Small Business Archives - Gong

Gong gives Reachdesk the gift of alignment during rapid international growth

Hannah Hapin — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 15:05:22 +0000

Gong gives Reachdesk the gift of alignment during rapid international growth Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business North America Software The challenge Without Gong, Reachdesk’s EMEA sales teams couldn’t unearth details about which rep behaviors won deals or why customers made purchases. That led to inefficient sales practices and difficulty aligning CS, account managers, product, and marketing around the customer lifecycle. The outcome Reachdesk now uses Gong to gain valuable insights into rep and customer behaviors so they can keep global teams aligned and focus on efficient sales processes and customer lifecycles. This approach kept the sales team connected throughout a period of rapid growth. Headquarters New York, New York Founded 2018 Employees 500+ Industry Software Development If anyone knows the power of a good gift, it’s Reachdesk. Reachdesk is a global direct mail platform that helps B2B companies build deeper connections with customers through gifting. Reachdesk was listed as one of the fastest-growing software companies by G2 in 2021 and has been an established G2 category leader since. After a record year of growth and a $43M Series B in 2021, Reachdesk grew their global sales team across US and EMEA. It’s an impressive feat, but one primed with risk. Periods of major growth can bring misalignment and poor communication to globally dispersed teams, which often results in inefficient operations across the customer lifecycle. Reachdesk wanted to improve these issues prior to expansion, and was eager to solve them quickly before they became ingrained in the next growth phase. The company decided to use Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform to surface customer insights that could bolster alignment, communication, efficiency, and decision-making. Gain efficiency by aligning teams in EMEA and the US Previously, Reachdesk’s global teams lacked alignment and dealt with poor communication about customer-related issues. Today, Gong makes it easy for the EMEA sales team to stay aligned with their global counterparts and share lessons learned across CS, marketing, and product teams around the world, at any point in time. They often do so on the go, using Gong’s mobile app. The sales team relies heavily on Gong’s Call Libraries to bring the most effective tactics and talk tracks to everyone’s attention. Wherever they are, EMEA sales team members can contribute full calls or call snippets to best-practice Call Libraries, sharing their lessons learned for training purposes. Teams anywhere in the world can easily listen to each other’s calls, learn what works, and provide each other with feedback. “Being able to share snippets globally has been a huge benefit of using Gong,” says Alex Olley, Reachdesk’s co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer, “It has helped with my biggest pain point during this growth by getting alignment between the US and the UK teams.” This alignment has resulted in heightened training efficiency, as well as increased collaboration and consistency in messaging across the distributed teams. Spot risks and keep deals on track At one time, Reachdesk found it hard to tap into its customer interactions to determine which deals carried hidden risks. With the adoption of Gong, reps on all its global teams turned to Gong’s Deal Boards to spot warning signs and risks inside deals. Deal Boards give them the full context of a deal’s progression, so they can collaborate with AEs to address those risks and get deals back on track. Deal Boards surface risks that managers and reps would otherwise miss. Olley also wanted to know what top-performing reps did that worked. “I really wanted to solve that problem,” he said, “getting intelligence from all the reps, and particularly the top performers, so I could make sure we pushed the right talk tracks through to the rest of the team.” He wanted to know what their message adherence was like and which winning behaviors the top reps used. With Gong’s ability to analyze customer interactions and highlight what works and what doesn’t, Olley was able to get Reachdesk’s reps singing the same winning tune, wherever they worked. Today, they use Gong’s advanced visibility and smart guidance for ongoing coaching and training initiatives and keeping deal execution moving smoothly. Olley says these same deal insights are “also useful for forecasting.” Gong surfaces reliable information quickly, saving them at least two hours each week on forecasting and pipeline activities. Make data-backed decisions that get customers to say yes While his EMEA sales team grew, Olley also wanted to clarify why customers made purchases so he could base future decisions on that information. Olley says, “There are three things we now look at using Gong’s keyword trackers: customers’ use cases, the challenges they face, and what success looks like for them.” Whenever a deal closes, he gets an alert and listens to the call to further clarify why the customer said yes. This — along with Gong Insights’ analytical abilities — helps Olley and his teams make informed business decisions. Most recently, he used Gong’s initial analysis of customer interactions to update Reachdesk’s messaging and align it with their customers’ stated needs. The revenue teams also use Gong Insights to act on opportunities in the market and map their product roadmap. Gift your entire company a solution it loves Today, Reachdesk uses Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform across the entire revenue organization. Olley says, “It’s embedded into a lot of what we do as a company.” Gong supported Reachdesk through a period of rapid growth, while it cemented its sales messaging, designed efficient processes, and aligned its global teams. Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one A refined pipeline: EdgePetrol boosts their pipe feed by 300% with Gong Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa Software Khoros Keeps Managers and CSMs Accountable to Each Other With Gong Small Business Coaching Strategic Initiatives North America Software How Gong helped Docebo become an efficient revenue team Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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Shortening the time to success for new sales reps

Hannah Hapin — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 22:46:42 +0000

