Jen Allen-Knuth: The Challenge with Challenger Sale and What's Next

I think I'm constantly and maybe too mindful of reducing buyer effort just because once I became part of an actual buying process, I realized how much it sucked and how many moments across it. I was like, I wish the seller had just helped me like preempt this. Hey, everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And this was such a great conversation with my good friend, Jen Allen. Jen and I have really only really known each other for a couple of years. She saw me at a keynote a little while ago, which is one of the most personal keynotes I've ever done.

And if you've been listening to this podcast, you know of it. You can actually search for it on your keynote. And she's just a force in this field, specifically in the sales training field. She does pretty much what I do on the front end and helps people get more business into the pipeline with our company, DemandGen. But this was a conversation. What really drew me towards Jen was her authenticity and her experience. She's got a really cool background that we went through. But she spent 14 years at Corporate Executive Board. And for those of you who don't know Corporate Executive Boards, they are the ones that created Challenger, Challenger Customer and Jolt Effect. And you hear me talk a lot about Jolt Effect.

So I actually had a lot of questions for Jen about the application and the relevance of Challenger in today's environment. You know, we talked about de-risking and some of the things that we need to do to help clients make decisions more effectively and stand out from the crowd with all the noise that's going on right now. And how to get internal buy-in and when to walk away and a whole bunch of other stuff. And lastly, we talked about going off on her own and having that confidence to bet on herself. So I absolutely love this conversation. Jen is one of my favorite people. I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Jen Allen, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend.

How in the world are you? I mean, I've been waiting to make this happen for so long, so I couldn't be better. I could not be better. This is peak podcast appearance, in my opinion. Oh, stop it. I love I've been following you forever. We actually, when did we actually, I couldn't figure that one out. I don't remember when we first met. I remember exactly where we first met because you are a force and I was at Ambition's conference, peak conference in Nashville when they did it at that like brewery or cider place. That was the first time we actually met in person. That was the first time we met in person. You were hanging out with Doug Landis and I kind of knew Doug. That was my first time meeting Doug.

And then I was too nervous to say anything intelligent to you. I think I just like got washed mouth and was like, hi, John, and then ran away and scurried away. Shit. Well, so you actually saw that was the first time I did that keynote and I haven't done it since because I remember you saying it was your first time ever doing it. I was like, that was, I remember like I had worked on it, you know, I'd gone and worked because I don't, I mean, you know, doing keynotes, right? Like I don't do keynotes. I do training that, that are, cause I don't like just doing a rah, rah, ha, you know, Hey, everybody feel good, whatever it is. Like, I always feel like I have to, you know, you ought to walk away with something.

So I really tried to work on a, kind of a bigger picture keynote there. And, uh, that was like the whole Sedona going soul adventure type of stuff and everything else. So that was a, that was a, that was an interesting time and it was a friendly crowd too. So I, I appreciate listening in on that one. Cause, uh, that meant a lot though, but, uh, but you've been killing it and I love your experience. Um, which is why I was so excited outside of just you being awesome. Um, uh, excited to talk to you about to this because specifically around challenger, challenger customer and those types of things with your background. But before we get into all of that, Jen, where, what is Jen's origin story? And I don't mean work.

Anybody can look on your LinkedIn, right? Growing up. I want to know where the itch came from, you know, the sales or entrepreneurial itch, the parents, like kind of those types of things. So back us all the way up and then I'll kind of poke some holes in some of this and kind of ask you some questions along the way as you knew it is, if that's cool. Absolutely cool. So I grew up in a really small town in Pennsylvania, about an hour North of Philly, very rural, like 400 people went to our high school. Um, my dad was a construction worker, never finished high school. My mom finished high school, didn't go to college. She was an, is an insurance agent. And throughout my entire upbringing, all I saw was how hot was how hard my dad worked, like physically hard.

So he did demolition where they were going in and, you know, tearing down bridges or buildings or things like that. There were days when he would work on a job site that was like three hours away. So he would stay away from home for three nights a week. And I remember him getting up at four in the morning and coming home at seven at night. And his backstory was without getting into like a ton of detail, but he was a foster child. So his parents gave him up when he was early teenagers. He was off on his own. He actually lived in Boston for a bit, um, when he moved out of his house and he just had a terrible, terrible upbringing, like not a lot of love. And so in, I think, I mean, sorry, they gave him up when a teenager, not even like as a baby, they gave him up as a teenager.

And his, his, his brothers and sisters too. And so he was someone I just always looked at is like, gosh, he's just always been dealt a really difficult hand. Like he got into this career where it's like, you know, you beat your body up. If you know anybody in construction, it's, it's brutal. And, um, I just remember as a little girl, like just how hard he worked and what he would always tell me was regardless of what you do, just make sure you, you work the hardest at it. And that for whatever reason just stuck in my mind. He was also someone that was very big on like, do not get married young. I want you to wait. I want you to build yourself into something that you're proud of and then go get married.

And, you know, you don't think of these things at the time, how much they sit in you. But I, I took his advice probably too much. I didn't get married until I was 40, but I just remember thinking like, I never wanted to be a woman that was dependent on a man to be okay or to be safe. And I never wanted to be in a career where I felt like I had to be away from my family as much as my dad did. And so I think much of, it was never like I wanted to be in sales or I was hustling at a lemonade stand or anything like that. It was just, I knew I wanted to be in a career where I was, communication was a big part of it because as a young kid, like I was always involved in plays and student councils and things like that.

And I just, I loved communicating. It just, I didn't necessarily know where I wanted to go with it at first. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB sales membership. It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process. It also includes monthly workshops that'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like ChatGPT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process. Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done.

And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to jbarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code podcast at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now let's get back to the conversation. That's awesome. So you went to Penn State and you wrote on your LinkedIn profile, if I wrote my major, I would lose credibility immediately. And I'm sorry, I have to ask you about your major and ding, whatever your credit, we're going to build your credibility through this entire conversation for anybody who's listening, but I have to know what that major was. It was recreation and park management. So I started in journalism. I wanted, I thought I wanted to be a sports journalist, but I'm not a very in your face person.

So I was in it. I'm like, what are you doing? You would suck at this career. So I said, what's the closest thing to it? And they said, recreation and park management. Well, it was just an easy way to like fuck around for four years of college. It was definitely like more of a social experiment for me than it was a learning experience. Which actually I'm a big proponent of, quite frankly. I keep saying it to this day that sales is, I'm sorry, sales, college is a social education. It's not an actual education. You know, maybe your MBA is an education because you're choosing to go back to school and deciding what you want to, but at 18 years old, you have no fucking idea what you want to do. So go have fun.

