AE @ Gong | Closed Won 🦙 | 5x President's Club

Creating raving fans @ Gong. Founder of Closed Won. Dad to Monty 🐾 

Brian LaManna

Gong's AI Builder went GA last week. And it's absolutely insane.

I was lucky enough to have 5 customers Beta this in Q3.

They're saving 10, 20, 30+ hours per week.

Here's what makes it different.

It turns what your top performers are ALREADY doing in the field into repeatable content the rest of your org can use.

Battle cards. Scripts. Case studies. Objection handling guides. Engagement flows.

All built directly from your Gong data and revenue graph.

AI is only powerful as the dataset that underpins it.

What will you build?

AE @ Gong | Closed Won 🦙 | 7x President’s Club

My best prospecting month was in May. Generated 7 new meetings and about $500K in new pipeline.

All as a full-time AE running demos, pilots, and even dealing with 20 customers.

𝐀 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐈 𝐝𝐢𝐝:

-Didn’t take a single day off. Built it into my daily habits.

-Prospected 3-5 accounts per day and about 3-4 people at each account.

-Never did an insane day of prospecting. Never broke a day of even 60+ activities. “Do a little every day, so you never have to do a lot.”

-Mixed up multi-channel. LI, video, calling, gifting, warm intros. Different prospects respond better to each. Try them all.

-Did unscalable prospecting methods. Sent custom gifts to people’s homes. Bought a prospect’s book they authored. Prospect how other sellers would never dare.

-Systematized everything. Used my sequences for 2 personas. High, medium, or low personalization. Used my OPPS email framework to kick off every 1st touch. Repurposed it over and over via multi-channel.


Comes back to my favorite motto for prospecting.

“Do a little every day, so you never have to do a lot.”

Revenue lags hard work, so keep at it to finish EOY.


P.S. Loads of resources on pipeline creation here: https://lnkd.in/gVY8Xpxc

Not sure who needs to hear this with Q4 and EOY….

But if your prospect tells you “No, I’m the decision maker on this.”

They most certainly are NOT the decision maker. 

Very junior thing to say lol

It certainly feels like we are living through the attention economy.

Every buyer is flooded with sales pitches, ads, and endless outreach. 

You no longer win because you show up … you win because you stand out.

And nothing stands out more than showing the actual product in a way that feels both engaging and personal.

That’s why Storylane has worked so well for me in 2025.

Instead of a generic deck or a static walkthrough, you can deliver interactive demos.

Buyers don’t just see a feature list, they experience how the product solves their pain.

And here’s the kicker: once they’ve gone through a demo, they’re more invested. 

At Gong, we know the most effective sales motions are the ones that get buyers leaning in early. 

Attention is scarce. Storylane helps you earn it and keep it.

Brand partnership • AE @ Gong | Closed Won 🦙 | 7x President’s Club

Corrina Owens

TripleLift

Fractional ABM

UserGems 💎

GTM Advisor

Navattic

Pavilion

Executive Member

Orum 🥇

TechnoMile

 ABM Consultant

GTM Partners

Postal.io

SMA Technologies

Aptivio

Strategic Advisor

chief evangelist @ purple cork 💜 | 4x B2B SaaS Marketing & ABM Leader | GTM Advisor | Podcast Host

I help B2B SaaS brands build account-based marketing (ABM) programs at scale.

Ready to move upmarket or have a new product launch? ABM could be for you. 

I'll be able to take on new clients in September—let's connect to discuss how I can help you hit your targets.

Forget touching grass, FEED A COO IN SCOTLAND.

That's it, that's the lesson.

I got asked yesterday for the first time in a while why I started my own business.

The way they asked was so sincere, I had to just be real.

Truth is, it wasn’t an active choice; I was forced to choose between my own health and my career.

Burnout doesn’t even begin to describe the state I was in
—I was beyond spent, and it was showing up in my body. I had two seizures in a month, all related to stress.

It’s not realistic to say I had nothing lined up, or no prospects in sight, but I certainly didn’t have a business name, formalized offering, or even a clue about what the difference between an LLC and an S-Corp was. I just knew I couldn’t sustain my life the way it was and that my life was worth more than my career.

And thankfully, as the universe often does, an opportunity fell in my lap. 

Within a couple of days, I had drafted an SOW, secured terms, and had control over my life again.

I love marketing, building systems and programs that scale. 
But I love my life even more. And it took longer than I’d like (almost 2 years), before I really rewarded myself with some time off, but I took it. Months in advance. With contracts in flight, because I know I need it, deserve it, and it won't happen unless I make sure it does.

There’s a lot I’m grateful for, but putting myself first in the way I have the last 2 years is not something I take lightly. And I will share it publicly. Shamelessly. Forever.

Deal with it, LinkedIn. 😉

There’s a through-line across every ABM motion I’ve built in the last four years and it always came down to this:

> the signals that actually create pipeline are people signals <

When we built the enterprise ABM motion at Gong, we could have tracked hundreds of signals. But the programs that consistently delivered qualified opportunities—and helped us bring deals to market a full quarter faster—came from just a few:

• Former champions from SBM accounts moving to ENT orgs
• Champions at closed-lost opps resurfacing

Those patterns became the #1 driver of qualified opportunities for the Enterprise org.

