Reveal: The Revenue AI Podcast by Gong

As the end of the year approaches, you’re probably feeling the pressure. Pressure to exceed quota, get the most out of your team, and end the year on a high note -- all while trying to avoid burnout. Mark McWatters, VP of Sales at Ambition, shares his advice for coaching your team across the finish line. His secret? Asking empowering questions and ridding yourself of the pressure to have all the answers.

In this episode you’ll learn how to get your reps unstuck, shift your leadership approach, and scale a team to succeed without you.

Key Takeaways:

05:41 - 07:30 Lessons on coaching teams of A-players

13:25 - 14:11 Data Breakout: End of month sales

14:44 - 16:56 Developmental Coaching vs. Finish-line Coaching

23:54 - 26:28 What sales leaders often get wrong

29:10 - 30:04 Micro Action: Final round of 1:1s

Want to explore Revenue Intelligence for your org? It starts here: https://www.gong.io/revenue-intelligence/

Connect with Devin Reed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/

Connect with Sheena Badani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenabadani/

Connect with Mark McWatters: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mcwatters-26539414/

How do you identify high-performing sales professionals? Jason Andrew, Chief Revenue Officer at BMC Software, shares his tried-and-true insights.

His advice boils down to problem solving. It sounds simple but healing root causes (rather than symptoms) is key to success in sales leadership. Listen to hear more about why talent acquisition is so important and how you can retain your top people.

Key Takeaways:

07:39 - 10:26 Lessons from experience - What Jason wish he knew when starting at BMC

12:26 - 13:18 Data Breakout: Sales employee turnover rate

13:20 - 16:35 How to keep employees engaged long-term

21:14 - 24:59 Identifying the right people for first-time leadership/seniority roles

35:46 - 36:42 Micro Action: Giving people opportunities to grow

Want to explore Revenue Intelligence for your org? It starts here: https://www.gong.io/revenue-intelligence/

Connect with Devin Reed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/

Connect with Sheena Badani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenabadani/

Connect with Jason Andrew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonwandrew/

“Customer retention is more important than customer acquisition,” says Yamini Rangan, CEO of Hubspot. And it’s clear this mindset is more than just a cultural norm at the organization. 

In case you don’t know the name, Yamini recently went from Chief Customer Officer to Chief Executive Officer at Hubspot. Her ‘customer first’ mentality creates a fundamental shift in the B2B space from the traditional funnel approach to a flywheel. Learn how to provide value, starting with the first sales conversation.

Key Takeaways

09:09 - 11:28 Why shifting to the flywheel view instead of the funnel view will benefit your business

15:51 - 18:31 How to turn the flywheel vision into an actionable plan

18:33 - 19:15 Data Breakout: Cost of acquiring a new customer vs retaining an existing customer

21:37 - 23:40 Incentives shape behavior: Care about customer success

31:03 - 32:00 Micro Action: Find when and why customers churn

Want to explore Revenue Intelligence for your org? It starts here: https://www.gong.io/revenue-intelligence/

Connect with Devin Reed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/

Connect with Sheena Badani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenabadani/

Connect with Yamini Rangan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaminirangan/

Accurate forecasts are core to running a successful business. Yet more often than not, forecasting is rarely that... accurate.

When John Lorenc, Vice President of Sales Operations, joined Point Click Care they didn’t really have a sales operations function. Today, the company operates a data-fueled forecasting approach putting them within 3% of accuracy. Hear how they said good-bye to a “best-guess” model and get a crash course on how to set up a sales operations function that has massive impacts on the health of your organization.

Key Takeaways:

10:12 - Why it's so difficult to forecast the right way

14:03 - Support your forecast with data

16:19 - Tips for reps building their forecast bottoms up

19:43 - Data Breakout: Forecasting accuracy

20:43 - Crash course to build an accurate forecast

29:43 - How to automate your forecasting

34:22 - Micro Action: Building your idea forecasting process

Want to explore Revenue Intelligence for your org? It starts here: https://www.gong.io/revenue-intelligence/

Connect with Devin Reed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/

Connect with Sheena Badani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenabadani/

Connect with John Lorenc: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-lorenc-ph-d-a1791345/

Being exceptional in sales isn’t a solo mission — it’s a team effort. To be successful in any revenue-generating function, you need mentorship. 

Peter Kim, Chief Sales Officer at Relativity, shares how to budget time, intentionally seek out mentorship opportunities, and why mentors are key to developing the next generation of go-to-market leaders. This episode gives you the playbook you need to build career and life-changing relationships.

Key Takeaways:

08:51 - The building blocks to being a great leader

15:22 - What mentorship actually looks like

20:37 - How to know when a mentor/mentee relationship is working

26:24 - Data Breakout: The power behind mentorship programs

27:33 - How to become a more effective leader

34:53 - Micro Action: Be intentional about creating a mentor relationship

Save your seat for Celebrate: https://gongh.it/celebrate21-reveal

Want to explore Revenue Intelligence for your org? It starts here: https://www.gong.io/revenue-intelligence/

Connect with Devin Reed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/

Connect with Sheena Badani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenabadani/

Connect with Peter Kim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterxkim/

“Land and expand” is vendor-centric. “Know and grow” is customer-centric. There’s a difference. Daniela Becker, Area Vice President Major Accounts EMEA at DocuSign, shares her secrets to success in enterprise sales. Tune in to learn how to set massive deals up for long-term wins – including the tactics that lead to record-breaking upsells.