Right? Like, good for you. And growing up in a really small town, I'm like, I just had, you know, I didn't have exposure to a lot of different types of people. So when I got to college, I was like, damn, there's a big, bad world out here. And I was just like little, you know, redneck Jenny. How big was Penn State when you went? I think it was, I'm, was it 40,000? Gosh, it was so long ago. I'm like, I don't even feel super confident about that answer. I mean, the same thing with me, like Maryland. So Bedford that I grew up in, it was 12,000 people, you know, total. University of Maryland was 35,000 students. Oh, you went to University of Maryland. Yep. Same thing, right? Totally different. And it was just like, oh, I'm like, nobody knows me here.

And it's fucking awesome. I'm like, I can chart my own path. I'm like, all these interesting people, you know, that type of, I mean, we, we had a Air Force base in our town and that was literally the only way we had any diversity whatsoever. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, we were as white as it could get. And we had like one black kid in the town and, you know, it was my, one of my best friends. And, but then the Air Force base, we got some of that. But then when I went to Maryland, I was like, oh, wow. This is, this is living. So awesome. So you, you got in, you started with event manager, right? And then you, but, but then you quickly, pretty soon thereafter joined a corporate executive board.

Talk to me about that opportunity because I mean, talk about an impact that an organization has had on the sales industry. Was that a conscious choice for you to, to say, Hey, I need to get like, I'm going from event management and, and this is, this is like, just talk to me about that decision and how that came up and why you made it. Oh my gosh. I wish I could say it was some well thought out plan, but when I was doing event management, I was working at a small family owned company outside of Penn state. So I was living in Penn state area, not going to Penn state, which is just not as fun as it might sound. And so I had a college roommate that had moved to CEB and she was working in their meetings department.

And she said, you should apply for an event management role here. I said, sure. She's like great happy hours, great people, super fun, like work hard, play hard type culture. That was all I needed to hear. I was in DC. I'm like, get me out of central Pennsylvania. And then when I interviewed the, my, my pre-screen, they were like, we actually, we don't want to put you in event management. We want to move you into account management or sales. And I was like, Ooh, I'm not really cut out for that. And they're like, just have the interview. We'll give you a couple of options on the other side of it. So I interviewed with this woman, Jesse Dingwell, who would go on to be my first manager. I walked in that room with my little portfolio of like my graphic design work.

I did nothing to do with sales. And I just remember being so blown away by her in that, in the 30 minutes I spent with her, I was like, I think I just want to be this woman. And she had such a force of presence. She was confident, but she was still kind. She was so smart. The way she communicated just blew me away. And I remember thinking, I don't care what fucking job they offer me. Like I'm working for that woman because I want to learn how she got that way. And I was lucky enough. I ended up getting the job with her starting in account management as like a, you know, entry level kind of cold caller. So 14 years there. Yeah. Which is extremely rare in sales in general and also in tech, you know, even though they weren't tech, they were, I mean, was, was the majority of corporate executive board at the time, was there focus on tech or was it just sales across the board?

No, actually my first time working really with tech or in tech wasn't until I went to Lavender. It was a lot of kind of good old boy industries. I usually had like the Midwest territory. So I was working with a lot of manufacturing, healthcare, things like that. Less, less exposure to tech, honestly. Okay. Which is, which is actually better because it kind of gets you grounded here because this tech industry is batshit crazy. So before we moved to the Lavender and the, and the other, now that what you're doing now though, what, I mean, challenger sale, right? I remember getting in a little bit of trouble a while back when I was at a sales loft conference because I was standing up in front of a couple thousand people, whatever it is.

It was like when challenger just started coming out and I was like, could y'all do me a favor and stop teaching 22 year old kids how to be a challenger? This is like, you're, you're giving a shotgun to a five-year-old at the end of the day and they don't have the strength to pick it up for fuck's sake. So then there was challenger customers, but I want to dig into challenger sale first. What do you think is still relevant in today's world about challenger sale? And for those of you who haven't read the book, let me just give you two components of it. This is my dumbed down version of challenger sale. Part of it that I like the most, which I think is the most relevant is lead with insights, right?

Hey, this is what's happening in the marketplace. Let me show you how we can help you get there, whatever. So you are the industry expert. The other side of it is, is challenging. Like, and I say this, you don't say this, but it's, Hey, you make this decision once a year. I help people make it every day. Let me show you where people make good decisions and bad decisions. Right. So with that, like, you don't say that, but that's kind of the mentality. It's like, so what was the best thing out of that for you from a framework perspective for you as a sales rep, forget about corporate executive board and what they were selling. What did it teach you the most? What is still relevant today that is the most relevant out of that book?

So I started my career in account management, 2004, first four years of working in that I was 100% through and through what the book would classify as a relationship builder. I was focused on being likable, accessible, nice to do business with asking about their kids, whatever 2008 hit. And then all of a sudden, all of my friends went away, right? Because they had to make really hard choices about things that were going to help or hurt their business. And my likability just did not play into that. So I had a really rude awakening in 2008 because you go through this thing thinking it's me and my personality that makes people want to work with me. And I realized it wasn't. And so Challenger initially came out, not the book, but the research came out like right at that time.

And I remember sitting in a room and Brent Adamson was like, here are the five profiles we uncovered. Raise your hand for which one you think you are and which one you think wins. And I threw my hand up so hard for relationship builder. And then watched as it was the lowest likelihood for performing as a high performer. And I remember thinking the things they were talking about, building constructive tension with your customer and bringing a point of view. I was like, I just I don't do those things. Can I do those things? And I think the name of the book really probably did more harm than good because people interpreted it as go in and push your customers around and tell them what they don't know.

Like, I don't even like the term of educate your customer because I'm like, you have to invite that. You have to earn that. That's like you don't just walk up to someone and start educating them about anything. And so once I really learned what it was about, which is just this idea that like we as humans are far more wired to avoid risk than we are to work towards a benefit. Then I started looking at my deals and realizing almost all of my deals I were losing were because the prospect was saying what you do isn't good or even better than what we're doing. It was just because I hadn't made it such that they looked at their world and said, we have to change. And so what I really took away from it was this notion of like how you build a point of view about prospects business and win on that as opposed to winning on like we have webinars and we have events and we have this website, which candidly in 2008, nobody fucking cared about.

So I think that was my big takeaway is like I had to be much more interested in my prospects business than how much time I spent trying to get them interested in mine. That was a byproduct of being really interested in theirs. Yeah, I think that the risk factor, and that's going to jump to jolt effect when we talk in a minute, but what's the other, what's the one, the grinder or the hard worker or whatever it is? Yeah, the hard worker. Yeah, that's me. Like I've realized that's me. Like if I were to pick one and it's not, you know, and it's gotten me through, no question about it. And I'm a challenger, obviously, and obviously I'm in a relationship person and those type of things, but I have in my entire, like going back to your dad's work ethic and that type of stuff, that is, I think it's because I went, I, you know, and I, I diminish education, but, and I kind of put myself down and I'm not the smartest kid.

