1. RECRUITING: 1st. Every AE has been lied to during the recruiting process. To start they dance around how much success the org is having. No one in Enterprise is hitting their number. However, success does exist with the CAE's and small market teams. In the Enterprise space OTE is unrealistic as quotas are unattainable. The reason for this is there is massive inequlaity between divisions regarding policy. Not having the ability to land and expand an account makes hitting the number impossible. They can do this in other divisions just not Enterprise. Most orgs buy small, test software, then expand later after proven results. In the case at Gong once you sell the account you lose any ability to upsell. This is because it will be turned over to the CAEs to sell after you spent a minimum of 6+ months selling the account and building the relationships. This issue makes the avg deal way smaller than the 170k they advertise during the recruiting process. Instead the avg new accounts are usually between 50k- 100k. With already the lowest commission rates Ive seen in the industry the ability to make money seems impossible.
BOOK OF BUSINESS: Everyone had 100 accounts each but we were recently told they are changing it to 50 because the 50 accounts will be cleaned and every account will be good rather than having 25% of your 100 accounts not qualified . On top of that you only get to keep the accounts for 1 year!!! Then your entire book of business is turned over after you worked tirelessly for that year only to start over every year as if you are a small business AE. This is even more frustrating when the avg deal takes 13 months to close. So if you don't have several active deals after the start of the fiscal it becomes impossible to close and hit your number. They are recruiting sales reps who are taking a pay cut but being over promised around high growth and people winning is very misleading.
2. ONBOARDING- good luck, hope you used Gong in a past life or are prepared to spend all your hours outside of work listening to calls and figuring out the software on your own. Enablement teaches you very little that you need to know to be successful at your job after training. If you ask for help, they may or may not respond for a few days. That being said your 1st week is incredible!!! Eric does an amazing job making you feel welcomed, his energy is unmatched and had a full schedule for your 1st week. Unfortunately, that's where it ends. The other enablement trainer has very little agenda for weeks 2 through 8. They rely heavily on just listening to calls rather than preparing you for what systems you will use, pricing, process etc. Your calendar will change on the regular during these weeks. Things that were on there such as live trainings will be dropped off with no waring and replaced with, just watch this call instead. When you have nothing on your calendar there will be random meetings that will pop up last minute causing you to have to rearrange your day. There is ZERO communication between Enablement and leadership during these weeks. The lack of a syllabus to share between Management and Enablement is mind-blowing.
3. Compensation is very low and the stock given after you sign is almost laughable. There isn't even a stock achievement bonus. Continuing to talk about all this cash on hand, hiring like crazy yet not willing to actually invest in their top talent is confusing. Very little in the way of bonuses let alone the ability to even achieve hitting your number.
4. Executive leadership says they want to help close deals but trying to pull them in into a complex deal is harder than any other org I’ve been apart of. No one is closing anything yet they always seem to be super busy. There is no true sales process either. There is a new fire drill every week to see what can be thrown against the wall to see what sticks.
5. No Sugar as one of the core operating principals? As long as you’re telling them what they want to hear and how great Gong is. In my experience this is something they say but don't mean. Putting your head in the sand and pretending everything is great is not the answer.
6. Marketing - One of the best I have seen when it comes to social media and the interaction on there. However, planning events are not their strong suit. Major events like Celebrate were given with weeks notice and now becomes the new fire drill. Little to no info given until the week before as there was a struggle booking talent for each location. Marketing material for this even had the wrong dates on some of them. It really feels that in every part of the organization everyone is flying by the seat of their pants.
