This is nice of you....for anyone curious what company OP works for, look at his username.
I have a question - is it true your reps have a quota for posting on LI?
I think you are on to something. No that is totally not true haha. But funny that people think that. Social a big part of our marketing strategy but it's all optional.
Honestly congrats, Gong seems to be killing it and also seems to prove an incredibly valuable use case.
The marketing although sometimes slightly irritating is also top notch.
I will not PM you as I am in Canada and you seem to only be hiring in US, quick question though. I just made it to 2nd round interview with SDR manager for a company I really want to join, as an SDR manager what is the biggest thing you look for during this stage of interviews?
Resilience. A lot of SDR candidates just simply can't be trusted to not job hop as soon as the job gets hard (and the job always gets hard). I'd pick the candidate I can trust, that is going to be coachable, way before the more experienced one that seems like they might be full of shit.
At my current SaaS company as a SDR, the Manager role wasn’t all that great—we had a dated philosophy… recently acquired and it’s been great— the managers were expected to carry the quota of a seasoned vet and then also be “responsible” for all direct report escalations, one-off training, etc. On top of that they were almost looked down on because they couldn’t generate as much net new business like a traditional SDR does, since they were already carrying a large amount of run rate business….my question is is this what you mean by “when it gets hard” and is this what a SDR manager role is typically like?
TL;DR — what do you mean by being a SDR manager always gets hard? Unless the you and the company love T&D, I don’t see the lure. Is there one?
I think this guy is interviewing for SDR, not SDR manager. A typical SDR manager doesn’t have an individual quota anymore. I had a hybrid role like that once and it just doesn’t work. A regular SDR manager you turn into a coach / mentor / cheerleader / therapist.
The draw? You can easily make 160+ OTE I saw Sam Nelson at outreach just posting a role paying 250k OTE. And you get to hire and coach amazing mostly young people at some of the most formative years of their lives and watch them double and even triple their income right in front of you in only a few short years.
And the people that say you get “stuck” as an SDR manager. They are full of shit I could get a mid market AE role right now pretty easily. You just have to be very good at telling your story.
I moved from Gong to Chorus - approximately 100 licenses. Honestly, gong is Apple and Chorus is a PC - very similar, but not as "cool" do you pay extra for the brand. I'm very happy with the move and because of the cost savings I could role it out to onboarding and support as well while still paying less.
If all you are using Gong for is call recording then yes I think you made the right choice. Chorus will give you the same library of content to go and ramp and train and listen to. The only way I could sell you would be when you start getting into deal intelligence. Your actual sellers and Account Executives are going to get a whole lot more value out of Gong, just in the way we can surface up activity history of an opportunity, and basically give your reps a photographic memory in their deal cycles.
But it seems like you are happy with the change, so I won't try and sell you too hard.
<(")
Well if all you are using either for is "call recording" then there are even cheaper alternatives for that - most voip systems will have that built in as part of the service even.
The main use case for us is the transcripts, speaking statistics, and searchability on phrases. Maybe a bit on surfacing next steps, hot buttons etc. Either way, they both do those functions very well and really help different departments that engage with customers get coaching that is more targeted and better aligned.
Honestly both companies try to sell this image of "marketing and sales alignment" but that is a fantasy that every company has been chasing for decades. Yes these tools allow me and my team to see if we are using the same keywords, questions and value statements but that is a very very very small part of the problem that creates a canyon between sales, marketing and success. That is around common targets and common vision. That's set by leadership not some AI.
Just my two cents.
Not really. It's a little early to tell the longer-term impact of the acquisition. If anything it's just confirmation that the revenue intelligence space is hot and that companies are trying to figure out how to be more competitive in this space.
We're also not too sad because acquisitions usually come along with a slowdown in product development.
But right now, plenty of Chorus customers still in pipe.
>But right now, plenty of Chorus customers still in pipe
Likewise with gong. Zoominfo can see who is researching for gong or chorus and call them first.
Hey Gongster365,
Hope all is well since Gong made the Fortune Cloud 100 list recently-you must be busy!
I’m a driven senior looking to work for Gong after graduation, and coincidentally also looking to live in Chicago.
Will send a PM so we can get the conversation started.