And here’s the part that most ABM vendors never understood: if your model can’t reflect the humans behind the account, the entire motion breaks down.

Not because the tools are inherently flawed, but because they were built for an era of one-channel activation and vague “intent” that reps stopped believing years ago.

*AND* because the intent models we were paying six figures for were black boxes—literally and figuratively.

Marketers know this so well, we decided to start calling it out, directly, and even built an activation around it at one of the biggest AI events this year: a literal black box.

Because that’s what these big box platforms had become: mysterious, opaque, and deeply frustrating.

Here’s the part I know firsthand—because I’ve watched this product evolve from the inside:

UserGems 💎 didn’t start as “ABM software.” UserGems started where ABM actually works: tracking people and transforming those signals into pipeline.

And that’s why their launch of Gem-E by UserGems 💎 for ABM is so much bigger than a feature. Your team will instantly get:

👉 Names of the people at the accounts that matter.
👉 Context on “the why” to reach out.
👉 And clear recommendation on next actions to take.

This is the version of ABM I always wished existed while trying to maintain overly complicated intent models across multi-product lines and acquisitions.

And now that AI has finally democratized data, we no longer need to wait quarters to retrain a model. We can act—immediately—across the channels that actually create pipeline for B2B SaaS companies today.

If you want to understand what actionable, trustworthy, human-level ABM actually looks like from people who have built it, join them tomorrow (Dec 4) for their latest virtual event: 👉 https://lnkd.in/dG_wD5C5

And yes… they’re giving away 12 bougie gifts if you attend, engage, or post before Dec 4. I don’t make the rules. 🙃


#usergemspartner

Brand partnership • making ABM a reality for B2B

random morning thoughts:

Can you imagine a world where we praised people’s work as much as we praise/share AI’s? 🤔

You’ve (finally) finalized your target account list, but realize you’re missing all relevant buying persona contacts and routing logic.

Default let me build a workflow for that. ☝️

 → Enrich with Apollo/ZoomInfo
 → Assign via round-robin (even with complex logic)
 → Notify reps with Slack alert for immediate follow-up

We’ve all been there, it’s ok. No shame! If you want the template, I’ll send it your way. 

#DefaultPartner

STOP SPINNING YOUR WHEELS ON PROMPTING.

AI prompting isn’t this elusive party trick we keep making it out to be.

After analyzing prompts to figure out what made them work and what got me to a usable output in as few iterations as possible, the best prompts reflect judgment, your judgment. They work only because you’ve embedded context, intent, and tone.​

Before I prompt, I ask myself:
→ What type of person am I trying to emulate?
→ What am I trying to accomplish?
→ What is my desired output?
→What model will deliver the most optimal results?

And it's how I’ve been building prompts inside Tofu for repeatable, scalable campaign content:

🪄  Prompt = Signal Context + AI Role + Job + Output Format + Tone

Elaine Zelby & I built a prompt library for marketers who are ready to ship—and are done wasting cycles trying to “get the prompt right.”

And the library of prompts is growing, with a new one from Morgan J Ingram for market research.

Have one we should add? Let us know...no gatekeeping here. 🙅‍♀️ 

https://lnkd.in/etRE5Qqp

What happens when 10 marketers decide to make the group chat public?

We’re making our Navattic advisor meeting public for one hour to talk about:

→What actually worked in 2025
→What flopped (and why)
→Our big bets for 2026

📅 Thurs, Dec 18 | 12pm ET
📍 LIVE on LinkedIn (replay if you’re double-booked)
🔗 save your spot https://lnkd.in/ehqNS8QA

Here’s what each of us will be talking about:
• Blame/praise Brendan Hufford for the idea to take our advisor meeting public. I know he'll be sharing some of the best content tips you can get
• Yi Lin Pei on AI workflows that actually scale (without building agents on day 1)
• Anna Furmanov on turning raw customer feedback into GTM gold
• Jason Oakleyon building high-converting newsletter + CI systems
• Mark Kilens on product launches, PLG, and paid programs that print pipeline
• Andrew Capland on CRO systems and PLG playbooks
• Erin Balsa on marketing research that earns trust and closes deals
• Peyton Walbeck on shifting from review sites to paid search + video case studies
• Camille Trent on building video strategy with brand-led narrative
• Corrina Owens (👋) on how I’m using signal-based ABM + AI Slack agents to warm up entire buying committees

I mean, really, COULD YOU ASK FOR MORE!?

If you really could, tell us what you want to hear, let us know & we'll cover it.😉

Marketers are planning 2026 without enough real data.

So we’re opening up a live, roundtable with our advisors where they'll share:

• What actually worked in 2025
• What didn’t, and why
• The bets they’re making for 2026

Fast, candid, no slides. Just perspectives you can use for annual planning.

Thursday, Dec. 18th, 12 - 1 pm EST

Register on LinkedIn:

Marketing Big Bets: What Worked in 2025 + Bets for 2026

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