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

Salman Mohiuddin

Enterprise Account Executive, Marketing Cloud (Financial Services)

Helping sales pros + teams build healthy pipeline to close more deals faster | Sales Coach + Trainer @ SSA | 17 years as a quota carrier | ex-Salesforce, Asana and IBM | Interview Ace

Problem before Product. 

17 years of tech sales experience as an SDR + AE at Salesforce, IBM and Asana all as an individual contributor. There’s more 👉

Currently Founder at Salman Sales Academy.

#1 Sales Influencer in Canada 2025 (source: Favikon)

Coaching and training AEs, SDRs, BDRs + sales teams to find and close more deals.

Started as an SDR in 2006, moved to AE in 2007.

6 years at IBM
- SDR 
- SMB + MM AE
- small Enterprise AE

7 years at Salesforce
- MM AE (new logo)
- Enterprise AE

2.5 years at Asana
- Enterprise AE 

2 years at startups 
- SMB AE (new logo)
- Enterprise AE

I currently coach + train AEs, AMs, BDRs, SDRs and Sales teams on prospecting, problem enablement, discovery, demos, deal strategy and interviews.

DM me for:

- 1:1 Sales coaching 
- Sales team coaching + training for your company
- 1:1 Sales interview consults to help you land an offer
- Speaking engagements or sessions for your company
- Podcast guest 


✅ Widely recognized as a master prospector & hunter

✅ Experienced in consultative selling to C-level, Information Technology (IT), Marketing, Ops, HR and more.

✅ Sales Interview Ace - the interview playbook I've built has resulted in an 80% success rate in interviews

✅ Possess an Honors B.A., Economics

[Sales COACHING]

➡️ Problem Enablement [build confidence in truly understanding your persona and the problems your solution solves for]

➡️ Prospecting [cold email, cold calling, warm calling, objection handling]

➡️ Discovery [full 5-step discovery framework to help lead your calls with confidence and in the flow of the conversation]

➡️ Demos [full demo framework, engaging demos, justifying spend, taking control of deals, PoC/Pilot strategy, etc…]

➡️ Deal Strategy [multithreading, uncovering power, executive alignment + engagement, quantifying pain, business case, negotiation, dealing with objections throughout cycle, taking control of your deals, champion building, mutual plans, forecasting, etc...]

➡️ Interviews - I've refined my interview playbook that has help 80+ folks land offers [interviews, mock cold calls, mock discovery, mock presos, territory plans (that will wow a hiring manager)]

I've built an entire Sales playbook from prospecting to close in everything in between based on my 17 years of experience as an individual contributor in tech sales.

No fluff. All actionable sales insights and content, with real examples, that you can start using right away in your role and see immediate results.

Check out the coaching programs and testimonials here:  www.salmansales.com

or DM me. Happy to help.

Founder

Helping AEs, SDRs + Sales teams find and close more deals. 🚀 Boosting income and revenue. 

17 years of tech Sales experience, all as an individual contributor. I've been in your shoes as an SDR, Commercial, and Enterprise AE at companies like Salesforce, IBM and Asana. In the trenches. Exceeding targets. Even in economic downturns.

Documenting all of my learnings, I've built out a Sales playbook. Now I want to give back to YOU.

I teach individual contributors + Sales teams on how to sell better, exceed targets, boost income / revenue, and accelerate growth. All with actionable Sales content and insights that you and your team can start using right away. Seeing immediate results.

My AVP at Salesforce to me on last day of the fiscal year: “Thank you for not listening to me.” 😐

Let’s roll the clocks back 9 months prior.

I took over an account. Not just any, but the largest bank in the country.

My AVP - who was the AE on the account years ago - pulled me aside my first few weeks in role and said, 

“Salman, just take down the small deal in this account. We’ve sold them almost everything.” 

Not exactly what I wanted to hear from my AVP when I took over the account.

They’d already invested quite a bit with us, I get it. But I had a quota to hit. A big one.

Nobody thought we could sell them more. 

There was a small opp… and they recommended I just take it down

and move on.

……………………………………………..

Well, here’s what I did to prove them wrong 👇


BACKGROUND CHECK

- spoke to the CSM, SE, Core teams
- specialists, external partners, SI’s, etc…
- to get the lay of the land across the account


- identified a segment that had whitespace
- it was their Wealth management division


BUILT A POINT OF VIEW

- did some initial digging and discovery
- built PoV on how they may be losing rev to competiton
- because of insights not captured in real-time on digital channels


STARTED WITH THE PROBLEM

- focused on this business challenge
- uncovered a exec priority at risk because of problem
(increased market share)


MULTITHREAD

- the PoV + disco helped gain meetings with Dir/VPs
- leveraged our internal x-functional teams
- SE, CSM, Business Value, Product mgmt, etc…


VALIDATION + ALIGNMENT

- business problem, impact to the business
- uncovered metrics important to each stakeholder 
- how said metrics were being affected by problem
- impact to business if nothing actioned on


CUSTOMER’S BEST INTEREST BEFORE OURS

- shared pros and cons to each option
- options included ones that wouldn’t work in our favor
- we didn’t take one side or other, which built trust


CO-CREATED BUSINESS CASE

- with our champion
- got buy-in from each stakeholder


MUTUAL PLAN

- which was truly MUTUAL 


NO BUDGET WAS ALLOCATED

- we uncovered a problem that put a priority at risk
- they dug up budget from other areas of business

………………………………………..

