1. The most important thing I learned through this Certification process is setting up Gong is relatively straightforward.  Where PM’s should make sure to think about is not just the “how” of setting up Gong, but “why” and “what” are different ways you can wield Gong to execute on initiatives. Example: If you want to decrease onboarding time, what workflow would you set up in Gong that can help best achieve this initiative?   The power of Gong doesn’t just rely on the AI & integrations, the true power of Gong is how the integrations you set up paired with Gong’s AI & Machine Learning drive better business and revenue outcomes. 
2. My number one piece of advice for a new PM implementing Gong, is that for your organization to be successful using Gong,  you must go beyond the technical setup.  This certification walks you through what is required for technical setup, but also shows you industry leading best practices on how your organization can accomplish key business initiatives by providing one pagers, playbooks, a guide to creating a Center of Excellence, and more!  

The most important thing I learned going through the certification is that if you want to get the most out of Gong, you need to get the right stakeholders in place from the beginning and make sure that your tech stack is fully integrated. This certification provides the resources to engage key stakeholders and also complete your most fundamental integrations. 

My #1 piece of advice for a new Program Manager who is implementing Gong would be to challenge yourself to better understand how the platform works. Gong can truly unlock reality to provide visibility into your deals, teams, and market, but it requires a thorough understanding of what's possible with integrations/configurations. Ask questions in the community, talk with your CSM, drive best practices, and stay engaged! 

My number one piece of advice for a new Program Manager is to follow the steps that have been laid our for you, as this will make your life a lot easier! We have put a lot of time and effort into making this process as smooth as we possibly can, and if you follow our process, you will be set up incredible well for success! One thing I will also mention is that the Gong team is here to help and support you all, and we are so happy to have you on this journey! Happy Gonging!!! 

Wow, I learned a lot! One of the most important things I learned during this Launch Certification is how customizable and adaptable Gong is for your business objectives. There is incredible potential to uncover trends, risks, and potential you didn’t even know existed. The first step is really understanding what your goals are and then being able to know where/how Gong can highlight those data driven insights.

A piece of advice for a new Program Manager who is implementing Gong would be to leverage all of the well curated and amazing Gong resources such as the Gong Academy, Community, and Help center. There are so many opportunities to learn, connect, inspire, and uncover everything Gong can offer your organization. 

What is your #1 piece of advice for a new Program Manager who is implementing Gong?

Be sure you have the correct stakeholders to be involved in the implementation. It is really important from different perspectives (technical, strategic and operational) you have people with correct workstream regarding the launch process. Validate and present to all leadership involved, ask your C-level to pass the message, this was really helpful in our company. Consider a step by step plan, Gong is for immature and mature commercial teams, be sure you design a roll out plan which is related to your company’s correct learning curve. And enjoy all the features it has!

Fantastic course, a must for all Program Managers. My biggest learning is you need to invest the effort to master Gong functionality and change management. Build a community of change agents and power users that can help drive adoption and sustain momentum. Use Gong to bring insight and accountability to Sales and Business Leaders. Enjoy the learning  

#1 This was an amazing course to start with. So much to learn and glean on. I really enjoyed the module on how to setup business & privacy settings, as consent + compliance is always top of mind. This course provides a great foundation on how to have all the integrations and various moving pieces in one place, the short videos are my favorites.

#2For Program managers, it not just focuses on the technical aspect but the best practices, how to build an CoE, and packages everything you need to successfully roll out Gong and have the excitement throughout the teams and off course making using of the community is the key where we can get together and really understand all the nuggets of Gong and what our peers(customers) are saying.

What is the most important thing you learned during this Launch Certification? 
Get certified! There are a lot of settings to take into account, but when following the flow laid out in this certification, it makes perfect sense. I was aware of most of the settings that were available, but this certification path placed them in a logical order that built upon one another. Makes perfect sense. Fantastic certification!

What is your #1 piece of advice for a new Program Manager who is implementing Gong?
Plan, plan, plan. Gather the right team members (if more than yourself) and plan out who will be tasked with the various setups and ongoing maintenance. Make sure everyone is clear on which integrations are to be used and the implications of the various settings selected for each. 