Key Takeaways:

07:01 - The 3 elements to being an impactful sales leader

09:22 - What is "knowing and growing"?

11:48 - How to ensure you have the right success metrics with your buyers

18:25 - Criteria for entering a proof of concept

20:19 - Data Breakout: Successful POCs

24:33 - You're only as successful as your firs adoption

30:51 - How to find your passion project within your organization

43:58 - Micro Action: Land and expand KPIs

Want to explore Revenue Intelligence for your org? It starts here: https://www.gong.io/revenue-intelligence/

Connect with Devin Reed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/

Connect with Sheena Badani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenabadani/

Connect with Daniela Becker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniela-becker-8b41998/

Want to provide vision, direction, and inspiration to your team? Ryan Longfield, Chief Revenue Officer at Gong, breaks down the critical role employee retention plays in sustainable long-term success. Learn how to manage your team’s emotional state (and hear the impact it has on performance). Consider this a crash course on how to level-up as a leader.

Key Takeaways:

05:35 - What leadership means to Ryan Longfield

06:48 - What was the moment you decided to go into leadership

10:34 - Small team vs. Large team aspect

19:35 - What does a leader need to do in the tough times to keep motivation

25:06 - Setting expectation for your team

35:46 - Revenue intelligence is all about seeing clearly

38:44 - Describing sales in one word

Want to explore Revenue Intelligence for your org? It starts here: https://www.gong.io/revenue-intelligence/

Connect with Devin Reed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/

Connect with Sheena Badani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenabadani/

Connect with Ryan Longfield: linkedin.com/in/rlongfield

To sell more, you have to sell less. It sounds counterintuitive — but that’s what value-based conversations are all about. Vin Messina, VP of Sales Execution at Blackline, shares how he identifies his buyer’s problems and partners with them to find solutions. Tune in to get a step-by-step playbook on how to sell to the c-suite. (Spoiler: C-suite alignment should happen on the FIRST call.)

Key Takeaways:

00:55 - Introducing Gong's rebranding

11:07 - Differentiating sales execution and sales enablement

15:46 - Sales: A series of well-executed value-based conversations

19:40 - Data Breakout: Sales processes and buyer expectations

20:39 - Vin's value-based formula - Problem, impact, value

25:17 - Enabling sellers to coach buyers not press them

32:19 - The difference between a champion and a change agent

38:15 - Micro Action: Are you fulfilling your buyers needs?

Want to explore Revenue Intelligence for your org? It starts here: https://www.gong.io/revenue-intelligence/

Connect with Devin Reed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/

Connect with Sheena Badani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenabadani/

Connect with Vin Messina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vmessina/

After analyzing 300,000 cold emails, we debunked one of sales’ greatest mysteries — and unlocked a strategy to DOUBLE the amount of meetings you book. Here's a hint: The CTA (call to action) you use at the end of your email, matters more than you think. And according to the data, there's one cold email CTA that reigns supreme. Ready to craft the perfect cold email? Tune in to the episode.

43 Highly effective email CTAs: https://gongh.it/43-ctas-gong-asp

Key Takeaways:

00:53 - What is the most effective CTA?

03:54 - The answer from Gong Labs data

07:27 - Why asking for a meeting too early is risky

08:02 - Does the answer change depending on the stage?

08:49 - Do online calendars impact the ask?

If you missed the Opinions portion of this podcast (aka the first half of the episode), you can listen here: https://link.chtbl.com/PWHzpEQ7

Want to explore Revenue Intelligence for your org? It starts here:

43 Highly effective email CTAs: https://gongh.it/43-ctas-gong-asp

Connect with Devin Reed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/

Connect with Sheena Badani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenabadani/

Connect with Bryan Neale: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanneale/

Connect with Bill Caskey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billcaskey/

PLG (product lead growth) flips the traditional sales model on its head. Kai Mak, VP of Sales and Customer Success at Webflow, knows that an end-user-focused growth model isn’t just good for customers -- it’s also good for business. Learn how sales teams can influence product design, what it means to truly delight customers, and why the term 'product qualifying lead' will soon be common sales vocab.

Key Takeaways:

05:27 - What a product-led growth company(PLG) is

10:56 - Focus on the user experience - Bring support and customer success together

13:33 - Data Breakout: PLG companies scale faster once they hit 10 million ARR

21:03 - Leading a team with builder mentalities

27:23 - How Kai and his team use Gong

34:34 - Micro-Action: How to build a strong start for a product-led business

Want to explore Revenue Intelligence for your org? It starts here: https://www.gong.io/revenue-intelligence/

Connect with Devin Reed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinreed/

Connect with Sheena Badani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheenabadani/

Connect with Kai Mak: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaimaksf/