Clari vs Gong for Specialty Asset-Based Lenders

The instinct is to move a deal to a high-probability stage as soon as a term sheet is signed, since that's the milestone that would matter in most B2B sales processes. In asset-based lending, the term sheet is often the easy part; the real risk sits in the borrowing base calculation, the field exam, and the appraisal, all of which happen after the term sheet and can kill the deal entirely.

A forecast that treats term sheet signing as near-certain will consistently overstate committed volume, because it's measuring commitment at the point where the originator's job is mostly done, not at the point where the underwriting risk has actually cleared.

Clari's governance model works well here once you build stages around the actual underwriting milestones: term sheet issued, field exam scheduled, field exam complete, borrowing base confirmed, closing documents out. That level of granularity lets you see exactly where a deal sits in diligence risk rather than lumping everything between signature and funding into one vague 'in process' stage.

It also lets you flag deals stuck at a particular underwriting step for too long, which is often the earliest signal that a field exam turned up something the credit team is still working through quietly before anyone tells the originator.

Gong's call analysis is built to catch buying signals and objections in a sales conversation, and originator calls with a borrower are usually genuinely positive right up until diligence kills the deal, since the borrower wants the financing and has no reason to signal hesitation on a call. The actual risk lives inside the credit and underwriting process, not in anything said on a recorded originator call, which means Gong's analysis will tend to rate these deals as healthy right up to the moment they collapse for reasons the call transcript never touched.

Build a short checklist tied to each underwriting stage: has the field exam been scheduled, has it been completed, did it surface any exceptions, has the borrowing base been confirmed against the appraisal. Require that checklist to be updated before a deal can advance in Clari, and treat any exception flagged on a field exam as an automatic downgrade in forecast probability, regardless of how confident the originator still sounds about the relationship.

This checklist matters more than any conversation intelligence tool, because the risk in this business is documentary and analytical, not conversational.

Tie one check to each underwriting stage:

1. Term sheet issued: record it, but keep the deal out of the committed forecast.
2. Field exam scheduled: confirm the date and who is responsible for updating status.
3. Field exam complete: log whether it surfaced any exceptions, and treat any exception as an automatic downgrade in forecast probability.
4. Borrowing base confirmed: verify it against the appraisal before moving the deal to a high-probability stage.
5. Closing documents out: advance toward close only after the earlier checks have cleared.

Confirm that your credit and underwriting team, not just originators, will actually update stage status as field exams and appraisals come back, since that's where the real signal lives. Ask whether your current forecast overstates volume specifically around term sheet signing, and if so, insert an underwriting-stage gate there regardless of which software you use. And be honest about whether Gong's cost is justified by anything beyond originator coaching, since it won't meaningfully improve forecast accuracy in a business where the real risk sits downstream of the sales conversation.

Say an originator brings in a borrower requesting financing against inventory and receivables, and the term sheet gets signed within a couple of weeks. The originator, working from a warm relationship and a strong initial conversation, would reasonably rate the deal as highly likely to close. Then the field exam turns up receivables that are older and less collectible than the borrower represented, the borrowing base shrinks, and the deal either restructures at a lower advance rate or falls apart entirely. None of that shows up in any call transcript, because the borrower didn't know it either until the exam happened.