The result?

Our champion achieved the 1% club, because of the impact the platform had on their segment.

I closed one of the largest deals of my career 

because our internal teams worked together to solve a big problem.

Hit almost 200% of my number (when I was told to take down the small deal)


The deal came on the last day of the fiscal year and the AVP sent me a message,

“Thank you for not listening to me”

………………………………………………………

I took my AVP’s statement at the start of the year as a challenge.

Don’t let a few words stop you from accomplishing something you believe you can do.

Helping Sales Pros Close More Deals + Crush Quota | 17 Years as an AE | ex-Salesforce, IBM + Asana | Founder, Salman Sales Academy | #1 Sales Influencer in Canada 2025

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

If I started a new AE role tomorrow, I wouldn’t open the CRM.

I wouldn’t review the product slides (for now). 
I wouldn’t watch demos of features & function. 

Here’s what I would do instead in my first two weeks (and why it works) 👇


1. Find the top 3 AEs in the org
 Buy them a coffee (virtual or not) and ask:
 → “What are you doing that others aren’t?” → “What would you do differently if you had to start over?”
 I used to let ego get in the way of these convos.
 I realized: replicating what already works saves you months of trial and error.


2. Skip product enablement (for now)
 You’ll get flooded with features anyway.
 Start with problem enablement.
 Build a simple doc:
 → choose 3-5 buyer personas → list out real problems they face
→ (not capabilities, jargon or buzzwords)
→ understand how they typically tackle them today → map out the negative impact on them and business  → identify what metrics they care about/how affected 
Document how those problems show up in their world.
 This helps you speak the prospects language, when everyone else is just pitching features.

Prospects will think “this person gets me”.


3. Study your competition (and status quo) 
Not just from a deck, go deeper:
 → where they win → where they fall short → what your product does better → what problems your differentiators actually solve

👆 that last one is the most important
 You can’t stand out if you don’t know what you’re up against.


4. Master 3 customer stories
 Not surface-level. Break it down:
 → what problem were they facing → what negative impact it had (think metrics)
→ bonus points if there was a priority it put at risk → what changed after they used your product → what were the positive business outcomes

(make the champion the hero)


5. Meet your internal teams
 SDRs, SEs, CSMs, Legal, Deal Desk, Partner team, etc
 Ask them: “What can I do to make your life easier?”
 It builds trust fast, and that pays off when deals get complex.

…………………………………

Do these 5 things and you won’t just ramp up super fast 
you’ll build your internal brand.


P.S. Problem Enablement (2) is an absolute game changer… my clients ramp up SO much faster

Got a verbal from a prospect, “We’ve decided to move forward with your platform.” My response:

“Sounds great! I’ll send over an order form later today.”

I forecasted the deal for the month and told my manager the good news.

Got the internal approvals and sent it out.

One day passed. Nothing. Two days. Crickets.

Finally got a hold of them:

“When can we expect a signed order form?”

Prospect: “It’s not that simple. We’ll need to go through vendor approval. You’ll also be hearing from InfoSec to fill out some forms. Plus, we need to get in touch with legal to discuss the MSA.”

Me: “How long do you think that’ll take?”

Prospect: “I’ve seen it take as little as 6 weeks and as long as 6 months.”

Head down. I had to break the news to leadership on a deal I’d committed

👆 This situation happened more than once for me earlier in my career. Lesson learned.

................................................

Don’t assume a deal is done because a prospect gives you the thumbs up.

It’s on us to uncover their buying process, early.

You could try something that sounds like this:

You: “Linda, you’ve been with the company for 5+ years. Fair to assume you’ve been part of evaluations like this in the past?”

Prospect: “Yup.”

You: “Could you walk me through how you typically evaluate, decide, and purchase tech? What are the steps and who’s involved?”

..................................................

Or something like this, for more complex deals:

“Linda - working with customers like you, I’ve noticed that once a platform gets the green light, there’s often a vendor onboarding process

which could include InfoSec, privacy assessments, and potentially getting legal involved.

Is that something you anticipate and if so could you walk me through the process and who’s involved?”

...................................................

Get ahead of the process in your deal cycles.

It’ll save you a headache and heartache.


P.S. who’s heading over to Sales Enablement Summit in downtown Toronto today?

See you there!

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