I'm not dumb, obviously, but I, I, I also knew that that's what I knew I could control. You know what I mean? I could control my efforts. So as much as, yeah, it's not a numbers game. I, I, to a certain degree still believe it's a numbers game, but you have to be smart about the numbers and I'm still trying this day to this day to, to get to a point where I, I have that challenger, real challenger experience where I can just kind of say, look, like, are you sure about this? Cause here's some things and really uncovering that risk and reducing it, but it's hard. Do you think there's a, an ACV where it's more or less relevant? And let me give you an example of why I asked this question. I sell stuff that's 20 grand, 30 grand, 40 grand, whatever it is.

Right. So, which is not cheap, but it's not like break your bank. Holy shit. Miller Hyman. I have to invest a hundred million dollars in this thing and roll it out, which I think in those cases, like I'm pushing buttons. You know what I mean? I'm really getting into your business. Whereas a lot of people come to you and me, right. Of like, Hey, we just need some training here. Right. And, and I, and, and, and, and you know it as well as I do, personality does matter when it comes to the trainer, right? You could have the best content in the world, but if you got a dud delivering it, it doesn't land. So do you think it matters the type of sale so that you can truly be the real consultative slash challenger?

Or is it across the board, you can be at regardless and it doesn't matter. I wouldn't have said this probably 10 years ago, but today I don't think it matters what type of sale. So I'll give you an example. Um, regardless of the price point of what you're saying, I'm sure you've had, well, I'm not sure. Maybe you've had prospects come to you and say, John, I really want you to come in and train on this. And then you're looking at their business. You're hearing what they're saying is happening to their business. And you're like, I know that's the wrong lever. Like you think it's the right thing, but it's not the root cause of the problem. Like in my mind, challenger is about being willing to have that uncomfortable conversation to say, we can totally look at this.

So like one of the biggest deals I ever won was an inbound lead for negotiation training. Our challenger didn't have a negotiation training. So I was never going to win that deal if I was trying to convince them that we could somehow like move our stuff around and work and, you know, do that. And so what I did instead is that, okay, help me understand. How did you guys decide that negotiation is the right lever to pull? And they said, well, we look at where we're losing. We're losing to low cost competition in China. We're getting beat up on price and we have to get our folks better at negotiating. And I asked, like, if you look at what makes you different from that low cost competition, they sold valves and pumps that controlled the flow of liquid.

I was like, is there anything that's actually different? And they said, well, we actually have a meaningful impact on reducing plant downtime, whereas our competitors don't. And so I asked them, is negotiation the point at which you feel like you should be talking about that? And they were like, well, no, it should be happening much earlier in the sales process. Okay. So why is it that you've decided that negotiation is a thing? And I think what I learned over time, like Challenger took me a while to really understand it, was it's less about me telling someone you're doing it wrong and more about asking questions that get them to have that aha moment where they're like, shit, like one plus one equals three here.

And like, I think there's something about the transfer of that like aha moment. I don't want to be the one to have it for them. I want to make, I want them to ask the right questions to get them there. Once I figured that out, I was like, this is addictive. Like you just get, you want to help people see that light bulb moment. You want to help people look differently at things. So I think even if it's $5,000, I've had deals that have come in, we want training on X, you get them to reframe the way they look at the problem, but not, I think the most important thing, and then I'll shut up, is just not for your own benefit. Like I would rather have someone walk than buy something from me they don't need.

But in many cases, I think it's just hard to figure out where it causes the problem. It's why people get paid the big bucks to do it. Yeah, and it's funny because I did that post of, you know, there was a Shark Tank episode. I don't know if you saw that on LinkedIn with Damon and Lori, and they were both going after it. So this guy was selling these suitcases, whatever, and Damon and Lori were fighting each other for it. And the guy left and then Damon looked at her and was like, what's your experience in the space? She's like, I have a great experience. I have these things and blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, the guy came back in and he's like, he goes to start negotiating again. And Damon says, I'm going to stop you right here.

Um, she's a better fit for you. And, and it was like, and all the sharks are like, wait a minute. Cause I had never seen, I had actually never seen that happen on Shark Tank, right? Where one of them, they were head to head. They were, and Damon was probably going to win. Cause he had the connection, uh, like New York and all this other stuff. And he bowed out because she's a better fit. And, or, and I, and I did, I use that post to explain, I'm like, it is always better to know exactly what you are great at and then go find out what all your competitors are great at. And if you're great, push as hard as you want, but if you're not, give it to somebody else. Yes. And it's one of those things that I think takes a while for sales reps to learn about the value of that.

I mean, I get, I'm a knock on wood and I hate talking about deals before I get them. Cause I need this one. It's a big, um, but you know, we were going through the negotiations and I had a, I had this simple question because they wanted negotiation training. And I said, could you help me define, define me what you think of as negotiations? And they were like, well, you know, and they kind of were fumbling all over the place. And I'm like, let me simplify this for you. Do you think negotiations is when we start talking about price and the contract and the deal? Or do you look at negotiations as from the minute you start talking to the client and they paused and said, yeah, no negotiation starts in the beginning.

Okay. Make sure you're clear on that though, because if you need contract negotiations, go talk to, uh, you know, talk a pony, a good, you know, a couple of good friends of mine who are really good at that moment in the sales process. But if you want to reframe this entire conversation around negotiating from the minute somebody says, send me information, then I'm a better fit. And one thing led to another. They talked to three or four of the vendors. I gave them three or four of them. I was like, go talk to them, go talk to them, go talk to them. I go, don't talk to them. Don't talk to them. Cause they're going to keep, they're going to try to convince you otherwise. And, and, but this is what you're trying to understand.

And they came back and they were like, yep, we want the whole thing. So I was like, yes. And that's like, that's a confident buyer, right? Like you're not trying to weasel them into no, no, no. Just look at me and don't explore. I want someone to feel so confident when they sign that they've made the right decision because purchase regret fricking sucks. And we pay for that on the other side. So I am a huge believer that like part of what made me more confident in doing that type of thing was having an abundance mindset where you realize literally any company in the world can buy freaking sales training. I don't need to have this death grip onto every single opportunity that if I don't win it, I'm somehow going to fail.