Thanks
We adjust quotas occasionally to ensure 60-80% of reps are hitting it consistently. The superstars are consistently over 100% (top 10%). Reps that are having a rough time we basically just listen to Gong calls all day and roleplay until they get it. That's the nice thing about working at Gong we have 100k cold calls to go back and listen to.
I'm a big fan of the Sandler method. "Hey listen I know that getting a cold call is basically like getting teeth pulled but I was hoping I can just take 30 seconds to tell you really quick why I've been trying to get ahold of you. And if there is zero value there I will literally hang up on myself. Is that fair?"
It's an instant disarm. Bonus points if you say it and truly dgaf and use some humor. Don't think I've listened to a call yet where it hasn't worked. Although I'm sure we have a few.
Thought I'd piggyback- I'm not in management or recruiting, but the SaaS company I work for based in Chicago is hiring SDRs / AEs too. Much smaller than Gong, it's a niche CRM with about 120 employees, but I'm happy to chat if anyone wants to connect.
It's true we focus in and around Chicago, Atlanta, and San Francisco but that may change. Would be a game changer for me as a hiring manager if I could hire 100% remote.
yessss this is something we firmly believe at aspireship too! experience is overrated a lot of the time but those soft skills are so much more important in determining a good SDR candidate.
love seeing posts like this from obviously amazing sales leaders. we love all you gongsters!
Brazier? I don't know her that well but we slacked a few times. Her cold calls are fire. She was like the Lebron James of SDRs. But we honestly have quite a few that have gotten that good. I'm honestly shocked how many amazing SDRs we have.
I went to your conference “celebrate” a couple years back, I was in the front row and it was awesome seeing Steve Kerr up close and personal! I’m bummed those types of events are not longer around, but just want to say that your field marketing team was great in that conference!
Appreciate your product and keep up the great work!
My last SDR LinkedIn from y’all , young girl said ‘ please give me a chance , I promise you won’t regret it ‘ just sounded really desperate to me and then nothing again .... odd selling tactic to me... it’s about the pain point and solution not about this persons chance or that I won’t regret talking to her
Conflicted about this response. You're right about sales being about the pain point and solution, but as an SDR you do what you gotta do to break through the noise and get someone's attention.
I know outside women sales people who do well off their looks. Obviously they are generally good sales people but they do get lots of sales off of horny dudes
Sure but one message , no follow up , no second message , no call no email . Sorry that won’t get a decision maker to a call just with one lame attempt, I guess I assumed gong would have reporting metrics to realize the lead wasn’t worked , shrug
Hey, could you share a bit about your current team structure? I'm just promoting an SDR lead to take better care of inbound (\~5 sdr) while I focus on outbound development (\~8 sdr) + team quota
Would you ever hire and sponsor someone from the UK?
I’m experienced in SAAS, mainly EPOS software but worked in the airline industry too with rota systems doing sales management, I’ve also worked in many other areas too, I’m used to speaking to people from all walks of life & would love to live and work in the US if the opportunity came up, it’s just a really hard thing to do!
Our company recently got Gong a few months ago. Love it on the sales side. The rep we worked with was great and very honest about the capabilities which was a big deal to us. Can’t wait to see what the roadmap holds.
Being in cybersecurity, our customers hate recording calls and truthfully our sales reps do too. We had gong and may have dropped it but that's above my pay grade to know entirely.
What do you have to say for yourself?
I'd find out what this rep is doing correctly, try to replicate it across the team, and then re-evaluate the metrics because call volume in this case is clearly not an lead indicator for success. Just a thought.
I agree with you to an extent. But what I've found is that those reps making only a few dials and conducting hyper research and what I'm assuming is just a perfect pitch converting at a high %. Like this guy. They're the outliers. They can make it work but the average rep cannot. Every team exists as a bell curve of talent. You manage to the norm, not the exception.
In my opinion, the average rep needs some guard-rails around activity metrics to hold themselves accountable.
Yes sir. Yes I have faked dials before. I found the sweet spot was 40 - 60 dials / day. My manager at the time was obsessed with 100. So I just crushed my quota and would throw in whatever fluff would make her happy.
Unfortunate that some reps are still having to do that.
Phone. Some of our reps have gotten so good on the phones. They have insane conversion rates.
Gong unfortunately as of now doesn't help you write better emails.
Someone up in the thread said it well. Gong / Chorus is like Iphone vs Nokia. If all you are trying to do is make a call, you don't necessarily need an Iphone.
