Create and manage playbooks

With Gong AI-powered playbooks, your sales methodology processes are right inside your deal boards, so reps can track progress and stay on track, and sales leaders and RevOps can see whether deals are progressing according to company milestones. With your playbook in Gong, you:

• Improve win rates by ensuring that your team follows your sales processes consistently

• Spot execution gaps in your pipeline using AI that automatically tracks whether your sales process is being followed in your forecasted deals

• Boost compliance and increase rep efficiency with AI that automatically suggests evidence from customer interactions

Make it easier to follow your playbook by bringing it into Gong

Sales methodologies put everybody on the same path when it comes to understanding how a deal is progressing. With your methodology inside Gong, you improve compliance because it’s easier for reps to fill in the playbook, and make it easier for managers to see how reps are progressing. You also make it easier for RevOps and sales leaders to use the data. For more on using Gong playbooks, see Track adoption of strategic initiatives

Getting started

Choose from a ready-made playbook and customize it, or start building a playbook from scratch. Ready-made playbooks are already connected to AI sources, which makes setting them up easier to set up and use.

Note:

Use this file to help you organize all the materials you’ll need to create your playbook.

Playbook setup template

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Start with a ready-made playbook (recommended)

We recommend starting with a ready-made playbook, and adding or removing elements according to your team methodology. Ready-made playbooks are already powered with AI sources, which saves you setup time, and makes filling in elements easier for your reps.

1. Go to Company settings > Customize analysis > Playbooks and click Create a new playbook.

2. Choose one of the existing playbooks and customize it for your team by removing and adding elements.
   You can have up to 9 elements per playbook.

3. The first letter of each element is displayed in the deal board. The description is used for coaching inside the playbook, and should guide reps on how to fill in the element; for example, by mentioning effective questions and strategies. If you add an AI source to the element (next step), this description is used as part of the prompt.

4. Choose an AI source to suggest notes. In the options, you’ll see Gong smart trackers built specifically for playbooks, as well as trackers created by your company. For guidelines on how to build smart trackers for playbooks, see Create smart trackers.

5. If you want to sync with your CRM, select from CRM opportunity fields that you’re already importing (optional). If you want users to see when a field was updated, make sure that Track changes is selected for that field in the CRM setup area.  

   Note:

   If you’re not ready to sync with your CRM right away, you can start using your playbook without syncing any elements. and data will be saved in the playbook in Gong. When you’re ready to sync with your CRM, add the CRM fields to the playbook and publish it.  

   • If there’s already data in Gong for these fields, it will override data in corresponding CRM fields.

   • If there is no data in Gong for these fields, nothing will happen in corresponding CRM fields.

   1. In the Note field: Choose from rich text or plain text CRM fields. Rich text fields are optimal, since they enable you to add links, bullets, and other formatting options that make the text more readable. (Using Salesforce and want to convert a plain text field to a rich text field? See instructions here.)

   2. In the Status field:

      1. If you’re using Salesforce, sync with a boolean field.

      2. If you’re using Hubspot, sync with a single checkbox field that has the values “true” and “false”.

6. When you’re ready, click Publish. This makes the playbook available so that it can be added to deal boards.

   Note:

   You can only have one published playbook right now. If you already have an active playbook, you won’t be able to publish a second one, but you can deactivate the currently live one and publish the new one.

Create a playbook from scratch

1. Go to Company settings > Customize analysis > Playbooks and click Create a new playbook.

2. Choose Start from scratch.

3. Give the playbook a name and add a description that helps people understand when to use it.

4. Add up to 9 elements to your playbook:

   1. The first letter of each element is displayed in the deal board. The description is used for coaching inside the playbook, and should guide reps on how to fill in the element; for example, by mentioning effective questions and strategies. If you add an AI source to the element (next step), this description is used as part of the prompt.

5. Choose an AI source to suggest notes. In the options, you’ll see Gong smart trackers built specifically for playbooks, as well as trackers created by your company. For guidelines on how to build smart trackers for playbooks, see Create smart trackers.

6. If you want to sync with your CRM, select from CRM opportunity fields that you’re already importing (optional).

   Note:

   If you’re not ready to sync with your CRM right away, you can start using your playbook without syncing any elements and data will be saved inside the playbook. When you’re ready to sync with your CRM, add the fields to the playbook and publish it. Gong will sync data already saved in the playbook to your CRM that goes back 3 months.

   1. In the Note field, choose from rich text or plain text CRM fields. Rich text fields are optimal, since they enable you to add links, bullets, and other formatting options that make the text more readable. (Using Salesforce and want to convert a plain text field to a rich text field? See instructions here.)

   2. In the Status field, choose from boolean fields.

7. When you’re ready, click Publish. This makes the playbook available so that it can be added to deal boards.

   Note:

   You can only have one published playbook right now. If you already have an active playbook, you won’t be able to publish a second one, but you can deactivate the currently live one and publish the new one. goes here.

Add a playbook to a deal board

Once a playbook is published, add it to deal boards to make it available to reps.

1. Edit a deal board or create a new one.

2. In the Columns area, click Add column and search for the name of the playbook. It’s the first option you’ll see in the menu.

3. Drag the playbook to where you want it in the board. In most cases, people like it to be near the left side of the board.

4. Click Save.

For more on creating and editing deal boards, see Create and manage deal boards.

Deactivate a playbook

1. Go to Company settings > Customize analysis > Playbooks.

2. Clickbeside the playbook you want to deactivate and click Deactivate.

   If the playbook is being used in deal boards, you’ll have to remove it from the board before it can be deactivated.

Deactivating the playbook doesn’t affect data that’s saved in the playbook, or data that’s been synced with your CRM.

Delete a playbook element

1. Go to Company settings > Customize analysis > Playbooks.

2. Clickbeside the playbook you want to delete and click Edit.

3. If the left panel, hover the element you want to delete and click Delete.

If the element is synced with your CRM, data that’s already been synced isn’t affected. If the element wasn’t synced, any data that’s been saved in it can’t be restored.

Delete a playbook

1. Go to Company settings > Customize analysis > Playbooks.

2. Clickbeside the playbook you want to delete and click Delete. If the playbook is being used in deal boards, you’ll have to remove it from the board before it can be deleted.

If the playbook is synced with your CRM, data that’s already been synced isn’t affected. If the playbook isn’t synced, any data that’s been saved in it can’t be restored.

Switching to a rich text field in Salesforce

Want to sync formatted data with your CRM so it’s easier to read? Syncing with a rich text field enables you to sync text that includes bullets, links and more. You can do this by switching the field type in your CRM to rich text. Here’s how:

1. Open the opportunity record in Salesforce. If you're an admin, you'll see a cog in the top right corner.

2. Click the cog and select Edit Object.

3. This opens the object manager. From here, select Fields & relationships.

4. Look for the field that you want to convert, click the arrow on the far right, and click Edit.

5. Now in edit mode, select Change Field Type at the top of the screen.

6. From here, select the type of information that the custom field contains and change it to to Text Area (Rich).

7. This change prompts two notifications that need to be approved. The first is a field conversion warning; click Yes. The second notification is about the usage of HTML. Select ‘Yes’ and click OK.

8. Click Next to set up the details of the field.

9. In the details area, make sure to set the following:

   1. Length: Set a high number of characters for this object, for example, 130,000.

   2. # Visible Lines: Select at least 10 visible lines.

10. Click Next and then click Save.

Note:

Field types can’t be changed for fields that are referenced to in flows. For details, see this

Playbook FAQs