Shortening the time to success for new sales reps Coaching Small Business North America Media & Internet The challenge As Glacier Media began to transition to virtual work during a time of uncertainty, they lost all visibility into what their employees were working on. The outcome Glacier Media was able to successfully navigate through a time of change and uncertainty by implementing Gong. Gong’s insights and capabilities allowed the org to train, retain, and coach their sales team with data sourced from the true voice of the customer. Headquarters Vancouver, Canada Founded 1988 Employees 1000+ Industry Media & Publishing For me, Gong is more than just a coaching tool. It represents a significant change in process for Glacier Media and demonstrates our commitment to the virtual sales process. Connor Beaty Regional Digital Sales Manager Some people learn by observing. Others learn by doing. In sales, you learn from both. Learning on the job has always been part of the sales process. Reps need time to understand their product inside and out, which then allows them to develop their approach and learn how to build rapport with clients. Historically, this was called “learning on the road”: hopping on calls with other reps, joining meetings with clients, and developing a sales style over time. However, just because it’s always been that way, doesn’t mean it always has to be… I work in advertising, marketing, and media. The media industry is undergoing a transition from traditional advertising methods to a variety of digital marketing tactics that are far more complex to understand and pitch. This transition has had an incredible impact on salespeople in our industry. Regardless of where companies are in their digital evolution, the transition to a digital space is reshaping how new sales teams get off the ground. Glacier Media is in the midst of such a transformation. A Canadian-based business with long roots in the traditional media space, Glacier has since evolved into a national media house with the largest online local news network in the country, as well as a cutting-edge digital marketing agency. I’ve worked at Glacier Media for several years, starting as a sales rep with no prior industry experience. After a year, I was promoted to a sales management role, and spent the next five years managing various sales teams across the company. The traditional sales model at Glacier Media used to look very similar to other companies in the media industry: reps operated primarily in-person, knocking on doors, shaking hands, and handing out business cards, rate cards, and product samples. When it came to rep coaching, Glacier didn’t have much of a formalized structure in place. Managers would occasionally go out on calls with reps, typically jotting down notes here or there or chatting with reps about client needs and expectations. It worked well enough. When everyone shifted to virtual work, that traditional sales model went by the wayside. Even though we hadn’t needed them before, video calls suddenly became our only lifeline to customers. Management had to change its approach to coaching as well, as there was suddenly less visibility to what employees were working on than in the past. It was a time of great uncertainty and change. A New Tool to Take the Sales Team Digital Despite the upheaval, there was a silver lining. Glacier Media was already in the middle of its transition to digital marketing from traditional advertising product offerings of the past. Now we were moving our sales process from traditional to digital as well. And it was in the midst of this transition that we found a very valuable asset: Gong. The platform surfaced as a new tool to train, retain, and coach our sales representatives. I was fortunate to be one of the first people to review it, and there were a lot of “wow” factors from the start. One thing that really sparked my interest was the number of comparative stats available for every call. I liked that we could compare rep performance to hundreds of thousands of other calls at a glance and use that data to gauge our success as a team. It also had features like the ability to comment on call recordings at precise times, which represented a real evolution in coaching for me. Gong also assuaged our leadership team. With a shift to more virtual sales tactics, there was a lot of concern among management regarding what sales reps were doing with their time. How could we gauge rep activity if the sales force was working remotely 100% of the time? How could we coach and train effectively in this new environment? Gong allowed us to have more visibility into rep actions, and provided striking new ways to elevate them to success. Daniel La Porta, Glacier’s VP of Sales, was also a fan of Gong from the early days. He saw the value that coaching and training would add to the entire company, and we worked together to champion Gong with other internal stakeholders. It was one of the more straightforward deployments I’ve experienced, and it is the easiest platform to update and manager from a Product Manager level, where I now sit. Kickoff and training involved several members of Gong’s team walking reps through the software, how it worked, and how to use it for our specific use case, which stands a part from some of Gong’s other customers. The result? Some people jumped into the platform right away, but not everyone was so eager to try something new. Fostering Adoption for New and Experienced Reps Purchasing licenses for Gong indicated that Glacier Media was serious about investing in a virtual sales process, and confirmed that we were not going to go back to the way things were. Although this was a real positive note and actually a retention factor for me at Glacier, for people who had been doing sales the same way for decades, it