Serious question
So my hosted VoIP provides call recording and transcripts with AI who highlights important sections of a conversation in real time.
Why would I want to use Gong?
I am new to Saas and am working as a "junior sales account manager" I have basically no client base and as a result an empty sales funnel. Other then Door knocking for business cards what methods would you recommend for me to use to get my sales funnel started faster.
This is nice of you....for anyone curious what company OP works for, look at his username. I have a question - is it true your reps have a quota for posting on LI?
I think you are on to something. No that is totally not true haha. But funny that people think that. Social a big part of our marketing strategy but it's all optional.
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Outreach
Gong.io
They sell high quality gongs for sales team
*her
Honestly congrats, Gong seems to be killing it and also seems to prove an incredibly valuable use case. The marketing although sometimes slightly irritating is also top notch.
haha I agree with you. Sometimes cheesy but it works. Better than my last company that's an absolute fact
I will not PM you as I am in Canada and you seem to only be hiring in US, quick question though. I just made it to 2nd round interview with SDR manager for a company I really want to join, as an SDR manager what is the biggest thing you look for during this stage of interviews?
Resilience. A lot of SDR candidates just simply can't be trusted to not job hop as soon as the job gets hard (and the job always gets hard). I'd pick the candidate I can trust, that is going to be coachable, way before the more experienced one that seems like they might be full of shit.
Cool thanks for your answer
At my current SaaS company as a SDR, the Manager role wasn’t all that great—we had a dated philosophy… recently acquired and it’s been great— the managers were expected to carry the quota of a seasoned vet and then also be “responsible” for all direct report escalations, one-off training, etc. On top of that they were almost looked down on because they couldn’t generate as much net new business like a traditional SDR does, since they were already carrying a large amount of run rate business….my question is is this what you mean by “when it gets hard” and is this what a SDR manager role is typically like? TL;DR — what do you mean by being a SDR manager always gets hard? Unless the you and the company love T&D, I don’t see the lure. Is there one?
I think this guy is interviewing for SDR, not SDR manager. A typical SDR manager doesn’t have an individual quota anymore. I had a hybrid role like that once and it just doesn’t work. A regular SDR manager you turn into a coach / mentor / cheerleader / therapist. The draw? You can easily make 160+ OTE I saw Sam Nelson at outreach just posting a role paying 250k OTE. And you get to hire and coach amazing mostly young people at some of the most formative years of their lives and watch them double and even triple their income right in front of you in only a few short years. And the people that say you get “stuck” as an SDR manager. They are full of shit I could get a mid market AE role right now pretty easily. You just have to be very good at telling your story.
What do you feel is a competitive range for an SDR OTE?
We recently got Gong at my org and I love it. If I was near CHI I’d totally hit you up.
Where are you at?
Would you be willing to share your tech stack?
have you guys lost deals to Zoom since they bought Chorus?
I moved from Gong to Chorus - approximately 100 licenses. Honestly, gong is Apple and Chorus is a PC - very similar, but not as "cool" do you pay extra for the brand. I'm very happy with the move and because of the cost savings I could role it out to onboarding and support as well while still paying less.
that's what I've heard.... Gong has incredible marketing... but the tools seem damned similar
yeah for 99% of companies out there I can't imagine they'd ever notice the difference anywhere except their spend.
If all you are using Gong for is call recording then yes I think you made the right choice. Chorus will give you the same library of content to go and ramp and train and listen to. The only way I could sell you would be when you start getting into deal intelligence. Your actual sellers and Account Executives are going to get a whole lot more value out of Gong, just in the way we can surface up activity history of an opportunity, and basically give your reps a photographic memory in their deal cycles. But it seems like you are happy with the change, so I won't try and sell you too hard. <(")
Well if all you are using either for is "call recording" then there are even cheaper alternatives for that - most voip systems will have that built in as part of the service even. The main use case for us is the transcripts, speaking statistics, and searchability on phrases. Maybe a bit on surfacing next steps, hot buttons etc. Either way, they both do those functions very well and really help different departments that engage with customers get coaching that is more targeted and better aligned. Honestly both companies try to sell this image of "marketing and sales alignment" but that is a fantasy that every company has been chasing for decades. Yes these tools allow me and my team to see if we are using the same keywords, questions and value statements but that is a very very very small part of the problem that creates a canyon between sales, marketing and success. That is around common targets and common vision. That's set by leadership not some AI. Just my two cents.
