Many New Year’s resolutions are centered around our health and fitness. Health is so easily neglected when we are constantly on-the-go trying to achieve our operational goals or reacting to events that come up. By prioritizing your system’s health, you can improve your performance, become resilient to threats, and recover faster when there are snafus. 

Use something like Security Health Check, which is provided with out-of-box Salesforce tools. Security Health Check allows you to visualize whether your organization is meeting security standards. The health of your security is expressed as a summary score which shows how your organization measures against a security baseline. 

Doing one check isn’t enough to sustain you for the year. These checks should be conducted regularly, so we recommend using the New Year to strategize, standardize and communicate/report your security health plan. In addition to defining a schedule and staff to address security checks, review the baselines your organization uses. Make sure you are using security standards that are relevant to your organization, instead of using default Salesforce recommended standards. For example, if you’re a financial industry business, you can create a custom security baseline using FINRA standards. 

Additionally, CRMD is always available to offer clients a detailed Health Check service. We are, afterall, CRM doctors. 😉 

Perhaps in the past year, you were contemplating making a big solutions or workflow change? For example, we see many organizations still on the fence about migrating to Lightning. Or, even with Lightning enabled, they may find that their users are still toggling back to Classic for one reason or another. 

We know adopting new technology or updating systems can be tough. They alter the routine and tools of employees. Technical risks have to be mitigated, while plans for training and communications have to be devised. It’s a lot. But, with new features, comes the opportunity to regain a new perspective and directly address friction points that you just accepted as status quo. Make the time to reflect and update, and you will naturally reap the benefits of new features that you may not have even imagined, such as improved interfaces, speed, more automation, user-oriented reporting, and centralization. 

Without making these bold moves, your organization may risk the forgoing innovation and also rolling over last years issues to the new year. Luckily, Salesforce provides reports to help improve adoption for users for their solutions, and we are also always available for consultation on implementation.

Send a new years greeting to your Salesforce userbase! But, before you do, consider who makes up your userbase. Salesforce is not just for sales teams. Customer service, client success, marketing, branding, many departments can leverage the tools offered by Salesforce. Even if you may not be using department-specific solutions (e.g. Service Cloud, Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud), take a moment to figure out if you may have left out any key stakeholders who would find Salesforce valuable to their work. Even if they don’t use it day-to-day,  stakeholders are people who have a vested interest and process in Salesforce.

Devise a strategy and implementation plan for who should receive which communications. Content for these communications could include feedback from users, demos, upcoming business or process changes and identified areas for improvement. Then, send out calendar invites to meet monthly with these Salesforce stakeholders. Nothing is better than starting off a brand new year with everyone working from a singular hub that enables them to have a 360° view of the business. Let’s make 2020 a silo-free year!

Invest in your organization by investing in your Salesforce users. Encourage them to get certified in Salesforce. Not only will they take away more skills to improve and innovate their work, helping employees feel empowered through education and certification can be essential to morale. By helping recognize an employee for the expertise they have in their role, you are creating an opportunity to appreciate, value, and engage them.

There are over 25 different certifications across 6 roles, or certification tracks: administrators, developers, consultants, specialists, app builders, architects. There are plenty of blogs, trails, study groups and resources to help Salesforce users on their journey to achieving certification.

Create a culture that values continual growth and that rewards employees who seek to advance. This may mean creating visible posters or sending out frequent messages that encourage employees to pursue certificate. At the least, make sure to publicly recognize employees who earn Salesforce certifications. This will help to demonstrate how much the organization values learning, while truly celebrating the employee and providing their colleagues an opportunity to congratulate them for their efforts. If you do not already, consider reimbursing individuals for the time they take to study Salesforce materials or providing incentives for obtaining Salesforce certifications. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, consider giving as part of a way to observe the holiday season. Erich Fromm, author of The Art of Loving, wrote “Giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power.” By recognizing you and your organization’s ability to give, you are admitting to the fact that you have a tremendous capacity — knowledge and expertise, resources and ability, and compassion and big-picture thinking.

At CRMD, we are proud to serve non-profits and help them achieve their goals to ultimately improve the lives of people. From fundraising and donation systems to constituent and volunteer management, CRMD is ready, willing and able to work with non-profits who are looking to make a bigger impact with Salesforce CRM. We make sure to identify unique needs and provide the resources to set a non-profit up for success, including staff training, 24/7 urgent support and dedicated success managers.

Nonprofits and charities, both abroad and local, are seeking volunteers who have Salesforce skills. If you are looking for a way to practice your skills or build a project portfolio, serving these volunteer opportunities may be just the way to do it. You can find opportunities on sites like www.volunteermatch.org, www.linkedin.com/jobs and your local Trailblazer Groups.

If you want to take a play out of Salesforce.org’s playbook, you can consider pledges that formalize organizational giving. Pledge 1% invites entrepreneurs and organizations to commit their product, time, and resources to support integrating philanthropy into their business from an early stage. CRMD also follows the 1:1:1 model – we donate 1% of profit, 1% of services, and 1% of our time to charitable causes. Any effort to give is a success in itself!

We wish you health, growth and happiness in the new year!