was a giant and intimidating leap. We learned that adoption wasn’t really about Gong; it was about what Gong represents: a change in process to virtual sales. To overcome hesitancy and boost adoption, we tried several avenues, including training sessions, contests, incentives, and more. For some users, it clicked right away, and we saw an uptick in adoption as they began to see value in Gong. Eventually, we decided to focus on the people that embraced the platform and all newly hired employees, setting the expectation from the start that Gong is part of their role. Gong has totally changed the way we onboard new employees. Once I add them to the system, they immediately have access to hours of Glacier’s training material, which is important because we offer more than 45 different products and services. Historically, training reps on this large volume of offerings was a big ask for managers and new employees. However, now that we have a training folder within the Gong library, we lean heavily on it to teach new reps about our products. Not only does this resource enable new reps to start from a secure foundation of product information, but it puts time back into managers’ days because reps can access training information independently. During my early days as a sales rep, all I wanted to do was spend more time in sales settings and hear real conversations. I felt like every minute I spent in an actual sales call was worth hundreds outside of that environment. Now our reps have access to more than 2,000 call recordings, so they can hear what works and what doesn’t. I listen to new reps on a call and I think, “Wow, that sounds like me,” or just like a colleague of mine. New reps sound so professional so fast, and they espouse the value of Glacier Media’s products quickly because they can spend hours listening, watching, and putting the pieces together to find success on their own. Becoming a Better Coach I love giving feedback. I use Gong to compare statistics across all sorts of calls and drill down to offer the best feedback possible. One feature I like to highlight is the measurement of patience detected by the number of pregnant pauses between rep and client. I also leave comments at specific moments within a call, then go back to a rep with detailed examples of what they did well and where they can improve. Another great coaching feature is the scorecard. I’ve created three scorecards within the system based on the different types of calls that we conduct: exploratory, presentation, and reporting calls. These scorecards allow managers to rate our reps’ calls objectively based on certain criteria that’s approved by our VP, which provides a level of coaching consistency we’ve never had before at Glacier Media. We also use Gong to spot potential issues. We recently instructed a team member to spend more time in Gong, listening to other reps’ calls and engaging in training materials to help them get back on track. However, we didn’t see much success and weren’t sure if they had taken our direction. I looked in the system, and sure enough, they only had a few hours of activity within the platform over six weeks. This information was really helpful in informing our next steps in the 1:1 with the employee. Finally, I loved the ability to surface moments within sales calls to other areas of the organization. Rather than taking notes during a call and then relaying the relevant information to a colleague, you can insert comments at a specific moment within Gong. You can then tag the desired person in Gong, or copy a link to the relevant segment of the call, eliminating the need to rely on memory and poor translation. This feature makes Gong a valuable asset inside and outside the sales team. The Only Way Forward Is to Adapt If we had to do everything over again, we would spend more time earlier on working with the management team and the reps to introduce Gong, as opposed to focusing most attention on the reps. Adoption only works if everyone truly understands the system in place at all levels of the organization, and we have learned more and more over time that the needs of management and reps are quite different. This learning is something we’ve taken into consideration both with Gong moving forward, as well as other platform adoptions as we continue to add layers to our tech stack. My advice is this: if you receive pushback from your sales team, reinforce the benefits and persevere, trusting that your sales force will adjust over time—and will eventually benefit in spades. Gong filled our pre-existing gap around training and coaching. Today, our top salespeople are those who are leveraging new technologies and upskilling, coaching, and training themselves within Gong. For me, Gong is more than just a coaching tool. It represents a significant change in process for Glacier Media and demonstrates our commitment to the virtual sales process. It’s also a big wake-up call for organizations to not shy away from technology or adopting algorithm-based platforms. Technology is changing all organizations and industries, and sales and marketing are no exception. The tech stack will never get shorter, and if you don’t embrace it, your competitor will. Why not adjust your sales process to make everything work in your favour? Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one LinkedIn Achieves Revenue Success with Gong Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Media & Internet Drift uses Gong’s goldmine of data to increase sales productivity Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software How Tray.io’s RevOps team uses Gong to win business Enterprise Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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How Gong Helped Quinyx Digitally Transform and Scale Faster

