What Is Sales Automation? And How To Win With Gong Assist
“Adapt or die.”
In the 2011 movie Moneyball, Oakland A’s manager, Billy Bean, tells his lead baseball scout (a 29-year veteran in the industry) to “adapt or die.”
The scout complained that Bean was “discounting what scouts had done for 150 years” in favor of a “kid who has an economics degree from Yale.”
Bean, ahead of his time, tossed his hands in the air and told the scout to “adapt or die.”
Automation is not a new phenomenon. Hardly.
In the sales world, automation comes in many forms — emails that trigger once a prospect clicks a link, a Slack notification that fires off when some status changes or a signed copy of a contract generated when a deal closes.
This article will explore sales automation, specifically focusing on how Gong Assist sales automation software product will help you win more and more often.
What is Gong’s Sales Automation?
First, what is sales automation? Automation rules make something happen automatically, so you don’t have to work too hard.
At Gong we have a lot of automations, check out the full list of sales automations here to see how Gong can connect data from critical revenue systems — automatically.
Using Gong, you can:
- Send data using webhooks
- Send data via Zapier to supported applications
- Automatically log and record calls in Salesforce
From there, we rely on our integration partners to do what they do best.
>> Seismic so that calls and enablement materials are all found in one place, associated with CRM
>> Vidyard to get more deals over the finish line with video
>> Proposify for more visibility into sales documents when they are
And Google Workspace and HubSpot CRM and Salesforce and Slack and Zoom — the list goes on (and on and on… and grows every day!)
What is Gong Assist?
In early 2022, we introduced Gong Assist to help increase productivity through automated task management, i.e. sales automation.
Gong aids productivity by recommending actions that help teams focus on critical, revenue-generating tasks.
Gong Assist goes further and automates more time-consuming, low-value tasks. How?
EXAMPLE #1: instead of simply reminding sales reps to set up a meeting or send an email, Gong will draft the email and meeting invite that the rep can then send.
EXAMPLE #2: When a contact changes roles within their organization, Gong will remind the sales rep to congratulate them.
In short, Gong Assist frees time for more value-add work, such as building deeper customer relationships.
Got it. So how can I stay organized, on task, and WIN MORE with Gong Assist?
Buy Gong!
(Actually, we recommend starting with a Gong demo to get answers to your questions, learn how to win more deals, skyrocket rep success, and gain critical market intelligence with Revenue Intelligence. You know.)
But if you are not quite ready to jump to SHOW ME A DEMO stage, here is a bit more about Gong Assist and how it works in real life.
STEP #1: SDR OUTREACH
Unless you are getting boatloads of inbound requests with prospects falling over themselves to get a live demo (wouldn’t that be nice?), sending cold emails is a necessity.
Let’s say Siobhan is one of your SDRs. She’s using Gong to manage her sales day. She fires up Gong and sees that “reach out Acme” is on her to-do list today.
From within Gong, Siobhan uses a sales email template — one she can easily customize and personalize. And personalize she does, using the Gong-Vidyard integration, Siobhan embeds a (personalized) video for Clara.
BONUS: From within the Gong activity tab, Siobhan can see that “CRO Clara” has viewed her Vidyard video not once, not twice, but 5x. Engagement FTW!
5 video views are also a great indicator/signal that Clara is engaged and ready for the next step in the sales funnel delivered for Siobhan in her sales engagement platform.
STEP #2: AE HANDOFF
It’s now time to hand off this — now warm — lead to Andre, the Account Executive (AE).
Without a need for a lengthy conversation (or email or slack or text or phone call), Andre can see the entire discussion Siobhan has had with Clara. Again, sales automation.
He picks up where she left off with an email…
… an email Clara replies to, favorably (phew!).
As with every action, Andre’s email and Clara’s response are captured in Gong, so the deal status is known and transparent.
A demo is scheduled and presented to Clara. She replies to Andre, indicating she’d like to move forward and loop in the VP of Finance and the VP of Ops. Andre creates a Slack Connect channel to continue the conversation.
Things are humming along now.
It’s time for Gong Assist (GA) again. After the call, GA reminds Andre to send a follow-up email with all of the action items, the proposal, etc. Sales automation!
But then, crickets. Did Andre get ghosted? Nooooo. All was going so well.
It would be easy for Andre to forget about Clara and the team as he’s (hopefully) working several other deals concurrently.
Not with sales automation:
A Deal Warning is triggered: “Haven’t heard back in 5 days.”
Andre knows exactly what to do next… he shares a piece of content with his colder prospect to reengage.
The tracking shows several Acme team members read the article — Project Reengagement was a success! Another meeting is set, and the deal is moving forward again.
Gong Assist enters the picture again (even more sales automation) to remind Andre to update his sales forecast, which he does, and his manager is automatically alerted. Gong is using reality to determine the next steps … not some fancy sequence that is often not accurate.
The next step is ensuring all of these changes get updated into the CRM. One-click and it’s done. No need to open CRM or pipeline management software — it all happens from within Gong.
All that’s left is to get this deal signed. Gong Assist? You there? Of course.
Andre customizes the Gong template and fires off a personalized email with the agreement included (using the DocuSign integration).
Contract views are tracked and housed within Gong, and shortly after, there is a Gong notification that the contract has been signed.
STEP #3: AE TO CSM HANDOFF
Finally, the AE to CSM handoff happens automagically with an onboarding nurture email series initiated and an introduction to Sam, their CSM. Sam sends a helpful article (thanks again to sales automation), and the next phase of the relationship begins.
And that’s how it’s done.
Sales automation is here. Now.
Automation is not a thing of the future. It’s here. It’s now.
Gong Assist is one of the tools our sales team at Gong uses every single day.
Sign up for a demo now and learn how Gong can assist your sales process as you lean into automation.