Gong Leans into the Last Mover Advantage | AI Prompts and Win-Loss | Palo Alto Job Opp

Ricky Bobby, Will Ferrell’s character in Talladega Nights, had one simple mantra:

if you ain’t first you’re last. 

Later in the movie, however, he would learn that his mantra — a piece of received wisdom he got from his dad — wasn’t as reliable as he thought. 

Ricky Bobby: Wait, Dad. Don’t you remember the time you told me “If you ain’t first, you’re last”?
Reese Bobby: Huh? What are you talking about, Son?
Ricky Bobby: That day at school.
Reese Bobby: Oh hell, Son, I was high that day. That doesn’t make any sense at all, you can be second, third, fourth… hell you can even be fifth.
Ricky Bobby: What? I’ve lived my whole life by that!

Indeed, you don’t have to be the first mover to win the race. 

Gong entering the sales engagement space might well become living proof of this. 

We dive into Gong leaning into the last mover advantage in today’s edition of ☕️ Coffee & Compete 🤜🤛

More? You want some more!?

Okay. 

Ryan Sorley breaks down why win-loss survey data is suspicious. 

And a chance to join a killer competitive intelligence team at Palo Alto Networks. 

Let’s rock

Ben ✌️

🏎 Gong leans into the last mover advantage 🏎

It’s not like the first mover advantage is a myth. Gong was faster than Chorus. Uber was faster than Lyft.

And what did they get for winning the race? Valuations that start with a ‘b’ and not an ‘m’. 

But what do you call it when a company bides their time, lets a market mature, learns from mistakes and uses all that data to build a kick-ass product?

The last mover advantage. 

That’s what Gong leaned into when their CEO announced the company was diving headfirst into the sales engagement space with “Gong Engage”. 

And just for good measure, he made sure everyone knew Gong were the new kids on the block — and those other guys were old news. 

It’s the topic of our latest installment of our Competitive News in 60ish seconds short video series.

👎 The sorry state of survey data 👎

“That’s why I believe, why we believe, that interviews are the gold standard over surveys for win-loss data.” 

Why does win-loss wiz Ryan Sorely believe in the power of interview data over surveys and CRM data? The same reason former CEO of Demandware Tom Ebling believes in it.

Because the best win-loss analysis insights come from nuanced data points that can’t be captured in a survey question or a CRM dropdown menu. 

But beyond that, surveys are just…hard to do right. Too many potential pitfalls that come into play all too often — rendering the findings unreliable. 

🥱 Problem 1: Survey Fatigue 🥱

Just like I used to do in my Grade 11 Chemistry class, by the end of multiple-choice section tests or surveys, you end up choosing at random just to get it over with. But make your survey too short and you won’t collect comprehensive data

😕 Problem 2: Confusing questions 😕

Making the questions clear enough to elicit a thoughtful answer while leaving them sufficiently open-ended to allow for nuance is serious art and science. Unless you’re a professional qualitative researcher, you don’t have the skillset for this.  

🧐 Problem 3: Whose incentive is it anyways? 🧐

Surveying a broad audience usually involves incentivizing respondents. But, in so doing, are you incentivizing the wrong people to answer the survey? 

Reliable survey data is hard to come by. And don’t even get us started on CRM data reliability…

You can dive deeper into why win-loss interviews are the winners and ways you can use AI to design, build and deploy your win-loss program. 

All on Episode 80 of the Competitive Enablement Show with guest Ryan Sorley.

👭Coffee & Compete Community Corner 👬

And now for something completely different…

We usually reserve the Community Corner for hot takes from the compete community.

But today, we’re bringing you a spicy hot job opening from the one and only Alysse Nockels.

It’s a great compete team at a great company working with one of the greatest. 

And since we can’t leave you completely empty-handed without any compete content…check out Alysse’s TWO appearances on the Competitive Enablement Show. 

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