Hannah Hapin — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 18:29:21 +0000

How Gong Helped Quinyx Digitally Transform and Scale Faster Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa Software The challenge Quinyx was making decisions without the data to back them up, and managers were spread thin trying to listen in on sales calls so they could get a more accurate picture of their pipeline. As the company scaled rapidly, these issues were scaling with them. The outcome By adopting Gong, Quinyx was given access to all the data they needed to make pivotal decisions supported by facts. They could more easily guide their growing team by coaching calls after the fact, and leaders including the CRO were able to create accurate forecasts the company could rely on. Though they’ve continued to scale at a fast pace, their win rates are up since using Gong, and every team in their 11 offices is on the same page. Learn More Headquarters Stockholm, Sweden Founded 2005 Company Size 400 Industry Technology Getting a global team on one page Workforce management tool Quinyx wanted to scale their teams faster, and get better insight into their deals. But with 11 offices across three continents, it wasn’t easy. With clients like McDonalds, IKEA, and Starbucks, salespeople needed to learn what was and wasn’t working quickly, and leadership wanted to be able to forecast with trusted data. CRO Andreas Sjölund brought Gong onboard to provide that bird’s eye view. “Prior to having Gong we had a really hard time accessing the right data to make decisions,” he says. “We wanted a way to show how we sell successfully and also use the AI to learn what’s really working and what’s not when we sell to our customers and prospects.” Since adopting Gong two years ago, making decisions that move their business forward has never been easier. The power of accurate forecasting Sometimes gathering the data you need in order to create effective and accurate forecasts can feel like a wild goose chase. You shouldn’t have to hunt down where deals are in the pipeline and where they’re likely to end in order to make the best decisions for your business. Using Gong, Sjölund and his team have access to more data than ever before and a better understanding of where deals fall in the pipeline. “I can go in and look at key deals—either read the transcript or look at the videos and really get the tone right from the customer instead of calling around to salespeople to figure out how things are going,” he says. “It’s really helping me as a CRO forecast better, which is better for the whole company.” Having a handle on pipeline means not only understanding what’s going right and what needs to change but also achieving your high-level objectives. “Keeping me up at night is our growth,” says Sjölund. “We’ve been growing year over year 50%, so it’s all about how we can scale, get bigger deals, more deals, faster.” Gong also helped Quinyx successfully implement MEDPICC. Since using Gong, forecasts are trending up, despite challenging market conditions. At a time when most companies are doing what they can to weather the storm, Quinyx increased their deal size (ACV) by an incredible 50% and their win rates by 2%, significantly impacting their bottom line. “We’ve seen great improvements after implementing Gong,” says Sjölund. Let the voice of the customer be heard As a business, understanding the true voice of the customer is one of the most integral parts of sales and marketing. Nothing is more clear than a customer’s feedback in their own words. But who has the time to sit in on sales calls all day, especially when those calls cross three time zones? “What Gong has helped us with is giving me and our sales leaders the opportunity not to have to be in each meeting,” says Sjölund. And this benefit of Gong has been beneficial across Quinyx’s departments, helping not only the Sales team but Product, R+D, and Marketing as well. “It’s a benefit for any department to hear from the customers themselves what they’re looking for,” says Sjölund. For example, the marketing department can take a look at trending words in different markets and use that data to inform their next campaign, and the product team can improve their roadmap. Gong also helps Quinyx’s sales team take the “voice of the customer” literally. “Usually as a salesperson, one of the biggest mistakes is speaking too much,” says Sjölund. “One feature of Gong I’m almost addicted to is the Deal Overview, where you can see how much your team is interacting with the customer and how much they’re interacting with you. It gives you a great overview of where you are in the deal cycle, and you can see if it’s about to close or not.” Having the resources you need to really listen when your customer is speaking—and then being able to share snippets of your learnings to any department that could benefit—is what being customer-centric is all about. Onboarding and acquiring made easy With over 400 employees serving 11,000 customers, there’s a lot to learn when onboarding at Quinyx. Sjölund and his team believe that watching real customer calls is the key to success. “You don’t need to sit in on a lot of sales meetings at the beginning, but learning from hearing what the customer’s saying is the best way to learn,” he says. “So we created different folders in Gong where we keep sales calls we want new employees to look at. It’s really helped to get all the customer meetings in one place and make it really easy for new salespeople being onboarded.” Once onboarded and beginning their own sales calls, Gong also helps with coaching by giving leaders an eye into a salesperson’s process and making it easy to provide feedback. “The way I use Gong is I listen to it every morning, on the way to work or to the gym, so I get a feel for the meetings the previous day,” says Sjölund. “Then I give feedback right in the call, either in notes or with the microphone functionality. It really gives me better insight into the deal, and it also helps with coaching.” Quinyx acquired two other companies in the last year, which required not only a wave of onboarding needs but also an integration of systems and processes. When everything is scattered across multiple platforms, getting on the same page takes longer, slowing down your growth. But using Gong meant that every acquired employee and process was centralized, minimizing overlap and confusion. “Gong has really helped us with our digital transformation,” says Sjölund. “We can see everything in one place, so it’s been a great help for us to transform faster as a company.” Scaling sustainably all comes down to having the right data to help you make informed decisions. “By getting this info I can share it with other parts of the organization that helps with winning the deal faster,” says Sjölund. Revenue intelligence helps teams by getting them better data so they can scale faster—all while giving leaders the control they need to focus on steering the ship. “We now have control over our deals, over our forecasts, and I know we’re selling Quinyx the right way.” “Gong is making me sleep better at night.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one TouchBistro gains next level sales insights with Gong for deals Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software How Gong helped Docebo become an efficient revenue team Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software TIBCO has Mastered the Art of Closing Huge Deals Faster, Thanks to Gong Enterprise Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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How Gong got every Pigment Department on the same team

Hannah Hapin — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 20:44:32 +0000

