About to begin the program manager certification to ensure that I am up to date on all I need to know about Gong! With that said, I think one of the key things to make rollouts successful is to leverage your champions. Peer success stories and buy-in are key to get any hesitant folks onboard. This might mean doing a Gong “pilot” where you test KPIs and success metrics with a champion group. The results from the pilot (both quantitative and qualitative) are an excellent way to reinforce the “why” with your broader rollout group. If reps can see, before they even being using the tool, how one of their peers has tangibly benefited from reviewing calls and self-coaching, it is much more likely that they will want to adopt Gong as well. 

• Go at the pace that makes sense for your team. You know your users and where they are at with technology, maturity in sales process, etc.
• Make sure you have 1 or 2 people complete the certification course. It will help with the big picture vision though not as helpful with the minute technical set up.
• Be prepared to handle the technical training with your teams yourself and do that before the Gong training. Their training is a focus on product overview and is most useful once there are calls in the system. But get your team set up with the connections, understanding how to simply get Gong into their meetings, etc.
• Understand that Gong is not an answer to all things sales. For example, you’ll need to think through how meetings that happen in person will play into this strategy.
• Gong is a robust tool with lots of features. Be okay with taking on a couple of features at a time for deep learning (if you are new to the platform) and for rolling out with your teams.

Slow and careful adoption is the advice I would echo and need to follow myself as we plan our roll out. Our sales team and leadership is excited about Gong because it’s clearly a powerful tool. They are itching to jump in but we need to plan out our implementation and roll out with clear milestones, training, and support. Adoption will be much higher if we roll out methodically rather than immediately for the sake of saving time.

Excited to complete the Gong PM certification and looking forward to implementing it in my organization! 

I believe any organizational change requires correct approach to get favorable results. Implementing Gong in an organization is a major task on multiple fronts and each front has its own set of challenges. However the biggest stakeholders in this process are the actual users who will be dealing with Gong on daily basis. We need to make sure they are in acceptance of this change. For this, in addition to the techniques outlined in the best practices section of this course, I would like to use PROSCI ADKAR model for implementation. The ADKAR model corresponds to 

A = Awareness of the need for Gong for our organization 

D = Desire to participate and support in Gong implementation and use 

K = Knowledge on how to effectively use Gong 

A = Ability to implement the Gong skills & behaviors learnt 

R = Reinforcement needed to sustain this new change 

I believe by implementing the above steps will lead to not only successful rollout but also successful continued utilization. 

I’ve worked with some organizations where the recorded users feel very nervous about being recorded and that the recordings will be used in a punitive, not a helpful way.  In this situation I recommend a very gentle roll out of Gong.  Set-up profiles so that for the first few months the managers cannot see the user’s recordings.  The recordings stay private, but the users can choose one call a week they wish to share with their manager for review and feedback.    When giving feedback during this time, use the “compliment sandwich” approach - positive feedback, area for development feedback and then followed by positive feedback.  

This phase of the rollout should focus more on the users seeing the benefits to themselves of using Gong - analytics, transcripts, action items, etc.

My best piece of advice is to celebrate the success along the journey of the rollout and after completed, recognise and reward individuals and teams for their efforts and accomplishments. This will help build excitement and momentum for the ongoing use of Gong! 

The key part of the rollout process for us was starting with why Gong is so helpful. Demonstrating the ability to be more present in calls as notes are taken and organized for you to review later got team members exited. There’s a lot of planning and communication that needs to happen before launching, and having an enthusiastic team makes the process a lot smoother. 

Having a successful rollout plan is key to adoption in a company. Feel so privileged to have taken this course to ensure our plan has what is requires to be a success.

Make sure your Gong users are enabled and have the knowledge they need to succeed. A tool is only as powerful as the users who are utilizing it. Sending frequent communications, offering training sessions, and engaging stakeholders will ensure a successful launch!

The best advice is that communication is key. Follow these steps and you can’t go wrong:

1. Create a comprehensive communication plan
2. Assign elements of it to key team members including admins, enablers, COE, managers, an Exec Sponsor
3. Kick it off with the Exec Sponsor highlighting the importance to the company, and more importantly the value to the end user
4. Track for compliance and adoption and adjust the plan as needed

My best Gong rollout advice would be to be as prepared mentally and tangibly as possible. I think creating and executing on a COE is one of the most effective ways to go about ensuring a smooth and open minded transition. In doing so, you are able to learn together so the tool does not feel too overwhelming to any one individual/team. This also encourages an environment where questions are not looked at as wasteful since most are in the same boat.

Change is hard for a lot of people. As PM’s for Gong, it’s our job to find every way we can mitigate the fear and hesitation associated with migrating to any new process. 

Hands down, I would recommend making sure that all leadership from the various orgs that you’re planning to roll out Gong to have bought in. If there isn’t exec alignment, there likely isn’t going to be the coaching, follow-up, and rigor that is needed to make Gong successful. 

We switched from Chorus to Gong - yay! A key part of that business case was the ability to take our time rolling out formal user training. We can get enough incremental benefit from an Ops/Enablement perspective, even if our reps don’t immediately make any changes to how they use the tool.

We’re early in our roll-out, but emphasizing building good trackers, deal boards, and working with our Product team & others to get things in a good place before making the push to get our reps & sales managers using the tool more actively.

