Program Manager Launch Certification: What Did You Learn?


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(Hi! You’ve reached a topic specifically for folks participating in the Program Manager Launch Certification. If you’re a Gong Program Manager and would like to learn more about getting certified, please click here!)

 

Congratulations, Program Managers — you’re nearly complete with your Launch Certification! Between what you’ve learned in the Gong Academy as part of your certification and the practical knowledge you’ve picked up while onboarding and implementing Gong at your organization, we know your brains must be bursting with invaluable Gong knowledge.

 

So, this brings us to your second (and final) Community assignment for your Launch Certification. Please share your answer to one (or both of) the following questions:

 

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

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

 

Thanks for taking the time to not only share with us here at Gong what you found valuable during your certification, but also for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with future Gong Program Managers. Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll benefit from their knowledge, too, here in the Community. :)


133 replies

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

    -My favorite course was the ‘Best Practices’ lessons, as it really hones into customers’ top business priorities and specific ways Gong can help achieve those. 
  2. What is your #1 piece of advice for a new Program Manager who is implementing Gong?

    -Effective rollout of Gong and creating a communication plan is essential for deployment and implementation. ​​​​​​​
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  1. What is the most important thing you learned during this Launch Certification? 

  • The most important thing that I learned during this launch certification was that Gong Program Managers are going to get out of Gong what they put in. Everything within Gong is highly customizable and able to be configured to your organization’s requirements. Spending a little extra time on setting up will pay dividends in the organization’s use of Gong down the road.
  1. What is your #1 piece of advice for a new Program Manager who is implementing Gong?

  • The best piece of advice that I can offer is to have buy in from your team. As mentioned above, everything can be configured to your organization’s needs, so a team that will lean in and support the implementation efforts will go a long way in the continued success of your teams use of Gong.
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What is the most important thing you learned during this Launch Certification? 

  • The most actionable items I learned during this certification was how customizable Gong is and that taking the time to really configure things properly will really allow a team to use the software to its’ full potential 

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

  • Hard to provide advice for something I am new to!  I think that focusing on getting buy-in from reps and managers would be key - making them feel involved in the process and identifying and educating on high value items for each group. 
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1 - I learned how important it is to identify all of the internal stakeholders that will be involved and make sure they understand Gong and the value it brings. From the initial stages of implementation with the existing tech stack, to the top down messaging from leadership, each step will play a critical part of the implementation. Building momentum, celebrating wins and sharing best practices will help everyone see the benefits of Gong and the impact on the organization.

 

2 - My #1 piece of advice for a new Program Manager would be to challenge yourself to learn all of the features of Gong and how they can help your organization. There are so many ways to use the product and it’s important to understand all of the capabilities to not limit yourself.

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  1. The most important thing learned from the PM cert is that the possibilities are endless, however when attempting to implement any of the learnings you must tie these back to your business initiatives. On top of this, focusing on your communication plan before, during and after launch will be vital in ensuring fast utilisation and adoption. This will require involvement at all levels within the business so ensure there are champions from the top-down.

  2. Identify your top business priorities. Choose the one that will have the most immediate impact on your business and may even make the other priorities redundant, and then implement Gong based on this initiative. This will drive adoption and buy-in.

Good luck to everyone on their journey!

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What I’ve learned going through certification and attempting to optimize our current usage is to listen to your sales managers. There is no “right” way to use Gong so when I came to them with poor utilization stats, they retorted that they had been using primarily their weekly email digests to communicate with their team on Gong activity. We have since reframed our method of measuring usage and changed how we encourage employees to use the platform. 

Great material! I’ve learned enough information to fill a 10 page list of “Lunch-N-Learns” for my Sales Directors. There were several functionality points that stuck out, I plan to do more research and training to increase adoption. 

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Thanks for a very thorough Certification Process.

  1. What i learned is to get certified!!  I learned so much even though I have been managing the application for over 9 months.
  2. Advice - implement with a Crawl, Walk, Run methodology. Gong is loaded with functionality it’s impossible to try to implement all at once.  You and your users will appreciate this as they will get have the ability to become proficient on each stage of the process before you introduce a new functionality. 

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