Our company had just spent $50 million on a new CRM system that needed to roll out to over 500 locations across the US and Canada. They put together a training team. I came from a background of web design, and I have always been drawn to technology.
After two weeks of intensive training on the rollout process, I hit the road. Five weeks on, one week off, training teams at locations across the country. When I finally came home for my recovery week, I walked into my home market expecting to see the software in action.
Instead, two of my location managers were in tears.
They Were Not Frustrated. They Were Defeated.
These were smart, experienced managers. They had been running their locations successfully for years. They used to come in, hang their hat, and get to work. They knew their routines. Their locations hummed.
Now they were spending their days fighting a system that was supposed to help them. They could not figure it out. And they felt like they had failed.
I was genuinely in shock. This was the same system I had been trained to roll out. The same $50 million investment the entire company was counting on. And these two managers, who were capable of anything in their old workflow, were sitting in front of me completely overwhelmed.
I realized the training I had been given was built around the software's features, not around the people using it. It taught each component separately: how to take inventory, how to run reports, how to make calls. But it never showed them how to use the system as a whole to do what they already did every day. It was like handing someone a box of engine parts and expecting them to drive.
The Learn It, See It, Do It, Teach It Method
That week was supposed to be recovery. Instead, I was grateful for the time. I spent it at one of our locations, working side by side with the team. Watching where they got stuck. Listening to what was actually hard for them. Not what I assumed was hard. What they told me.
And then I rebuilt the entire training approach.
- Learn It: Center directors had already gone through the lessons on their own before I arrived.
- See It: When I got to the new center, I logged into the previous center's CRM and called that center director on the phone. They walked my new center director through live CRM tasks: inventory, daily calls, basic center operations. My new director could see everything happening because I was logged into the previous location's system. My new director could also ask the previous director direct questions about their own experience with the new CRM: what they had been worried about, how they felt about it now, what had actually changed. Hearing honest answers bolstered my new director's confidence and got them excited about the system.
- Do It: My new center director then worked through those same tasks themselves in their own CRM while I was there to help them through it.
- Teach It: When I moved on to the next location, I called back, and the director I had just trained was the one walking the new center director through the CRM on the phone.
We were trained to go in, set everything up, and leave, which left center directors without a real handle on the CRM after we were gone. The Teach It step was what really cemented it: once a director had to walk the next one through the CRM, they owned it. In the locations I trained this way, the center director often became their market's CRM point of contact afterward.
Instead of teaching each feature as a separate module, I created a training that showed the team how to use the system as a whole. I walked them through their actual day: here is how you open up in the morning, here is how you check inventory, here is how you pull your reports, here is how you make your calls. The same workflow they had been doing for years, just in the new system. Everything they used to do that made their locations run smoothly, they could now do more easily and with better results.
The difference was not about which buttons to click. It was about showing them: you already know how to do this job. This system just gives you a better way to do it.
Stories Did More Than Any Feature Demo Ever Could
When I walked into a new location and saw that familiar look of dread, I would say something like: "I was just at a location where the manager felt exactly the way you do right now. She was overwhelmed. By the end of the week, she was the person everyone in her market called when they had questions about the system."
That one story opened more minds than any feature walkthrough ever could. Because now it was not me telling them how to feel. It was me saying: you are not alone in this, and the person who felt this way before you ended up in a really good place.
I layered stories throughout every session. Not just one opening story. Stories about how another location handled inventory. Stories about how a different team streamlined their outbound calls. Stories about scheduling, ordering, reporting. Real examples from real locations. Constantly reinforcing: other people figured this out. And so will you.
The people who started out the most afraid ended up being the strongest advocates. They became the go-to resource in their market. Other managers would call them when they had questions because they had grasped the system so well.
Training Is Sales. It Always Has Been.
I have been in sales my entire career. And training people on new technology uses the exact same skill set.
- Find out what they need. Not what you think they need.
- Speak their language.
- Meet resistance with empathy.
- Make them the expert.
This Is Exactly What Companies Need Right Now With AI
The CRM rollout pattern is identical to what is happening in companies right now with AI adoption.
Teams are afraid. People who have been doing their jobs well for years are being told that everything is about to change. Some of them are excited. A lot of them are not. And some of them are quietly worried that this new technology might replace them entirely. In my experience, the opposite is true: AI does not take work away. It lets people create more, produce more, and focus on the parts of their job that actually matter.
But that message does not land from a slide deck. It lands from someone who slows down and works through it with them, understands their workflow, listens to their concerns, and shows them how AI fits into what they already do.
The gap is not the technology. It is the translation. Someone has to take what the tool can do and make it make sense for the person using it. That requires understanding both sides: the technology and the human.
Find out what drives the person. Understand where the resistance is coming from. Speak their language. And hand them the outcome.