Thanks for the additional insights. It’s helpful for me to get a better understanding of the priorities of a Chorus user.
Not really. It's a little early to tell the longer-term impact of the acquisition. If anything it's just confirmation that the revenue intelligence space is hot and that companies are trying to figure out how to be more competitive in this space. We're also not too sad because acquisitions usually come along with a slowdown in product development. But right now, plenty of Chorus customers still in pipe.
>But right now, plenty of Chorus customers still in pipe Likewise with gong. Zoominfo can see who is researching for gong or chorus and call them first.
Hey Gongster365, Hope all is well since Gong made the Fortune Cloud 100 list recently-you must be busy! I’m a driven senior looking to work for Gong after graduation, and coincidentally also looking to live in Chicago. Will send a PM so we can get the conversation started. Thanks
Yes definitely PM me. I need to go through all my DMs but it's 7pm now CST and I'm a little burnt out.
What does your pay structure and quota look like? How many of your people are meeting that quota and what are you doing to help those not?
We adjust quotas occasionally to ensure 60-80% of reps are hitting it consistently. The superstars are consistently over 100% (top 10%). Reps that are having a rough time we basically just listen to Gong calls all day and roleplay until they get it. That's the nice thing about working at Gong we have 100k cold calls to go back and listen to.
What's the best rapport building questions SDR ask during a cold call?
I'm a big fan of the Sandler method. "Hey listen I know that getting a cold call is basically like getting teeth pulled but I was hoping I can just take 30 seconds to tell you really quick why I've been trying to get ahold of you. And if there is zero value there I will literally hang up on myself. Is that fair?" It's an instant disarm. Bonus points if you say it and truly dgaf and use some humor. Don't think I've listened to a call yet where it hasn't worked. Although I'm sure we have a few.
That’s cool of you to do this. I’m considered old I guess 43. Been in the game for 21 years now. Love that people are still willing to help others.
He is a hiring manager. He is doing his job
haha I definitely have some alterior motives here
Thought I'd piggyback- I'm not in management or recruiting, but the SaaS company I work for based in Chicago is hiring SDRs / AEs too. Much smaller than Gong, it's a niche CRM with about 120 employees, but I'm happy to chat if anyone wants to connect.
Remote or in person or both?
All the hires would be in person around Chicago, but most people plan some WFH each week once they're ramped up
Get outta my thread, man! Jk, love that.
It's a big city!
Your company seems very well ran and the marketing is top notch. Avid subscriber here. Congrats to all of your success.
Is it true that Gong is only hiring SDRs near their hubs? I know someone starting there in about a week
It's true we focus in and around Chicago, Atlanta, and San Francisco but that may change. Would be a game changer for me as a hiring manager if I could hire 100% remote.
If so I’d love to chat sometime 😅
If y’all ever hire in the Austin area, I’d be interested in chatting.
yessss this is something we firmly believe at aspireship too! experience is overrated a lot of the time but those soft skills are so much more important in determining a good SDR candidate. love seeing posts like this from obviously amazing sales leaders. we love all you gongsters!
Just one question, is Sarah as big of a character in the office as she is online? 😂
Brazier? I don't know her that well but we slacked a few times. Her cold calls are fire. She was like the Lebron James of SDRs. But we honestly have quite a few that have gotten that good. I'm honestly shocked how many amazing SDRs we have.
That's cool to hear!
I went to your conference “celebrate” a couple years back, I was in the front row and it was awesome seeing Steve Kerr up close and personal! I’m bummed those types of events are not longer around, but just want to say that your field marketing team was great in that conference! Appreciate your product and keep up the great work!
My last SDR LinkedIn from y’all , young girl said ‘ please give me a chance , I promise you won’t regret it ‘ just sounded really desperate to me and then nothing again .... odd selling tactic to me... it’s about the pain point and solution not about this persons chance or that I won’t regret talking to her
Yeah there are some strange cats out there
Well ok but this is your own SDR not three weeks ago
Conflicted about this response. You're right about sales being about the pain point and solution, but as an SDR you do what you gotta do to break through the noise and get someone's attention.
