If you want to create a strong learning culture, everyone has to participate. Given that no one has time to listen to every call or review every deal, it’s crucial to encourage your team to share their experiences. It’s the best way for them to learn on a consistent basis without getting overwhelmed.
Encourage self-coaching
Many Gong users start by listening to their own calls to confirm that their typed notes are accurate, and that they've captured the right next steps and action items. As they do that, they will start thinking about ways they could improve their pitch. They’ll hear their talk times, call dynamics, product presentations, pricing discussions, etc.
This is self-coaching and it’s an incredibly powerful place for reps—the first step before dissecting calls with other people. Once reps understand the power of self-coaching with Gong, they'll begin to recognize the potential of peer coaching. They'll want to listen to other reps’ calls and learn from their experiences.
Over 70% of Gong’s call listening is users reviewing their own calls and their peers’ calls.
Here are actions your team members should take to make Gong part of their daily self-coaching routine:
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Listen to calls soon after they’re recorded to capture detailed notes and action items. There are always important moments that get missed, either an action item they didn’t realize they casually mentioned, or a critical detail that unlocks the deal.
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Before talking to a customer, listen to previous calls anyone on the team had with the customer. (Gong’s call notifications and daily digests encourage this on a regular basis.) Capture call notes and comments in Gong so they’re aligned with the relevant parts of the conversation. Gong comments allow the call organizer, their peers, and their manager to review a call within minutes with the full context for each call. Comments can include bookmarks for important segments of the call, coaching tips, deal notes, and other relevant points.
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Listen to at least one or two call recordings per week–their own and their peers’, and leave feedback. Treat other team members’ calls as learning experiences, particularly calls made by the team’s top closers. Listen to recently closed-won or closed-lost deals, and deals in specific vertical markets.
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Use @mentions in comments to request help, ask questions, or share information the team should know about. Savvy reps will leverage this for positive moments, such as clever objection handling, driving concrete next steps, etc.
Laser focus your coaching
Sales coaches play many roles, from helping reps identify the right objectives and strategies, to developing relevant habits so they can achieve their goals. Sales coaches often have a hunch about when to let reps find answers on their own and when to intervene with direct advice. Gong ups that game by letting sales coaches clarify reps' needs more clearly. That can mean targeting the mechanics of selling, product knowledge, objection handling, or important market changes. Gong points out anywhere reps need help.
Gong opens a window into all the calls it records and analyzes for your teams, letting your coaches and managers provide relevant guidance without intruding on every call. Reps, managers, and coaches can review calls together, hearing exactly what was said without relying on anecdotes or memory. They can also review the call’s dynamics, how they conducted it (e.g., talk time, interactivity), call content, and what was discussed on the call. All of that will help them pinpoint issues that require coaching.
Here are some actions you can take to focus your coaching using Gong:
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Encourage reps to tag their managers using @mentions in the Comments for feedback and guidance. An automatic notification will go to the manager so they can see the queue of calls waiting for coaching.
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Create call library folders that correspond to skills and common areas that require improvement in your team. Organize relevant call samples in the library and note key ways to improve relevant skills.
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Get alerts based on filters you set up in Gong Stats. Filters can include content (keywords, trackers, topics), call dynamics (talk time, longest monologue), and CRM data.
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Save useful searches and flag the corresponding calls. Gong Stats let you see and save search and call combinations and flag them in case they show up again. For example, you could look for:
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Calls on which reps talked more than 65% of the time or for more than five minutes without pausing for the customer to speak.
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Discovery and demo calls in which next steps weren’t discussed.
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Data about a sales rep’s performance over time. You could track and compare frequently used KPIs for each team member and watch how coaching affects those KPIs over time.
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These are all great ways to target your coaching so it’s personalized and based on reality, not anecdotes or opinions.