How Gong got every Pigment Department on the same team Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa Software The challenge After a period of hypergrowth—7x in one year—Pigment needed a new way to get teams on the same page in order to better communicate the kind of messaging that led to real impact. This meant learning to collect and share information more efficiently, onboarding employees in the most effective way, and leveraging insights to make business decisions that met the customer where they were. The outcome Adopting Gong has meant bringing disparate teams onto one level playing field. Information is easily shared across departments, teams that aren’t customer-facing have a direct line to the customer voice, and the company can make more accurate forecasts and coach their teams to win deals. Watch the video Headquarters Paris, France Founded 2019 Employees 200 Industry Technology We can’t see a future without having Gong anymore. For our company it would be the same as having our CRM in Excel. Alexis Valentin Head of BDR, Pigment Tools that get you closer to the customer Pigment is a business planning platform for Finance, Sales and HR teams that’s rapidly scaled since their inception in 2019. Every team, from Sales, to Marketing, to Product was in need of a way to better communicate relevant messaging in order to make business decisions that were based on real customer feedback. “One of our values at Pigment is ‘go direct and to thrive together,’ and I really see Gong as a way to bring people together and to be more customer-obsessed,” says Pigment’s Head of Business, Julien Lesaicherre. “Gong definitely helped to accelerate this change in the organization.” From onboarding, to forecasting, to communicating across departments, here’s how Gong helped change the way Pigment works for the better. Building a collective memory Creating transparency between teams is one of the keys to maximizing feedback and creating a more seamless customer experience. “In the old days, we would waste a lot of time asking people questions, collecting information, trying to make sense out of the information,” says Lesaicherre. Moving all teams onto one platform made sharing information easy and natural, and each team could get what was needed from a call or a product demo to move forward with their goals. “With one way of doing things, we can move faster to execution,” he says. Creating a collective memory for the entire company to work with doesn’t just improve internal relationships, it makes work more productive and more relevant and keeps everyone aligned with the needs of the customer. “It has really helped us close the gap between our internal teams—we got closer to sales, closer to Customer Success, to our BDRs, to our Account Executives,” says Regina Croda, Head of Product Marketing. And because adoption was swift across the board, transparency increased right away. “I knew that Gong was working well for us when people started tagging me on things they thought I might be interested in listening to without me explicitly asking,” she says. “Everybody across the organization started better understanding what our company’s priorities were.” Alexis Valentin, Pigment’s Head of BDR sums it up nicely: “It gives a chance to non-customer-facing employees to really understand how people use our product and what they expect from such a tool. I think you know a tool works well when you get requests from different teams to access the platform, even if you didn’t think of giving them access in the first place.” Getting a reality check With the voice of the customer now moving freely between teams, Pigment was able to plan with greater accuracy and prioritize the voice of the customer. “We know the reps don’t always have time to capture everything because they should really focus and interact with their customers as much as they can during a call.” said Valentin. Because reps and managers can use Gong to review calls, all the data you could collect is available to anyone who wants to listen in. “We are now capable of capturing market signals that are not possible to capture by humans at scale,” says Valentin. For the marketing team, Gong was an effective tool in helping them pressure-check their messaging. “It really allowed us to have a reality check,” says Croda. “Our ambitions are really large but we also need to meet buyers where they are. You have to move fast to be able to bring that signal that you’re hearing directly from your customer base, and utilize that to advance faster in business and product goals.” From supporting marketing efforts to influencing the product roadmap, Gong provided a single source of truth that always keeps the customer at the center and business decisions grounded in reality. Onboarding many teams onto one page In the last year, Pigment experienced multi-fold revenue growth, and with that kind of growth comes the need for change. “One of them was the challenge that comes with bringing the best people in and making sure they’re onboarded in the right way,” says Lesaicherre. “Gong is actually a fantastic solution for that as you can learn about your own mistakes and wins, but you can also learn from all the people around,” he says. “Each time they have a meeting it’s like you’re sitting next to them, even if you’re not actually in the meeting, which is an increased value, especially for new joiners.” Pigment uses Gong to create a directory of the best calls and demos so new hires from any department can access real-life relevant examples, make comments, and get answers to their questions in a self-serve way. The method has proven invaluable to Pigment’s onboarding process. “Metric-wise, I can see a direct correlation in terms of Gong usage and adoption,” says Valentin. “That is, a correlation between people who watch Gong videos in the first 90 days and their performance as a new joiner—it’s incredible. They are just learning faster than the others and can deliver above expectations.” When a tool exists to serve many teams, it not only brings departments together, it clarifies purpose, goals, and future plans. “Gong is clearly the crossroads of many teams,” says Lesaicherre. “At the end of the day, it’s all about the customer, it’s all about the product, it’s all about how we can help them to fix those issues.” “It’s not the sales topic. It’s a company topic.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one How Tinuiti Used Gong to Close 50% More Recurring Revenue from Cross-selling Small Business Coaching Strategic Initiatives North America Software Drift uses Gong’s goldmine of data to increase sales productivity Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software Khoros Keeps Managers and CSMs Accountable to Each Other With Gong Small Business Coaching Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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Hello, new reality: How WalkMe uses Gong to add visibility around their deals

Hannah Hapin — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 08:40:56 +0000

Hello, new reality: How WalkMe uses Gong to add visibility around their deals Deal Execution Small Business North America Software The challenge WalkMe wanted to get visibility around their deals in the remote-first environment unique to 2020. The outcome Gong provided WalkMe with an additional level of visibility and assurance that the company’s AEs are doing what they’re telling their leadership team and that they’re still providing best practices to customers. Watch video Headquarters San Francisco, CA Founded 2011 Employees 860+ Industry Digital Adoption Software WalkMe was founded in 2011 as a guidance and navigation tool and has since grown rapidly to meet the enormous demand for next-generation digital learning. And then suddenly in 2020 — much of the world was forced into a remote work environment due to a global pandemic — and WalkMe was no exception. Regarding the big shift, Aliisa Rosenthal, VP of Sales at WalkMe admitted that initially she “didn’t feel as looped into the deals” as she normally did. The remedy? “I actually found Gong’s new Deals feature really helpful for that.” “I’m using Gong from a pipeline perspective, primarily using the Deals tab. It’s how I started my morning probably every day for the last week leading up to the end of the quarter— just opening up deals,” shared Aliisa, “Now that we’re remote, Gong has provided me with an additional level of visibility and comfort that my AEs are doing what they’re telling me and that we’re still providing best practices to our customers.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Shopify Creates a Learning Environment For Their Sales Team Enterprise Coaching Software Intelex enhances onboarding and collaboration to strengthen sales strategy Small Business Coaching Deal Execution North America Software Plate IQ shrinks ramp-up time from a year to a few weeks Small Business Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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Hello, new reality: How Gong helps Zappi focus and forecast during an uncertain time

Hannah Hapin — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 08:19:20 +0000