My #1 piece of advice for a new program manager is to ensure you have the right supporting players around you. Think of yourself as the “coach” of the platform for you company and find the captains of your team that are going to work with you to lead your organization to unlocking maximum reality within Gong. Working with the right leadership, champion managers and insight from a team of A-List individual contributors will help you configure Gong and create workflows and best practices that will be most impactful for those you’re supporting. 

This certification was challenging in all the right ways. I learned so much and I do this every single day! 

The advice I have for new (and existing ) Program Managers who are implementing or optimizing Gong would be to leverage all of the awesome resources our team has curated like the Gong Academy, Community, and Help center. Ask for guidance when you need it too - there are so many opportunities to connect with others and learn about how Gong can provide the most impact to your organization. + we’re always evolving so it doesn’t stop here!

1. What is the most important thing you learned during this Launch Certification? 

   1. The most important thing I learned was that there is SO much more to Gong than I realized! I am excited about the library export to CSV feature that I didn’t know about, and I am excited to continue learning about workspaces!

2. What is your #1 piece of advice for a new Program Manager who is implementing Gong?

   1. ​​​​​​​Take your time to play around in the software to get comfortable with it. Give yourself some ‘test’ tasks for making trackers, deal boards, custom vocab etc so that you’re comfortable with it when you need it!

The most important thing I learned is that there isn’t just one way to use Gong, or a “right” or “wrong” way. Gong has so many cross-functional features and tools that allow you to build an instance to your specific business needs. It’s also critical to involve relevant stakeholders in the implementation process, and not just IT/Technical Admins to configure integrations. Setting up Gong is fairly straightforward, but there is much more to the decision-making process than just connecting users/email/CRM. 

My final advice for Program Managers is to make sure you’re reviewing your Gong settings/instance over time. There may be new and exciting features that can support your team/business and you may find that important features (Trackers, vocabulary, etc.) can change as your business changes and grows.

The most important thing I learned is that Gong is super customizable depending on your business needs/goals/etc. It requires clearly defining your objectives and then diving in to make sure your Gong portal is setup to support your initiatives.

My number one piece of advice for a new program manager is to be patient and to roll this out in small steps. Don’t try to take everything on at once - start small and go from there.

I got everything I wanted out of the program and have a short list of high impact items that I can go and implement.  Top of my list is refining our Salesforce Reports and Dashboards, and working w/ enablement to highlight Gong feature by feature.

My number one piece of advice for a new admin who is implementing Gong would be to make sure that you understand your organization’s existing tech stack, procedures, and workflows, and to build relationships with the internal owners of each platform as much as possible prior to rollout.

What is your #1 piece of advice for a new Program Manager who is implementing Gong?

Utilize the resources available to you! While there is a lot that can go into the initial setup of your Gong instance, the actual process is pretty straight-forward, there are a lot of different ways you can go about customizing the account. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I recommend utilizing the best practices already provided and then shape them to fit your team’s needs

Wow! This is a very comprehensive certification. 

One of my key takeaways was the importance of identifying critical players while planning your Gong rollout to kick it off successfully. The center of excellence section was incredibly informative because it was beyond Gong customization. Still, it honed in on identifying decision-makers, communication plans, and product deployment, reminding us that people and planning make all the difference in a successful implementation. 

For new Program Managers, know that this is a lot of information. Be kind to yourself and find your focus area. Although you now have a bird's eye view of what is possible within Gong, you can start with the basics and focus on the key priorities for your company.  

My advice for new PMs is to really adopt the learnings and implement the strategies in the Center of Excellence playbook (Best Practices part of the certification). Taking a step back and being deliberate about putting together an internal team to launch and maintain Gong is so important! It’s tempting to get your tech stack integrated as quickly as possible and give your team access, but if the longterm goal is to use Gong to effectively drive strategic initiatives, tapping the brakes for a bit to plan and delegate is absolutely worth it!!

What is your #1 piece of advice for a new Program Manager who is implementing Gong?

My #1 piece of advice it to listen to you users.  At first they may have concerns or issues with Gong so you should take all of these into consideration and make their onboarding as easy as possible.  Once they use the tool for an extended period of time, you can take their feedback to tailor Gong to work best for them.

What is the most important thing you learned during this Launch Certification?