Like I love disqualifying. I think most great salespeople love disqualifying because you're like, I don't want to spend my time working a deal. I'm going to have to reinvent the wheel on that sucks. I mean, especially as the person delivering it to you. I mean, like you and I are, it's like, it's, it's one thing if the software doesn't work and we get our customer success and I'd never fucking talk to you again. It's like, all right, sorry. I got my commission. Check them out of here. But like when we're sitting there up on stage and we're struggling to connect with the crowd because this isn't the right fucking fit. Like that is, that is one of the more awkward shit shows. You could, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've like done a song and dance up there.

I'm like, okay, I got to distract you a little bit here. Cause what I'm talking about isn't really as relevant to y'all in there. Yep. Yep. Yep. Right. So, so with challenger sale, I think one of the things after that would challenge your customer, right? Wasn't, um, to a certain degree, they did admit a little bit that they whiffed with challenger because no matter how much you, you could challenge all you want, but if the inner workings of an organization aren't really aligned that you're champion, even if you push them in the back of their head, they're like, dude, fuck off. Like, there's no chance I'm going to go through this because I know politically internally here, there's just, I don't have the bandwidth to be able to make this happen.

Right. Wow. So help me with this work. Cause this is what I've always talked about, but I, but I know challenger customer has a different view and I know you do too. I've always kind of dumbed it down to say sell to the 20%, right? Which is nobody gives a shit about your entire solution. They just care about the part that's most relevant to them and achieving their goals. Right. So the goal of an organization of like when you're multi-threading and talking to different people is I got to find your 20%, your 20%, your 20% and then almost like that Venn diagram in the middle of what can we all agree to? And then try to get, cause you're never going to get everybody to agree to everything. The tech side versus the sales business side, you know, all these different pieces.

But I forget what it was, but as I was kind of listening to a challenger customer, it opened my eyes that that wasn't exactly the right, the best approach, right? Even though I'm aligning on your priority, your priority, your priority, it's more about getting alignment of the problem. Right. Could you help me kind of unpack that a little bit so I understand a little bit more? Yeah. So I'll give a perfect example. There were so many deals I would work where I'm sure like you, you'd have multiple people that could weigh in. So if a company was going to pick a methodology, it's not a choice that any one person makes. You probably need, you know, executive leadership on board, sales leadership. You need sales enablement.

You need sales ops. You need marketing. You need line leaders. Like you need everybody on the bus. And methodology is a great example because it's very polarizing. People love or hate methodologies. And so when I first started selling, what I would do is I would go around and I would go one by one and be like, what's most important to you and what are your priorities? Okay, this is how we fit in. Okay. And then next person, next person. And then at the end, I'm like, okay, here's my document summarizing what everybody wants. But there was never that like group momentum. And so what I realized was people behave very differently in a one-on-one conversation than they do in a group conversation.

So if I've got someone with their boss in the room, they're probably not going to be as mouthy as they might be on a one-on-one. So it taught me my very first step before I ever try to get people to buy into the problem, I really need to get people together and get them to openly disagree about the problem. And so I went from this mindset where I'm like trying to get everybody to agree with me. This is why this solution would work. This is why you need to solve this problem today. And instead going towards, you know, one person on the team is really passionate about this. And here's the math we did on the cost of an action. But I want y'all to disagree with it. Where do you see it differently?

And intentionally seeking disagreement in a group meeting was probably one of the single best things I ever learned to do as a salesperson. Because one, you get honest answers. And two, you start to really quickly identify what companies are just so dysfunctional that they'll never make a decision at all. Like I could have the cure for freaking cancer and they're still not going to buy it because there's way too much like political inner workings that they're not going to agree on anything. And so going back to your question, like I find that often in my own career and then a lot of sellers I've worked with, we're in such a rush to like accelerate the sales cycle that when we get in front of the group, we're like, here's the solution and here's how I'll help you and you and you.

But we never really give them an opportunity to step back and say like, I'm not even sure this is the right organizational problem for us to solve. And so that's like why I slowed down my process and said, we've got to start there because if someone can't agree on a problem, there's no fucking way they're going to agree on a solution. Right. Okay. And I think that's the problem centric selling, right? It's like, you know, talk Keenan, you know, gap selling, what's the problem and your current state, future state, those types of things. And, and getting people to agree to that, if, if they can't, do you try to help them or do you literally just, are you're like in your head, your scorecard is like, uh, this isn't worth it.

I mean, I, obviously the dollar figure is going to determine a lot of that, quite frankly, but, but when do you kind of, when do you realize, or what are the indicators that you look at in that process that you're just like, okay, this isn't worth my time because they're not going to be making a decision? Yeah. So I think one of the big reasons I'm such a fan of cost of inaction using that as, as an approach to help people understand a problem is if I get someone who is, or if I get a group of people who cannot agree on a cost of inaction, I just think it would be really difficult for them to agree on a cost of solution. So like I'll, with my champion work on like one of the things I used to do when I was a challenger would be like, let's look at your pipeline through the lens of status quo.

So pull a list of all forecasted opportunities that have not met with a seller in the last 30 days. I would argue if they're not talking to your salesperson in the last 30 days, it's probably at risk for status quo. And then come back to me in our next group meeting and let's look at the pipeline value associated with that. And I remember I talk about the story all the time, so I apologize if you heard it, but there was one company who came back, big, big company, and they had just come inbound being like, we want to do some training because we just want to update our training. I'm like, this is deals going nowhere fucking fast, told them to go back to that exercise. They came back and they said, we found $90 million in pipeline without a sales conversation in the last 30 days.

This just went from like, maybe let's up visit our training to now we have a new way of looking at this business problem and we need to figure out a way to preempt that. And so that's an example where like, if I, if that, when that entire group got excited about that, I knew I had something. If I would have had people constantly like, well, but, but, but, but, but, but to a point where they could never reach consensus, I'd probably back off it. There's just way too many opportunities to work in this world to try to spend my time convincing someone of a problem that's right there in front of them. Where do you put social equity as part of this, as far as like your stature versus their stature?

Because, and the reason I'm asking this question is, you know, Jeff Hoffman, who's my mentor. Yes, I just talked to him yesterday. Oh, you did? The first time. And he brought up, he was like, I, like, I love John. I'm like, I'm talking to John tomorrow. Jeff, Jeff, how'd you get connected with him? What was the conversation for him? He just, he started following me on LinkedIn. I think I had written something about his Basho framework, which is when you were there, right? Yeah. And, um, and that's how we initially got connected. And then he just reached out yesterday. I was like, I just kind of want to support what you're doing. You seem legit, like nice person. I was like, this is the nicest call I've had in a long time.