Utilize your change management expertise or resources to prepare ahead of time. Identify groups affected, analyze the impact, and create a rollout plan that addresses concerns and roadblocks proactively.

The best advice I can give is to anchor with leadership or executive team. This means that while they may see the value in said tool, dig into what type of metrics or topics they would like to better understand so they can have a pulse in the field. I have seen that giving them insight to this type of data in a systematic way through trackers, snippets, and specific libraries for the executive team gives more credibility and anchors the tool at a strategic level.

Understand Gong use case within your organization to capture the metrics that matters most to your organization.

Understand what goals your team has and the problems you are trying to solve for first. 

Gong can be an incredibly deep tool for sales performance management but if your team doesn’t understand and agree on goals and the problems you need to solve for to attain these goals then the rollout may not go as smooth as you’d like. 

If your leaders understand that they have issues that Gong can solve for then you’ll have a much easier time getting them to adopt the solution and use it to effectively coach their team members. 

Many tool rollouts fail because of lack of buy-in from leaders. If your sales leaders are ready to adopt a solution then they will appropriately manage expectations and accountability with their team members. 

The initial phase of your rollout plan should include: 

1. Clearly define the goals 
2. Understand what problems are preventing your team from hitting these goals today 
3. Clearly lay out how Gong will remove or reduce these issues 
4. Get leaders to buy in to this idea that their teams will perform better after removing these roadblocks 

If you have ever wished you could remember what someone said during a call - this is a great way to remember. 

Couple of points to consider

1. Know your vision.

2. Get all stakeholders on board

3. Define your goals

4. Establish a timeline.

5. Conduct a needs analysis

For me what worked best was focusing on answering the question “What’s in it for me?” for each leader. For some, it was “How much time can this save me compared to what I’m doing now?” For others, it was “What actionable insights does this give me that I don’t see today?” or “How does help me increase my accuracy?” whether it was in forecasting, sharing what the totals were in each stage/commit/best case, etc.

If you show people the numbers that back any of these questions, it’s hard to not let their walls down. Just let the numbers speak, and once they start to use the tool, you’ll win them over. :) 

The best advice that I can give is to be fully prepared before launching it to the team. This means that you as a program manager should have a broad knowledge of the tool especially the features that the team will use. You should also be prepared for any questions or issues that may come up before, during, and after the launch. 

When it comes to rolling out Gong as a product, it’s important that everyone on the team understands why we’re adopting this new tools and how it will benefit both the company and themselves as AEs. Many inside sales reps have used Gong at this point across industries, so it’s good to hear stories from team members about Gong - what they enjoy about it and how it made a difference in their development as sales reps.

After the team is aligned on why we’re bringing on this new tool, it’s important to do trainings on what reps should expect with the tool (such as how Gong records the calls, what reminder emails are sent out to prospects, which calls are recorded, etc.), how we recommend using the tool, and tips and tricks. I’m a big fan of having planned share sessions where sales reps can bring questions that they have about the tool or experiences that they’ve had when using the tool (e.g. “I thought this was a pretty balanced call, but I was surprised that I talked 80% of the time!”). 

For asynchronous questions outside of the planned/live group discussions, I think a temporary Slack channel is a great idea for one-off questions!

I would give the following professional advice to those interacting with a brand-new or long-running Gong instance: Create a thorough checklist using the knowledge you learned in the certification course. Assign specific duties to designated owners for each activity listed on the checklist, and carefully go over each item to make sure it is configured correctly and is currently in line with the market conditions.

Knowing that most likely Gong is not the only tool in your tech stack. I would really clearly outline the following - Where does Gong fit in your tech stack?

In other words, what’s the expectation on reps. managers, etc. for how to interact with the tool? Ideally, as the program manager, you have already identified ideal use cases. However, before Gong it would be naive to assume your colleagues were not filling their time throughout the week. So, be prescriptive, help them understand how this can help and how it fits into the workflows they already have.

If the rollout just says “Here’s Gong, look at all the cool stuff it can do!!” naturally the response from a busy GTM colleague would be “That’s great, but where does this fit? How do I incorporate it into what I’m already being asked to do elsewhere?”

I think the biggest adoption/rollout mistake is going over all the cool bells and whistles but not clearly articulating how usage and maximization of a tool like Gong is feasible/ideally done in conjunction with other tools and workflows that are already expected to be used in your org.

Make good use of the early adopters! It’s great to have an advocate to drive adoption. Also, keep good track of the results and share openly with your team. Once slow-to-adopt reps understand that they are missing out on an advantage that is being provided to them, they will perk up. 

Set expectations early, early adoption and champions from the top. I know this is reiterating what’s already been mentioned but those 3 things are vital. 

Ensure Gong is mandated from the top down as it’s another layer of responsibility from managers. Though we’re all aware of the value it brings, both from an employee sentiment/retainment and sales efficiency standpoint, reps and managers usually frown upon adding another obligation that does not directly result into $$. Some mention having reps be involved from the beginning, in which I don’t necessarily agree - but definitely their managers as early as possible in the BUYING process. The implementation and configuration should be strategized with managers and executed by ops or system admins. Then proof-of-concept with a small group of early adopters and managers, run it for 60 days, then roll it out team by team (depending on the size of the org) with their designated champion. 

Though it takes time and it’s not 100% perfect, you have a much higher probability of continued and effective use of Gong, along with encouraging transparency and coaching!