same headcount, but it feels like a different company.
Want a blunt view of what it would take to get there?
This is what I do at Redigitised: I help businesses turn Salesforce from an expensive address book into a resilient operating system the team actually wants to use.
If this sounds uncomfortably familiar, use the form or booking link on this page and mention “Blueprint”.
In a 15‑minute Salesforce Blueprint call we will:
- Diagnose why reps, leaders and ops avoid trusting Salesforce today
- Pinpoint the 1–2 design issues causing the most pain
- Outline what a focused 4‑week fix would look like for your team
No fluff. No 60‑page roadmap. Just a practical plan to make Salesforce worth what you’re already paying for it.