He is, Jen. Amazing. He is honestly, I talk about natural born sales professionals and how I, I, I really think there's only about 5% of our population that are true. And I don't mean the douchey sleazy one. I mean, like, like knows what questions to ask, knows how to command a room without even trying. He is that guy. Like there is, he's the artist. I'm the scientist. And, um, but what, but he puts a lot of weight towards social equity in the sense that he thinks like, you know, I'm more, he talks about being popular, right? Like you might be important in your business, but I'm actually more popular than you. So he kind of has this little kind of game that he plays, but he doesn't like, I think it's Jeff because he is who he is.

But something like a summary email that I send, for instance, he, he thinks that's diminishing your social equity because it's like, you're doing the work for the client. They should be doing the work. So where are you at, like what, how much you give to the client versus how much you ask of them? This is a very interesting question. I don't think I've been asked before. I think I'm constantly, and maybe too, too mindful of reducing buyer effort just because once I became part of an actual buying process, I realized how much it sucked and how many moments across it. I was like, I wish the seller had just helped me like preempt this and not let me walk into this pitfall and all the like politicking that you have to do to buy.

So I'm constantly mindful of like, what could I do for them? And again, maybe it's too much, but I'm just, I'm very interested in making it as easy as possible to buy. The other thing I will say, and this is something I think I struggled with as a woman, someone who went to school for recreation and park management, someone who doesn't have a book, like I don't have the pedigree. And so I'd never try to pretend like I do. I think my point of view is when I was younger in sales, I was always trying to act like what I thought the world's best salesperson was like. And it was very inauthentic. It was very obvious. And I probably got myself into more trouble doing that than when I just came at it from the position of, I am not an expert.

I will never call myself a sales expert, but I have spent over almost two decades working for organizations that study buying behavior. That's what I'm bringing in. It's like, I'm the mouthpiece, but you're not buying my brain. You're buying all this stuff behind me. And that just gave me a lot more confidence just to be who I was and stop pretending and trying to use big words and impress people because it didn't matter about impressing them. It just was like, can I help them get to a clear picture of their problem? So this is going to be a question I'm going to ask at Kawasaki. What are your thoughts on fake it till you make it? Let me really think about that. Because it's hard to look back and imagine what it would have been like if I had done things differently.

Like if I've started at the beginning just being like, I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm 23 years old. I'm in a room with a CMO, a GE. Like, I don't know. I think I probably wouldn't have won a lot of deals. In some sense, if I'm being honest, there probably is some truth to fake it till you make it just because credibility matters so much. But I think where I would draw the line is not faking who you are. I remember there was a woman that I sold to who was just, she was just awesome. She's like one of those pivotal moments. And she'd said to me, I was in a meeting with her. I was, you know, sharing the latest research that year from CEB and she stopped me and she's like, can I just ask you, like, what do you think about these findings?

And I was totally not prepared. And I was like, well, you know what our membership has said? And she's like, nope, nope. What does Jen Allen think about this? And because we had a decent relationship, I was like, I don't even know how to answer that question. She was like, and that's what you need to work on. You need to have a point of view because yes, you're helpful. Yes, you're smart. But what makes me want to work with someone is feeling like there's something in it, like something emotional in it for them. And you are just showing up saying smart things, but it's not sticky. It's not memorable. And so I think that was a moment where I kind of got called out a bit for faking it till I made it.

And to this day, it stands out as a conversation that really changed how I showed up. I love it. It's funny. You know, Josh Braun, right? Oh, yeah. He tells this story of when he immediately loved me for whatever reason, because I was, there was some stat and I was doing Basho training and it was like, and it was Jeff's, it was Jeff's data. And it was like, you know, the average rep gives up after two touches and it takes whatever. Right. And it, you know, it was this Harvard business study and some jackass kid raised his hand in the middle of like, and I'm, you know, making a good point about it. It was just like a thing, whatever. And I was just, you know, context is like, where did that data come from?

You know, what, you know, what are the details of the data? And I was like, I don't fucking know. I'm like, it's just, I don't know. It's a fucking slide. The point is, and I just went on with the point. Right. I go, I don't know. Google it. What the fuck? Right. And, and Josh was sitting in the room, apparently, and he was just like, are you fucking kidding me? Like you just said, I have no idea where that data come from. Well, do I care about it? I'm just trying to make a point. And he was like, dude, that was, he's like, immediately when I said, when I saw you do that, I was like, oh, yep, this is my guy. I'm following him because he's not full of shit. Wait, you know, it's wild is Josh Braun was actually the one when I first started posting on LinkedIn in 2020, I was like posting all these research studies and stuff like that.

And he messaged me. He's like, are you open to some feedback? Yeah. I get on the phone with him and he's like, you post really smart things, but I just feel like you never have a point of view on anything. Like, what do you think about stuff? And I was like, well, I'm honestly very worried about trolls. If I share research, can't argue with research. People still will. But like really technically can't when you share an opinion, people, it invites people to disagree with you. He's like, but isn't that kind of the idea? Isn't that kind of what you're there for is to provoke a conversation? Honestly, that conversation with Josh totally changed how I showed up on social. And I think in many ways led it to where I could be in the job that I am today.

So thanks. Thankful to Josh Brod for all of his hard conversations with us. Yeah, it's cool. I haven't talked to him in a while. I got to catch up with him. Yeah. All right. One more piece and then we'll get into what you're doing today. The Jolt Effect. I've actually, I kind of skimmed through Challenger. I got the gist of it. I listened half-heartedly to Challenger customer, but I picked up Jolt Effect for some reason and I ate that shit up because the whole concept of indecision versus no decision, right? How everybody talks about how our biggest competitor is indecision or no decision, but right now it's actually not. It's indecision because there's too many options right now. It's almost, and tell me if I'm wrong with this talk track.

It's almost like when, you know, corporate executive board is the one that came up with the data of like, by the time somebody comes to us, they're already 60 to 70% through the sales process. Everybody bastardized that data point, but whatever. But the point is, is that the client has the information and we're now playing catch up, right? Like we have, we can't just force them through our sales process all the way from the start. We got to meet them where they are. But my, my sense of Jolt Effect was that now it's almost like there's too much information and there's too many options. So, and people don't get fired for not making decisions. People get fired for making bad decisions. And so with that, with Jolt, like you had said this previously, which even with Challenger, it's about de-risking the solution because I've never been in an environment, you actually even said it earlier, I've never been in an environment more than right now in my 28 years of selling that people agree that my solution or anybody who I'm working with is better than what they're dealing now.

And they look, yep, absolutely. It's far better. Actually, it's cheaper too. I'm still not going to do it. With this risk fact, and I'm going to put myself in this exact situation, by the way, last year when, when, when, when ChatTBD came out, I immediately knew I was in trouble. I immediately knew that there was going to be a version of me as an AI that was going to be better than me, you know, faster, more languages 24 seven. So I jumped into it and started talking to vendors about creating a version of me with all my data and like the, you know, Kawasaki GPT thing I was telling you about. And, and, and I, I would go like pretty far with one group. And then all of a sudden a new release would come out from ChatGPT.