Hello, new reality: How Gong helps Zappi focus and forecast during an uncertain time Deal Execution Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa Software The challenge With the 2020 global pandemic plunging the economy into uncertainty, Zappi wanted to ensure that they were forecasting accurately and focusing on the right deals. The outcome Gong helped Zappi give their pipeline a haircut where it was “happy ears,” so that they could prioritize the most impactful deals. Watch video Headquarters London, United Kingdom Founded 2013 Employees ~200 Website www.zappi.io Industry Consumer Testing “It’s not like you learn how to plan for a pandemic in business school,” quips Ryan Barry, the Chief Revenue Officer of Zappi, a company that helps organizations run consumer testing through all stages of advertising and innovation development. With the market being turned inside-out due to the Coronavirus, Ryan wanted to understand the health of his pipeline and the potential impact to the business … and he wanted to do it fast, as the quarter was almost over. “I just think so much time is wasted in deal management on just getting up to speed,” Ryan points out, “If we could spend our entire time being all up-to-speed — then we’re spending our entire time moving the needle and coaching our people — which is what we need to be doing as sales leaders.” By using Gong, Ryan was able to give his sales team’s “pipeline a haircut — where it was happy ears” in a much quicker way than if he had exported spreadsheets from his CRM or messaged his sales people individually. By quarter-end, Ryan was satisfied with the clarity that Gong’s Deal Intelligence capabilities were able to provide. “Gong has helped me create context for my organization of what matters to our customers and [has shown] what’s actually happening in the marketplace.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Shortening the time to success for new sales reps Small Business Coaching North America Media & Internet How Highspot Adopted a New Sales Methodology Using Gong Small Business Coaching Strategic Initiatives Software Gainsight’s CEO uses Gong to better understand the true market Small Business Coaching Global Software

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Hello, new reality: How Gong helps Apptio keep their field sales team engaged

Hannah Hapin — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 08:12:22 +0000

Hello, new reality: How Gong helps Apptio keep their field sales team engaged Coaching Deal Execution Small Business North America Software The challenge With the 2020 global pandemic forcing everyone to work remotely, Apptio sought to keep their field sales team engaged as they adjusted to an inside sales structure. The outcome Gong gave Apptio the ability to coach their teams and to re-circulate best practice to reps in spite of the adjustment to a remote work environment. Watch video Headquarters Bellevue, WA Founded 2007 Employees 1,100+ Website www.apptio.com Industry Cloud-based applications “I think one of the hardest things about having entirely remote sales force is it’s hard to maintain that sense of peer sharing and camaraderie,” admitted Mitchell Matsuo, a Revenue Enablement Consultant at Apptio. Apptio is a software company that is purpose-built to help organizations cut costs, budget faster, and forecast continuously. While it already had a great system in place for remote employees, the global pandemic of 2020 made things more challenging. Apptio’s field sales teams, accustomed to traveling to customer sites, had been forced to truly work remotely. However, Apptio was able to better adjust by leveraging several features in the Gong platform, including comments, snippets, and the activity tab. While the year has certainly been a rollercoaster, Mitchell is glad he has Gong to help out his team. “Gong is hands down the quantum leap in sales enablement. It’s the ability to identify the best practice. It’s the ability to identify room for coaching. And it’s the ability to re-circulate best practice to reps who need it the most.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Impact Cultivates a Sales Culture of Collaboration and Improvement Small Business Coaching Global Software How Gong Insights Helped Workato Pivot During COVID-19 and Hit 102% of Plan Small Business Strategic Initiatives North America Software Gong for CS? Appen wants it. Loves it. Needs it. Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Asia-Pacific North America Business Services

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Unlocking reality: Cognism improves org-wide visibility using Gong

Hannah Hapin — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 07:55:53 +0000

