The power of partnerships and why they matter

Industry leaders know the equation for success in today’s fast-paced and ever-evolving business world.

Partner > Collaborate > Integrate > WIN.

That’s no secret.

The real trick is how to leverage the full power of partnerships and why it matters whether you’re in the seat of the customer or the vendor.

It matters because to reach impactful winning scenarios, joining forces with the relevant and value-adding vendors your customers love will yield tremendous results – attracting new customers; retaining current ones.

Partners can serve as great advocates and often become a valuable channel for driving new business.

How valuable? McKinsey and Company predict by 2025, nearly one-third of total global sales will come from ecosystems (aka partnerships) — cross-industry players working together to create solutions.

Gong has plenty of practical experience in this space.

And we’re very eager to share what we’ve learned.

So let’s dig into Gong’s partnership formula, including why they truly matter, how the Gong partnership network operates, and how we fully leverage that network.

Win for the company that brings on the partner.
Win for the partner who is now part of the company’s ecosystem.
Win for the customer (ideally of both companies).

Partnerships serve to help an organization (a) expand its product offering, (b) gain access to new markets or customers, and (c) improve its competitive position.

For example, a company that offers a Revenue Intelligence platform (say, Gong) may partner with a leader in Customer Success (say, Gainsight) to unify the customer voice across sales and CS for stronger retention. Or with an enablement engine (like Highspot or Seismic) to help drive efficiency and visibility into your seller’s deals and best practices.

The value for customers is relatively straightforward, but what about Gong partners? What’s in it for them?

Our partners gain new audiences and expand their reach through co-marketing with us. They also work closely with our team on content for both joint customers and prospects. Finally, our partners have full access to other members of the Gong Partner Network.

Simply put, partnership ecosystems are the key to joint success.

For customers: Immediately tap into well-connected vendors deeply ingrained with other tools and services. As one customer shared, “As Gong invests in more and more partners, like Corporate Visions, we feel the net benefit because our systems and processes are integrated together!”

For vendors: A direct line to build deep relationships in spaces customers care about. No company exists in a vacuum. Take advantage of partners to reinforce your value props and develop joint solutions catering to customers’ needs.

Most SaaS companies offer some type of partner network/program.

This is what the one at Gong looks like.

The Gong Partner Network brings together the world’s leading training firms, tech companies, and consulting groups … to offer effortless alignment to your tech stack and unlock meaningful value for enterprises, big and small, worldwide.

We break our network into two main categories:

We’ve built relationships with top firms that help our customers solve complex problems and get the most out of Gong. Looking to measure the impact of a recently implemented sales methodology? We’ve got you covered. Need support implementing integrated technology? No problem! Have a desire to really get your teams onboard and get the highest and best value out of Gong? Take your pick!

The variety of Gong’s Services and Consulting Partners means our customers can access these incredible resources and outstanding talent to help them succeed. We’ve compiled a group of consultancy partners who support sales transformation and services partners who assist with implementation and provide integration support and leadership.

Our services and consulting partners include GSI, Consulting, Sales Methodology, Influencers, Distributors, Value Added Resellers, Managed Service Providers, and Private Equity & Venture Capital Firms.

The Gong Collective is home to our integration and technology partners. With over 110+ third-party applications, the Gong Collective is, according to Gartner, “a large and expanding group of technology leaders that partner with Gong to seamlessly connect their tools and services to the Gong Reality Platform.

“The Gong Collective reduces integration complexity, simplifies setup, and enables customers to unlock more value from the platform.”

Our goal is to offer customers the ability to connect the tech stack from top to bottom with Gong to help make their lives easier and their work streams more efficient … and offer a more complete picture of their customer buying cycle.

In the Collective, you’ll find a spectrum of integrations – from CRM to communication (multichannel… email, text, voice, video, Slack, and more.) to engagement events (i.e., buyer interaction/intent signals) to Gong Data cloud for leveraging raw Gong data to open up possibilities with any BI tool. (i.e., Snowflake).

Some of our more popular partnerships include our integration with Slack and the connection with Linkedin Sales Navigator.

Categorize partnerships into whatever suits your business and serves customers. The main objective is to continually weave the blanket of partners that address your customer’s needs and help amplify the love they feel when using your product.

For example, Gong customers told us they needed better quality contact data (at a better price) to help drive more efficient prospect outreach.

They asked, and we answered by tapping into our partner network to team up with companies like Apollo, Cognism, and LeadIQ to streamline the buying process to save our mutual customers time and money and boost efficiency.

Now that’s a win-win-win.

From the partner to the customer, to Gong; a relationship designed to yield benefits to everyone involved.

As Bryan Juliano, Sr. Operations Analyst at Quickbase, shared: “With Gong and LeadIQ, our reps are saving time and driving revenue with fewer clicks to drop leads into sequences.”

Speaking of saving time, helping Udemy save time has made them raving fans of Gong.

Eric Stoddard, Head of Global Sales & Customer Success Enablement at Udemy, loves the pre-built Corporate Visions trackers because “They provide visibility into our sales approach but, equally importantly, reduce the time required of my enablement team to set up and execute a project!”

We’ve also found success with sharing the value of partnerships with our customers.

By leveraging our own data, we set up a tracker to see how mentions of Gong Collective impacted win rates.

What did we find? Gong Collective tracker usage positively affects new business win rates overall, and it’s most effective earlier in the deal.

Depending on the stage “Gong Collective” is mentioned, we’ve seen a boost in win rate from a low of 32% to a high of 44%.

It’s just more validation that partnerships drive value for our customers, partners, and even our own teams here at Gong.

Gong is passionate about cultivating an ecosystem that supports businesses and revenue leaders to be the best they can be

The power of partnerships is at the center of collaboration. And Gong’s ecosystem is 320 partners strong and growing.

If you are a customer or potentially even a future customer, we encourage you to explore the various partners who are sure to provide you with immediate value.

Interested in joining as a partner so you too can streamline your workflows and consolidate your data with Gong’s integration and consulting partners? Click here to become a Tech Integration partner and here to become a Service and Consulting partner to get started.

We look forward to welcoming you to our equation!