I'd be like, fuck, like that, that's what I thought we were going to do. Okay, well, nevermind. Now we go here. It took me over a year for me, like, and wanting to do this, like wanting to do this. And I finally just recently signed up with a group that's going to work with me on this. So I, but how, let's take out money back guarantees. Let's take out the, the, the obvious de-risking things that we can put in that sales reps typically have no control over. How do you as a sales rep de-risk a situation for a client to make a move that is, that is even, you know, not light years ahead and no brainer shit, but what's the process to go through to uncover the risk and then de-risk it for the client?

Yeah, such a great question. So I think if I look at how I used to sell, I felt that I had to give the client as many options as possible to show, Hey, no matter how you want to work with us, we have a way. And so I remember sending proposals that would have like six, you know, option one, option two, option three, six proposals, right? And they're probably 50 fucking pages long because I wanted to show the customer, look at how flexible we can be. Look at all the variation in price points that we can offer. Like there's so much we can do in terms of being flexible. What I failed to appreciate at the time was all that did is make the decision harder, right? Because it's like walking down the shampoo aisle.

If there's a hundred bottles of shampoo, I'm probably going to leave with either the same bottle I bought or nothing at all and just convince myself next time will be different for some reason, right? It's like very human to do that. So one of the things I think that I really appreciated as the jolt effect was just the idea of being prescriptive. So recognizing you are going to take a risk either way by not showing every option. Maybe you run a risk that they really wanted the cheapest option and you didn't show them, but that ultimately should come out anyway in the process. We just have to have a little bit of faith in the upfront to say, based on what I know about the business today, the problem is I see it today.

There's a whole range of options we can offer, but I'm going to spend time on option one and option two and here's why. Then on top of that, what I'm asking them to do is say, now here are the questions I want you to ask yourself because I can make your decision for you. Give them questions. And then almost like what you were talking about before with the negotiation example, I want you to go talk to these three or four other places before you make a decision. In my opinion, I think that does so much for decision confidence, which is really the thing we're up against, right? It's like, I want to know if I sign. I'm not going to be fired for this. People aren't going to be like, Jen, why did you buy this?

We really wanted this other thing. So I think being intentional about limiting the number of options and then giving them action steps to say, now go evaluate it against this and this. One, it shows you're confident. Two, it helps them get the right information because where I think people stall is just, there's too much. I go in a community, ask a question, there's too much. So like giving them direction on here's how another client has been able to decide if this is the right answer, I think was the thing that used to work for me. So what's the difference between simplifying the decision and de-risking the situation? Because, and hold a little bit of context. Yeah, please. Example on my end, and this actually connects with Doug Landis.

So we bought our house and we building out our backyard, right? And at the time I didn't have a ton of money, right? We had just bought the house. I was going to drop another hundred grand on the backyard, right? Type of thing. So I was being super cheap, right? I was, I was like looking at, and we found like my wife knew somebody who was a gardener and a landscape architect and all this other stuff. And she was kind of one of those catch all people, right? And she, and I was like, okay, so we want a patio. She's like, oh, we can do that. I want a perugula. Oh, I can do that too. I'm like, wait, so you're a mason and a carpenter. Like all these different things. And then she would say, okay, why don't you just go down to the local stone yard and pick out the stones that you want?

I don't know if you've ever been to a stone yard. Like it's fucking rows and rows and rows of stone. And I have no idea what is what. So, you know, I find something I think is cool. Of course, it's the most expensive one, right? Or kind of cheap or whatever. And then she puts together this proposal and I just felt uncomfortable with it, right? And I'm like, and he's just, I don't, like, I don't know if this is the right thing. So I brought it to my mason buddy and he was like, dude, fuck that. Go talk to these people. And I went to talk to these people and the guy said, what are you trying to do? I'm like, oh, this was, he goes, okay, here's the go. You want a patio. Here's the three different types of stones you can choose.

This one, this one, or this one. This is the benefit, pros and cons, pros and cons, pros and cons. Which one do you want? I was like, that one. He goes, okay, for your kitchen set, do you want field stone or do you want granite? Two choices. I was like, granite. He's like, okay, for the top, do you want travertine or this, that? Okay, cool. And it was one of those things where they were the expert. They were giving me like the tailored options. I actually spent way more money with them because they made it fucking easy for me and I knew they were the experts. They didn't, I don't know whether they de-risked the decision for me or if they just made it easy for me. So what is the difference from your perspective of making the decision clear and sifting through the bullshit and giving me an option like that makes sense as opposed to 50 options versus I'm scared this isn't going to be the right decision.

So I think, gosh, you have got my brain working, which it should be already because it's the work day. But so I'll give you an example of a place. So one of the things that's always really scary for sales leaders or sales enablement leaders, if I think back to my time selling methodology, is what if I implement this methodology and it sucks? And the reason we changed to begin with was because the last one sucked. And like that really puts me in the line of fire. So one of the ways I would de-risk is I would say, let's get your biggest skeptics. Like every sales organization has the old dogs and the skeptics and they're going to pick anything apart. I want to run to that instead of run away from it.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and say we're going to get 100% conversion that these people believe in this Bible. But I want you to pull the people that you are terrified of rejecting this into a room and that I want to make them part of this decision. And so it's hard for me to say universally, but for what I sold, I was like, I want to get to the thing that I think that they're terrified of, where they think the risk is. And in that motion, it was I'm risking organ rejection and I don't want it to be public. I don't want people to sit in that training and then raise their hand and say this sucks. So what can I do? Well, I can do something with them up front to give them a taste and actually invite their participation in disagreeing and things like that.

So that was a play I ran a lot. And, you know, I don't I don't think I could have done it if I wasn't confident in what I sold. So that certainly plays into it. But I think de-risking is more about identifying what is that ugly moment that they're terrified of and figuring out, is there anything I can give or do in advance that doesn't eat up our margin, but allows them to kind of ease on that a little bit. And in my sale, that's what that was. See, I think so. I think I'm on the right track here with what I what I again, I'm a keep it simple, stupid guy when it comes to this type of shit. Right. And everything. But it's, you know, here's my evolution as it related to Jolt Effect and got me to wake up a little bit.