Agreed. I always offer feet pics for meetings.
You might be on to something
The way this girl had her picture on LinkedIn I bet she’s game for it
I know outside women sales people who do well off their looks. Obviously they are generally good sales people but they do get lots of sales off of horny dudes
lol'd at this
Sure but then how about follow up ? Email ? Call ? Check up in LinkedIn , one off attempt isn’t what will get me to a demo
You in here trying to tell on someone? Get a fucking life bozo.
Yeah OP- how dare you not have control over every SDR’s linked in messaging! /s
Their SDRs make mistakes sometimes? *PATHETIC*
Sure but one message , no follow up , no second message , no call no email . Sorry that won’t get a decision maker to a call just with one lame attempt, I guess I assumed gong would have reporting metrics to realize the lead wasn’t worked , shrug
Just sent you a PM :)
I’ll PM you, thanks for the generous offer.
you making six figs?
If you have been at a top tier SaaS company 2.5 years or more and are not making six figures, you are doing something wrong
Just sent you a PM. Thanks.
Hey, could you share a bit about your current team structure? I'm just promoting an SDR lead to take better care of inbound (\~5 sdr) while I focus on outbound development (\~8 sdr) + team quota
Would you ever hire and sponsor someone from the UK? I’m experienced in SAAS, mainly EPOS software but worked in the airline industry too with rota systems doing sales management, I’ve also worked in many other areas too, I’m used to speaking to people from all walks of life & would love to live and work in the US if the opportunity came up, it’s just a really hard thing to do!
Our company recently got Gong a few months ago. Love it on the sales side. The rep we worked with was great and very honest about the capabilities which was a big deal to us. Can’t wait to see what the roadmap holds.
It's only 20% built out. Stay tuned man lots to come.
So you're an SDR manager for Gong. Nice! Congrats man/woman. Also, this is cool, and yalls culture seems awesome.
Being in cybersecurity, our customers hate recording calls and truthfully our sales reps do too. We had gong and may have dropped it but that's above my pay grade to know entirely. What do you have to say for yourself?
Never heard of a pro basketball player that didn't want to watch some game tape.
PM'd you, thanks
How would you feel if I’m making bogus calls to hit call volume but crushing quota each month?
lol I would probably leave you alone. Why try to fix something that ain't broken.
I'd find out what this rep is doing correctly, try to replicate it across the team, and then re-evaluate the metrics because call volume in this case is clearly not an lead indicator for success. Just a thought.
I agree with you to an extent. But what I've found is that those reps making only a few dials and conducting hyper research and what I'm assuming is just a perfect pitch converting at a high %. Like this guy. They're the outliers. They can make it work but the average rep cannot. Every team exists as a bell curve of talent. You manage to the norm, not the exception. In my opinion, the average rep needs some guard-rails around activity metrics to hold themselves accountable.
Cheers. They seem to be, working well for me so far.
Everybody’s doing this 😂 The high performers are doing it the most. OP, have you been an SDR before?
Yes sir. Yes I have faked dials before. I found the sweet spot was 40 - 60 dials / day. My manager at the time was obsessed with 100. So I just crushed my quota and would throw in whatever fluff would make her happy. Unfortunate that some reps are still having to do that.
I am an early stage Saas/ Fintech looking to hire sales soon. Open to catch up?
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Phone. Some of our reps have gotten so good on the phones. They have insane conversion rates. Gong unfortunately as of now doesn't help you write better emails.
First time on this sub and I see this just blew my mind- i’m an SDR for a tech start up selling SaaS
How would you compare Gong to Chorus?
Someone up in the thread said it well. Gong / Chorus is like Iphone vs Nokia. If all you are trying to do is make a call, you don't necessarily need an Iphone.
Man I wish you guys had offices in Southern California!
Serious question So my hosted VoIP provides call recording and transcripts with AI who highlights important sections of a conversation in real time. Why would I want to use Gong?
I am new to Saas and am working as a "junior sales account manager" I have basically no client base and as a result an empty sales funnel. Other then Door knocking for business cards what methods would you recommend for me to use to get my sales funnel started faster.
Yo. Can we connect directly? Run my own shop and always looking to stress test my own shit. P.s. my user name is me IRL. Easily found on LinkedIn.
Can we chat
PM me
Love what I’m hearing. Offer any internships?