I loved the Best Practices content. It was incredibly helpful to learn so much about approaches to launch & adoption. The ideas, templates, talk tracks, and description of the various roles and responsibilities was great. It brings home that while there are technical and analytical aspects to consider when implementing Gong (and any system), at the end of the day we need to employ strategies that will compel people to use the application because it helps them accomplish their goals. We need to focus on how make it compelling for them and their leaders, both at launch and also on an ongoing basis.  

What is your #1 piece of advice for a new Program Manager who is implementing Gong?

Focus on the long game. The product is relatively easy to stand up. Your success will be dependent on how well your execs, front line managers, and individual contributors engage with what Gong can do for them. It’s not a ‘set if and forget it’ implementation. It needs to evolve with your business priorities, and if you see people doing things different because of Gong (1:1’s, pipeline reviews, coaching, etc.) they you know you’re onto something good!  

My advice for any new Project Manager implementing Gong would be to ensure you have the right people involved from the start.  Educate them on their role and involvement in the process and get their commitment to success.  Once you have all the right people in the room, craft your comprehensive rollout plan and define those KPIs up-front so you can easily demonstrate success to leadership.  Implementing Gong is easy…. change management is a little more challenging. 

1. What is the most important thing you learned during this Launch Certification?
   • This certification taught me at a high level how and why Gong is an extremely valuable addition to a company’s tech stack. Its customizations and dynamic insights can bridge inefficiencies and alleviate blindspots for not just your sales team; but also leadership, marketing, product, onboarding, enablement, sales operations, etc.! Not only will it provide us with insights to better understand customers, but it can also be tied directly to strategic initiatives across the organization.

1. What is your #1 piece of advice for a new Program Manager who is implementing Gong? Be your organizations Gong champion, and create Raving Fans during every step of the journey!

   • ​​​​​​​If you are one of the lucky ones to hold the coveted title of ‘Gong Program Manager’, you have been given the opportunity to truly drive significant change and transform your organization. With that power, comes influence. Your entire organization will be looking to you for all things Gong, in a way, you are responsible for “selling” Gong to your team (a Gong influencer!). Teaching a team how to use Gong is one thing, but selling them on how to use it is what will take you from a good program manager, to an incredible one.

   • Driving Gong adoption will be a piece of cake if you become a Gong Champion. In my experience, peoples opinions are very easily influenced by their peers when a new product or process rolls out. Negative sentiment and opinions can spread easily, but so can positive ones. If the program manager isn’t fully bought in to the value of the tool, then its going to be quite difficult getting buy in from everyone else. Become a Gong evangelist and people will follow!

   • In a nutshell, if you want to be an influential Gong Champion: Communicate your excitement for the product, train your team with passion, believe in the value of the product, and last but certainly not least… create Raving Fans!!

Most important thing I learned?

The most important thing I learned in this certification is that Gong requires team collaboration to be successful all along the way.  From implementation and into the lifecycle everyone needs to communicate along the way to ensure they are getting all of the available value.  This will be key to unlocking all of the value that comes with a tool like Gong.

#1 piece of advice to PMs

Never stop learning about the immense value and use cases that Gong can solve for in an organization.  Be proactive in listening to colleagues express challenges in their daily work that could be solved for with Gong.  Focus on using Gong to solve for the organizations most important initiatives.  

1.  The most important thing I learned is that no matter your role or experience, there is always something new to learn about Gong!  Our product and dev teams are wicked fast and you certainly can’t rest on your laurels if you want to stay ahead of the competition.
2. My best advice for new Gong Program Managers is, don’t be afraid of learning something new!  Take action and ownership of this tool and you will not regret it.  Gong WILL impact your business and you can be proud of the efforts you put in daily to drive change within your organization… and the accolades for your resume won’t hurt either. ;)

I learned so many things through this certification, how could I possibly pick one to sum it all up? The emphasis on communicating the benefits of Gong to the team right off the bat is essential in the adoption of Gong. Showcase the wins to start - praise publicly and criticize privately (hello private comments!). Ensure you have executive sponsorship within your organization to set up accountability for the rollout of new initiatives. Lean on the Community and your CSM for clarity, best practices and recommendations. Gong is the most powerful tool in you tech stack, giving you an unparalleled view into the reality of your customer conversations!