In the Gong Labs series, we publish what we learn from analyzing sales conversations with AI. Subscribe here to read upcoming research. Everything that follows is true. As far as I know. There was once a regional sales manager—a rising star in her company. Everyone knew she was destined to be crowned VP Sales. One of her […]

In the Gong Labs series, we publish what we learn from analyzing sales conversations with AI. Follow me to read upcoming research. I’m not a natural salesperson. I had to learn to sell manually. And I’m going to tell you about the time I went from good to great in sales. It happened in July 2014 during a one-on-one with […]

In the Gong Labs series, we publish what we learn from analyzing sales conversations with AI. Subscribe here to read upcoming research.   The words “list price” signal that your price is wobbly and movable. They telegraph that you have a fat margin with more than enough room to negotiate. When these words pass your lips, you’re practically begging your buyer to […]

“Can I pencil you in for next week?” I was wrapping up a sales meeting with a new account. Even though they seemed interested, they were hurrying to get off the call. They all had other meetings to get to, and I was holding them up. “Sure,” said my main contact, feeling rushed. “Send me an […]

Highly successful salespeople deploy tiny persuasive language techniques to sell more. Some of these techniques are so subtle, they’re barely perceptible: Like using “I” or “we” language at the right time. It’s a small switch, but these two first-person language types create completely different dynamics in your sales conversation. When you predominantly use “we” language (referring to your company rather than […]

I have some bad news — by the time you try those slick closing techniques you read about online, it’ll be too late. Your deal’s fate will already have been sealed. The actions you take earlier in the sales process define your outcome. Not even the fanciest closing technique can change that. Imagine an asteroid on a collision […]

Objection handling techniques, tips, and tricks for sales are all over the Internet. So what makes this the BEST post about objection handling you’ll ever read? Simple: it’s the only one based on hard data. Our team at Gong.io studied 67,149 sales call recordings from our database of over 1,000,000 recorded calls. We only included […]

Many salespeople swear this is one of the best cold call opening lines: “Did I catch you at a bad time?” At one point, they were right to think so. Here’s the theory behind it: People like to say “no.” It makes them feel in control. So when you ask “Did I catch you at a […]

Is cold calling dead? No. But it is a game of inequality. On paper, the average success rate is dismal (as low as 1.48%*). As a result, many people conclude that cold calling is dead. But averages often obscure what’s really going on. Here’s the reality… Most salespeople are failing miserably at cold calling. Much […]

In the Gong Labs series, we publish data from analyzing sales calls with natural language processing and AI. Subscribe here for future research. — Successful sales reps do six things differently when handling objections. Five of them are intuitive. The sixth one, not so much. Let me explain. We pulled 67,149 call recordings from our […]

The key difference between your superstar sales reps and your average reps comes down to sales conversations. But… how exactly are their sales conversations different? Dozens of ways. Many of which are specific to you and your team. But here’s one BIG difference we found through our data analysis research: Superstar reps have business- and […]

Following a structured sales call process is vital to your success. Outsiders of the sales profession often believe that salespeople are “fly by the seat of your pants” types. The mental image they carry of salespeople is they are the type who “wing it.” They think salespeople are improvisers. But according to some compelling new […]