Unlocking reality: Cognism improves org-wide visibility using Gong Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business Europe/Middle East/Africa Software The challenge Without visibility into customer conversations, Cognism missed out on valuable insights that could improve onboarding, coaching, up-skilling, and close rates. The outcome Gong’s platform gave the company the data it needed to improve everything from its product and messaging to close rates and customer success. Having access to calls — the most important part of any deal — improved Cognism’s processes across departments. Download PDF Headquarters London, UK Founded 2015 Company Size 201-500 Industry Computer Software I think that with remote work, platforms like Gong are really, really important for sharing, collaborating, and getting visibility into discussions. Jonathon Ilett Global Head of Sales at Cognism Keep your eyes on the prize (and ground) Visibility is becoming increasingly important to people like Jonathon Ilett and his team at Cognism. The fast-growing company, headquartered in London, UK, specialises in global sales intelligence, helping customers identify and surface new prospects. It was named one of LinkedIn’s top startups of 2021. Having eyes on the ground (i.e., the frontlines) across his own distributed workforce has been key to improving his team’s sales techniques and broadening everyone’s knowledge base across the customer journey. Jonathon needed to ensure that his reps followed approved processes and that every opportunity he had for coaching would, in fact, improve their close rates. Launch a transformational tool “Gong initially started as a sales technology for us,” says Jonathon, “and now it’s an organisational technology that has an impact on multiple departments.” Throughout the pandemic, technologies that enabled collaboration replaced face-to-face interactions. Once the team saw how well Gong integrated throughout Cognism’s entire organisation, it found a permanent place in the company’s sales processes. According to Jonathon, “It’s changed our messaging, improved products, and helped with customer success. Even if things go back to normal and field sales become standard again, I really think that software like Gong will play a massive role in the future of sales.” Discover reality-based insights for coaching, onboarding, and rolling out strategic initiatives So, how does Cognism use Gong to improve performance of its distributed team? Namely, it improves coaching for reps. That’s only possible because Jonathon has reality-based (not opinion-based) insights from what’s happening on reps’ calls. Gong captures actual customer interactions and analyzes them to provide insights, rather than relying on hearsay from the reps themselves. He has the team do a weekly core review in which they select a call from a rep and offer up positive feedback as well as notes for improvement. Obviously, the benefit is that the top reps can suggest best practices. The role Gong plays in this process is in selecting the right calls for review — ones that include a topic with which a rep (or multiple reps) struggle. Gong acts as a filtering system that makes the most important calls and issues visible. That might mean selecting a call that highlights objection handling, or one that focuses on pricing discussions. For Jonathon’s part, he can also track high-priority calls to improve how he coaches on them. If he’s focused on improving win rates in competitive deals, for example, he can track relevant calls using Gong’s alert notifications, learn what works (and what doesn’t), and coach his reps accordingly. He can also sift through closed deals where a competitor was mentioned in the deal cycle, to look for trends in those calls and their talk tracks. He takes specific lessons from these deals and turns them into actionable coaching opportunities for his reps. “You can really find and dissect calls that you might otherwise lose. And you have such limited time with the team, so making sure you select the right calls, ones that will up-skill your team, is huge. Gong plays a really, really key part in that.” Just like coaching, onboarding and ongoing training on strategic initiatives can make or break a sales rep’s effectiveness. You need to know that your onboarding or new message training worked, so you can trust reps to deliver your story and messaging appropriately. “We want to make sure that what we preach to the reps lands in terms of training, narratives around battle cards, product positioning, and the product itself. We need to know they have the correct demo flow,” says Jonathon. Gong gives Cognism the clarity it needs to make sure reps follow the proper processes and use the right messaging. Being able to filter calls, find coachable moments, and act on them using Gong data makes onboarding and subsequent training on new initiatives fast and easy. Product marketing and sales enablement can also easily access insights into what’s being adopted, what lands well in the market, and what doesn’t work for customers and prospects. It’s an across-the-board solution that aligns your sales and go-to-market teams and gives them new information on a regular basis. Improve deal execution with automated intelligence “Gong’s now integral to a lot of the processes we have in place for sales,” says Jonathon. The sales team at Cognism quickly realised that leveraging Gong to get data-backed insights and actionable next steps from sales calls made it easier to understand why some deals closed and others didn’t. Today, that means Jonathon can coach on deals that are at risk and stop others from going sideways in the first place. It makes deal execution easier across his entire pipeline. Jonathon isn’t alone when he laments the fact that, “Prior to having a solution like Gong, we relied on data inputted by reps and customer success managers to determine the fate of opportunities and potential renewal. Having a platform that lets us dig into calls right away or at a later date, means we can act quickly when it’s needed or reflect on an issue over the long term. It means I have better and more relevant discussions with my reps. That was the first reason we decided to adopt Revenue Intelligence.” Align your teams around customer interactions Gong hasn’t just helped Cognism’s sales team, it’s boosted the entire organisation. As Jonathon puts it, “The juicy stuff is in the conversations. Marketing and customer success now have access to all our sales calls, and we can easily share snippets from important calls. They can really see what resonates with our prospects, where their challenges are, and what the market’s asking for.” That ability to discern the true voice of the customer improves the customer journey, and that boosts customer loyalty and revenue. Jonathon’s experience reflects that of so many sales leaders: “Before, there was no real visibility into conversations that had taken place. Why did someone actually purchase from us? What problems did they really want to address? Now that the customer success team is on Gong, we know that when we sign a client, we’ve got a catalog of all the conversations that took place with their sales rep. CS doesn’t have to ask the customer to repeat their entire story, because the person assigned to that account already knows the backstory. The buyer experience has been a lot better since we adopted Gong.” Next steps (They’re big.) With Gong now providing reality-based insights, time-saving automation, and a renewed sense of alignment, the sky’s the limit for Cognism. Cognism’s teams are refining their messaging, planning further product developments, improving customer experiences, and more, all with the help of insights from its sales team’s customer interactions. Rapid growth is in full swing at Cognism. The Gong team couldn’t be more excited to smooth the path ahead to keep their teams and customers connected. Learn more about Gong here. Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Reality-based forecasts: Faster, smarter, more aligned Small Business Deal Execution North America Software Sky’s the limit: How corporate traveler uses Gong to refine their customer journey Enterprise Strategic Initiatives Global Hospitality Egnyte Streamlines Customer Success Management Small Business Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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TouchBistro gains next level sales insights with Gong for deals

Hannah Hapin — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 07:44:08 +0000

TouchBistro gains next level sales insights with Gong for deals Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Small Business North America Software The challenge TouchBistro wanted a solution that could help them coach and provide great feedback to enable reps to be better. They were also searching for an AI-driven solution that would help surface trends and other elements in calls. The outcome By using Gong to enhance their sales processes, TouchBistro gained a dramatic lift in their lead-to-opportunity conversion rate and improved their attainment rate for reps. Watch video Headquarters Toronto, ON Founded 2010 Employees 500+ Industry Restaurant Software TouchBistro is an iPad POS and integrated payments solution built for restaurant people, by restaurant people – with every feature designed to meet the unique needs and fast pace of the foodservice industry. Used in more than 100 countries, TouchBistro has powered over 25,000 restaurants worldwide. They were experiencing a “black box of selling” in which they didn’t have any clarity around their sales process — what was working or not, or what they could focus on to optimize messaging. Paul Snelson, TouchBistro’s VP of Sales, wanted to turn things around, and ultimately selected Gong for a “coaching-first approach.” After making the most out of several of Gong’s features, such as trackers, topics, and libraries, what really provided Paul with “next level insights for sales and sales managers” is Gong’s Deal Intelligence. “Deal Intelligence has been completely game-changing for us to be able to get the view of pipeline and activities,” he shares, and is proud to state that TouchBistro has seen “a dramatic lift in our lead to opportunity conversion rate” and “consistent improvement in our attainment rate for all the reps.” Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one Unlocking reality: Cognism improves org-wide visibility using Gong Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa Software How Gong Became Diligent’s MVP by Increasing Close Rates by 7.4% Enterprise Coaching Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa North America Software Plate IQ shrinks ramp-up time from a year to a few weeks Small Business Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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Plate IQ shrinks ramp-up time from a year to a few weeks

Hannah Hapin — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 07:21:52 +0000

Plate IQ shrinks ramp-up time from a year to a few weeks Strategic Initiatives Small Business North America Software The challenge Having a complex solution can be a challenge for rep onboarding because they need to be armed with extensive product and industry knowledge. Plate IQ wanted to improve the onboarding process to decrease ramp-up time for new hires in the sales team. The outcome By using Gong, ramp-up time decreased from 6-12 months to just a few weeks. Another unexpected bonus for Plate IQ was that by listening to Gong calls, they were able to uncover that customers wanted a particular feature that wasn’t currently available — which in turn transformed the direction of the product roadmap. Download PDF Headquarters Emeryville, CA Founded 2014 Employees 80+ Industry Restaurant Software Gong reduced the ramp-up time from 6-12 months to a few weeks. Greg Alpatov Director of Sales Plate IQ is restaurant Accounts Payable made easy. Its technology saves customers time and money by managing invoices, vendor payments, and cost reporting. From a year to a few weeks Plate IQ, by its own admission, sells a pretty complex solution. Their powerful technology is not something any account executive could pick up from day one and just comprehend entirely. There’s a lot of product and industry knowledge that needs to be learned and absorbed. In order to fully understand the product and successfully manage a pipeline, Plate IQ salespeople need to appreciate the infrastructure of where its platform lives in the marketplace. This complexity and need for deep product and industry know-how mean longer than average ramp-up time for new salespeople. More often than not, it takes even a very experienced, senior account executive a minimum of 6 months, yet often closer to a year, before they start performing at their optimum level. This six to twelve-month sales rep ramp time was pre-Gong. Everything changed for Plate IQ in the post-Gong world. That’s a game-changer. “I have two reps who are a month on the job (not 6 months, not a year, but a MONTH) and they are already closing mid-market deals … which is insane,” Greg (rightfully) boasted. An exponentially faster call review process The pre-Gong rep process went something like this: STEP ONE: Reps would make notes about competitor mentionsSTEP TWO: Sales managers would manually look at all of the call notesSTEP THREE: In some cases — if the call was recorded — they would listen to the entire call. As Greg shared, the process was “not quite optimal,” but it’s really all they knew. “We could not even fathom a technology like Gong actually existed.” But, it did — and, it does. Enter Gong. “I now have a greater reach. I don’t have to listen to an entire hour-long demo. With Gong, I just listen to the pieces that matter. Or, better yet, I can set up certain triggers for each rep, so I can determine what I need to hear and how they’re handling each call.” But it’s not just the time saved listening to the actual demo, says Greg. Pre-Gong, sales managers would spend a few hours reviewing the call, taking notes, and timestamping everything. Now, the process is 10-20 minutes all in. To recap: Hours and hours of (wasted) time is now 10-20 minutes of specific, relevant time. That’s a heckuva lot of time saved! And in sales, time = money. Not just for sales: Gong also helps product team When Plate IQ originally purchased Gong, it was to help with sales — specifically shorten rep ramp-up time and make them more efficient salespeople. An unforeseen benefit has been other team’s ability to leverage Gong — specifically, the product and engineering teams. Engineers can now quickly and efficiently search in Gong for a particular topic. In the past, they’d have to listen to and transcribe hundreds of calls in hopes they found the information they were looking for. “Thanks to Gong, we have completely pivoted our future product planning approach based on the information that we learned from the platform. We’ve changed our direction because of the rich Gong data we see each and every day.” Case in point: Plate IQ was digging through some Gong data and noticed “expense reporting” — a feature they did not have — was mentioned by buyers “726 times out of 900 calls” (over 80% of the time!). This was not an anomaly. This was not a one-off. This was the real deal. As a result of this rich Gong data, Plate IQ is now building an expense reporting product. “This product is literally going to be the future of our company,” said Greg. A whole lot of winning “Gong is hands down the most valuable piece of technology we’ve ever bought as a company,” says Greg. He continued, “It feels like we are a part of your company — almost like we’re a part of your success — every time Gong wins, it’s almost like we’re winning.” Well, Greg, we plan on doing a lot more winning in the years to come. And, like Plate IQ, we hope our success translates to our customer’s success. Back to All Stories Have questions or want a custom demo? We’re here to help! Click the button below and we’ll be in touch. Request demo Keep exploring stories like this one How Gong got every Pigment Department on the same team Small Business Coaching Deal Execution Strategic Initiatives Europe/Middle East/Africa Software Leveraging Revenue Intelligence to Drive Conversions and Build a Growth Mindset Small Business Coaching North America Software How Gong Insights Helped Workato Pivot During COVID-19 and Hit 102% of Plan Small Business Strategic Initiatives North America Software

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