One is I was always good. And as most sales reps are at reverse selling timelines. Right. You want it June 1st. OK, well, it's going to take two weeks to do this and two weeks to do that and two weeks. So if you want to June 1st, we got to go a lot. You know, we got to sign this week. Right. That type of thing. Where I had to evolve to was understanding, OK, well, what happens if you don't make this decision? Right. And now that's the no decision conversation, which is OK, cool. So you want June 1st, not what happens. You know, what's the impact to your business if we don't launch on June 1st? And that's the that's what I tried to get at. And that was actually a strong dictator of our forecast.

Like when Morgan was with me with me, we actually practiced that question. And if they if they had a real answer to that question, it closed 80 plus percent of the time. And if they had if they didn't, well, you know, we'll just kind of keep doing what we're doing in tough. It is tough with sales training. Right. Like you can take it or leave it. There's a bunch of different ways that you can slice this apple. And so if he didn't, you know, our close ratio like 30 percent. Right. So it was a very clear indicator. But then I read Joel's effect and I was like, OK, well, indecision. And what I started asking was not what happens if I would ask, yes, what what's the impact of the business if we don't launch June 1st?

But then I would say, hey, just out of curiosity, what happens if you make the wrong decision here? Which which feels unnatural for a sales rep, because we are usually taught historically to paint the vision, to paint the pretty picture of how great your life is going to look once you implement this solution. I'm going to bring you to the promised land. But the problem with that is that nobody believes it anymore. Nobody believes the promised land anymore. So I'm actually almost getting into therapy sessions at this point with clients because I'll be like, so, Jen, you know. What happens if you pick the wrong vendor for this? Like what what happens? And then it's like, Jesus Christ, if we bring in one more bag of shit training right now, like my my sales team is going to fucking slaughter me.

Like I'm going to lose all credibility. Like and we won't get any funding for this. Or if we don't hit the mark this quarter, we're going to get screwed. Like now my job, I don't give a shit what happened throughout the rest of that sales process. My job is to figure out how I can ease that fear. How can I ease that fear? And, you know, then there's creative ways to do it. But I think is that talk track around the right lines? Are you kidding? First of all, there is no right or not right. But what you just said really, really hits home for me. Right. Because you isolate into a question that puts it in the buyer's hands versus telling them like here's there's such a difference. Right. Like here's all the things that go wrong if you make a wrong decision.

Like no shit, Jen. This is my job. I do this for a living. I know there's something different when someone expresses true curiosity around what's at risk for you. And I think just even asking that question, I love the way you phrased it, shows that you're not just trying to sign a deal. Like you're really trying to help them get to a place where they don't have decision regret, which is, you know, as you said before, I think that's the number one reason buyers are so hesitant to begin with. They've all bought something that didn't do what it said it was going to do. It's a terrible place to be. And I think that's where I think that's where the sales world is failing sales reps and failing customers by still pretending like everything.

And I mean, I think that's I'm going to shift gears here a little bit because I've why is everybody still pretending everything's OK? I don't know for peace of mind. Like, I don't know how you look outside and just say, like, everything's OK when the sky is exploding. Like, it's fucking hard. I think if you spend any time on LinkedIn at all, like, I don't know if you've noticed this. There's such a shift in LinkedIn lately where people you can tell they're just mad. They're frustrated. They're mad. They're attacking each other. I'm like, this is not what happens when you've got a happy, happy workforce. It's different. I can't tell you, like, I've because, you know, you know me, I'm an open fucking book.

I'll talk about all sorts of random shit and like all the fucking failures that I'm going through, me getting my teeth kicked in and all that other shit, losing my entire business, you know, going from six million to zero, going from 20 people to one. You know what I mean? Like, I'll talk about all that shit. And I can't tell you, like, I did my newsletter recently and I talked about it. I was like, these past 16 months have been the hardest 16 months of my entire career, period. I've had to go through some shit and I'm still going through some shit and, you know, but I'm working through it and whatever. I'm getting more DMs these days from people being like, dude, thank you so much. I thought I was the only one.

And I'm like, you thought you were the only one? Like, who out there is sitting there saying, hey, everything's fucking great. Everything's great by me. Like, I'm feeling it. You know what I'm like, what in the world? So, I just don't know, I have this feeling that everybody's just still trying to pretend that, you know, everything's great. You know what I mean? Like, we got this and it's almost this toxic positivity. So, there is negativity. People are angry. But on the flip side, there's this toxic positivity of, oh, yeah, yeah, no, it's great. You know those people. Like, there's more than a few people I know in my life that are, like, when you ask them how they, oh, man, things are great.

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, no, they're fantastic. It's like, dude, I know you're not okay. Like, I know things are rough right now. Is, like, are you really okay? And they're almost afraid to open up because I think they're afraid to really admit what's going on right now. Well, saying it and feeling it are two very different things. Like, this goes back to what we were talking about before. Like, I'm very much in the camp of if you make it sound like everything you do is roses and all the, you know, projects you work on result in 8,000% ROI. Like, people just stop believing you because the reality of business is you're going to have failure points regardless if you did everything right or not. And so I think I agree with you.

I think a lot of the negativity is people's frustration with just being told things are fine when there are people who are, like, I cannot afford to pay my rent. And I've been job searching for eight months. It's not fucking fine. And so I think what's really important, and I also believe this just, like, more generally, especially in sales, is that the – and I don't love using the word because I think it's been overused. The more authentic we are in terms of, like, even when I talk about myself, I've done it a bunch in this podcast. I do it all the time by writing. You do this, too. It's like I don't convince people to work with me by saying I'm the world's best sales rep. But honestly, more of my business comes from people being like, you can relate to what's hard.

You understand the way our sellers think, and so I trust you to be able to relate to them versus come in and just say, just implement this process and everything gets better. Like, nobody's buying into that. And I think it's important that we recognize sales as a career where there's way more no's than yeses, there's way more rejection than wins, and that's part of what you sign up for when you go into this. It's not going to be rosy, ever. No. And, yeah, I mean, that's one of the things more than a few people ask me, John, you've been in this business for 28 years, man. Like, how the fuck are you still? I'm not – I'm also – I mean, I'm like you in the sense that, yeah, I've been in management, but I have literally always sold.

Like, sold. Had a quota, had to, you know, and, you know, they're like, dude, I'm in this for three years and I'm already fucking burnt out. Like, what in the world? And I'm like, yeah, well, part of it's DNA, right? Part of it's your support system, right, as far as manage it and all that other stuff. But then it's a belief in what you do. And if you don't – and I think that's what – I think that's what's eating at so many sales reps right now is that they're searching for – Oh, yeah. Do I really give a fuck about this piece of software that I'm selling? Do I really give a fuck about this whatever widget that I'm trying to get my commission checked for? And I would guess if you ask the vast majority of sales reps, they – deep down in their core, they don't give a shit about what they're selling.

They're just looking to get a paycheck and just looking to survive. And by the way, how fucking could you? Like, I think – but the reason that I stayed at CEB for 14 years – and Challenger was a spinoff, so it's technically I was still with the same company for another four. The reason I stayed there is because I think I wasn't just selling a thing, like a piece of software or a widget. I was selling ideas. And every year there was a new idea and it was like constantly learning and it was not shit I learned about in college. And so I just became so enamored with, like, what's the next year's big research thing going to be and what are we going to upend now and, like, what's the reframe? And I think when you're in an environment like that where you're constantly being pushed, you're constantly having to talk about new things, it's possible to stay somewhere for 18 years.

If you are just selling a piece of software where every time you look left and right, people are telling you, like, consolidation is coming and, you know, nobody wants to spend money on software, of course you're going to be, like, completely delusioned with the idea. So it's like, in many ways, when I spend time with people in tech, which, candidly, is not most of my clients. Most of my clients are more kind of, like, traditional industries. But when I do spend time with people in tech, I'm like, you've got to fall in love with the problem. You've got to fall in love with, like, the emotional impact of the problem that you solve for because that's the thing that can give you a high again and again is relieving that for a prospect.

If you're just in it to talk about widgets and benefits and features, like, damn, that job gets old fast. Yes, it does. All right, let's finish on this one. You're now demand gen. You're now off on your own, right? Yeah. What brought you to that decision to go out? Because I'm going to skip over lavender. You know what I mean? Like, you had a great time there. Cool product. Absolutely. Thumbs up lavender. But what made you decide to bet on you and take this leap? And a nuanced component of this, too, is how did you have the confidence to make that switch? So I'll give you my honest answer because that's the only answers I give. I chickened out at first. So I left Challenger December 2022. I was the chief evangelist.

I created that role. I was just ready to leave. Left December 22. My plan was to stand up, demand gen. I booked a bunch of speaking engagements. And then Lavender approached me and was like, hey, we've got this role. And I was like, yes. I mean, I think I took a day to accept it because I was like, what if I fail? What if, what if, what if, what if? So then I got into Lavender. I worked there for nine months and it was always eating at me. I was like, I am working so hard for this business. What would I do for my own self? Like, what would I actually do? And at the same time, like I had said before, I got married late in life. My husband has four kids. I was also looking at how I was spending my time.

And I'm like, I am treating this job like a child. I have no work-life balance, not because of Lavender, but because of myself. And there was never going to be a high enough bar for me where I worked hard enough. And so those two things came together. And I realized like, you have to try it. If you fail, you can go back and get another sales job. You got a great resume. Like, what are you worried about? And so when I left in September 23 and went all in, it was just because I felt like I could no longer ignore it. But I would be lying to you if I said like, you know, I was so confident. I just jumped and did it. I didn't. I jumped and then I got back in the plane and was like, get me back in here.

I want to be safe. So now looking back, I really wish I would have done it a bit sooner. But I don't regret any part of my career because even with Lavender, like I wouldn't have had the exposure to tech if I didn't have Lavender. So there's always a reason I think we do things. But it was not easy for me to make that jump at all. It's a similar track on mine. Like I chickened out. Like Basho's, let's go to Hoffman. You know, literally Hoffman stepped aside to bring a new CEO in and that CEO basically, and then Jeff left and then that CEO burned the place to the fucking ground basically and fired us all in one day. And I, I remember I, everybody's zombie, you know, my skill, if I have one is, is I think I can look at situations with limited data points and be able to make pretty good decisions without much information.

And so I was like, wait a minute, this guy just walked away from what used to be a $5 million business with an insane client list and all this other stuff. Like, what's he going to do with it? And so I kind of went in and I was like, hey, uh, what are you going to do with the training? He's like, I don't know. I was like, fuck, can I have it? Right. Um, but, but I, and I should have gone off on my own because I had the client list and I had, but I was still chicken shit. And so I brought, I agreed to have two other trainers come with me and we created a business and that, and that was the wrong thing to do because we were just three, we didn't choose to go to business together. We were just the three guys left standing at the end.

And so we immediately did this. And for three and a half years, I'm like, what the fuck? I'm doing all the work and I'm bringing in all the, I'm like, what the fuck am I doing here? And then there was an easy split after that. So I, I mean, arguably I should have three and a half years earlier gone off on my own, but to your point, I'm glad I didn't because now I have the experience and the context to be able to, first of all, help other people going through that, but also just understanding what my risk tolerance is and where and when and why I should bet on myself and go for it. So absolutely. And I think you realize looking back, like it taught, probably taught you just like it taught me so much about what you didn't want to do.

And when you don't have that experience, I think it ends up, you pay for that later. So I think, you know, I've, I've always, I would say I always struggled with self-confidence. And I think many of us who do what we do probably fall into that bucket, right? It's like on the outside, we look like we're really confident. We believe in ourselves through and through. And it's like, on the inside, you're like, I don't know if I can know what I'm doing. Imposter syndrome still to this day, imposter syndrome, right? Yeah. And I, but I, I have learned to love that. I've learned to recognize that is, that means I'm doing something that scares me. And if I'm doing something that scares me, it means I'm not standing still.

And like that, that's, that is important. So I think being afraid of making the move is, is never a bad thing. It just shows you, you're, you know, you're doing something that's going to be hard and hard shit gets you paid. Exactly. Jen, this was awesome conversation. I'm glad. I've talked to you for hours. I just adore you. Well, tell everybody where they can find out more information about you, what you're working on these days and, and, and really what you kind of, where your sweet spot is, what you love to do. Yeah. So demandgen.com, it's not an impressive website, but Hey, it's a website. Obviously on LinkedIn, that's where I spend a lot of my time. Where I, where I get lit up, where I love spending time is helping sellers really nail the early stage of the buying process.

Like I would never have someone bring me in for mutual action plans, negotiation, anything late stage. I do believe how you open a deal is how you win a deal. So I do a lot of workshops with teams on like cold emailing and messaging and how you open up a kind of two-way dialogue with a, with a customer or a prospect. So that's where you'll find me going all over the country, doing that fun stuff. Well, I love it, love it, love it. Awesome, Jen. Well, thank you again for coming on. Thank you. Let's, let's have this conversation again. I know we're working on another little thing that hopefully we'll get picked up. And we'll see where it goes from there, but it's been an absolute pleasure. John, thank you.

And thank you for all that you do for the sales community. You are a breath of fresh air and I just, I appreciate so much you having me on. Thank you so much. And everybody else hopefully enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. And like I always say at the end of all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad your day went or you think it's going, you make somebody smile today and you know you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much and I will see you on the other side. Hey everyone. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did with your support and our incredible guests. We're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now.

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