Jen Allen-Knuth

Founder, DemandJen | Sales Trainer & SKO Keynote Speaker | Dog Rescue Advocate

I help B2B revenue teams stop losing pipeline to buyer status quo. I'm a former Enterprise seller who carried quota for 18 years, closing 7-figure deals with Fortune 500 brands. Now, I run DemandJen, a sales-training firm trusted by Autodesk, GE, G2, IBM, Bloomberg, Instructure, Sprout Social, and more.

From conference stages to company Sales kickoffs, I'm known for:

- Buyer-Centric Frameworks – Practical playbooks for defeating buyer status quo in outbound pipeline generation, running executive-level discovery, building a point of view on cost of inaction (COI), and gaining consensus with larger Enterprise buying groups. 

- Story-First Messaging – Techniques that replace product pitches with problem-centric narratives that buyers remember.

- Engaging Delivery – A direct, humorous style that keeps even your most tenured reps taking notes.

Featured in Forbes, Sales Hacker, and 200+ podcasts, I combine real-world stories with data-driven insight to move audiences from inspiration to application. When I'm not on the road, you’ll find me in the Chicago suburbs chasing my 4 rescue dogs and 4 step-kids.

Head of DemandJen

Delivering SKO keynotes & virtual workshops that won't put your teams to sleep.

B2B Sales & Marketing teams have tried to earn buyer time and attention with a strategy of "more". 

More dials.
More emails.
More content.
More "value" and ROI.

But, 2023 showed us "more" is expensive and no competition against today's risk-averse B2B buying teams.

Instead of motivating the team to do “more”, I help empower teams to defeat customer status
quo and to make their sales conversations a competitive advantage.

Meet Mara 🩷

She’s a 7 year old, 59lb girl with the most gentle demeanor (especially with kids). 

Dogs like Mara always have a harder time getting adopted. She’s older + she’s a pittie mix. It doesn’t make her any less deserving of love. 

Every dog should be judged by their own demeanor. Not breed sterotypes.

We have a husky who never makes a peep and is scared of his own shadow.

We have a pittie who would throw herself in front of a bus to protect our kids. 

Mara is calm, easygoing, walks nicely on a leash, and does amazing in daycare. She’s a complete love.

Mara deserves a loving family. Will you help share her? 🩷

Available at Many Paws Global Rescue in Palatine, IL.

Photo credit: Nicholas I. Knuth 📸 

PS - I know many of you have pitties, too. I love seeing your photos in the comments - please share them!

No alternative text description for this image

I just read a post from a CEO who was in disbelief that a customer churned b/c they're going to try DIYing the vendor's AI solution.  It included the quote - "Good luck, see you in 6 months when you realize how hard it is."

I think we're going to see a lot more of this from tech companies in 2026. This isn't me picking on anyone. DIY is a really tough competitor. And, it hurts to lose to it. 

But, wishing for a customer's failure has never served me well in Sales. 

It's understandable that our knee-jerk response is to name all of the reasons why DIY is a bad idea. 

Often, our points are valid. 

But, the delivery is defensive. We erode trust because we fail to be collaborative or helpful. 

Instead, here's something that worked for me when I was up against DIY:

#1 - I asked questions about how they were thinking about rolling it out. Not "gotcha" questions. Qs that were genuinely curious in nature that helped me understand their beliefs/assumptions. I sought to understand (vs. seeking to correct them). Often, this exposed a flawed assumption. 

#2 - I shared ideas/tactics from other execs that were taking a DIY approach, so they could learn from them. I stopped fighting against DIY. This built trust.

#3 - Lastly, I offered at least one idea for how I could partner with the team as they thought through their DIY approach. I prescribed suggestions on areas where I knew DIY typically fell down. It gave me the chance to get in with the teams and illuminate the roadblocks that made DIY harder than they assumed.

More of those DIY deals started to convert. Not all of them. Just more of them.

TLDR - there's a great Brent Adamson quote - "Before you tell someone why they're wrong, first tell them why they're right". 

When competing against DIY, I stopped trying to be "right". I started trying to be useful.

I'm no LinkedIn expert, but I don't think we win by taking what works for someone else's content and trying to copy it. Here are 3 people who I think embody what it means to a have a voice on here that is totally and completely their own.  

Sara Uy
She grew like crazy on here after filming herself making cold calls every week. She's relatable because she was never trying to impress you. She showed the good, bad, and ugly. She took a job-to-be-done that makes many sellers nervous and she did it in front of the entire LinkedIn community. My favorite comments from her followers are the ones where sellers say, "You inspired me to pick up the phone more". Sara didn't copy what bigger creators were doing. As a result, she's at the top of every Sales creator list. Right where she belongs. 

Tas Bober
The queen of sharp wit. Her expertise is paid ads landing pages. But, she finds 100 different ways to make it fun. She's unafraid to say how she feels + doesn't shy away from constructive debates. When I met Tas for the first time last year, I felt like I already knew her. She does a great job balancing SME content with human content. I'm pretty sure if I was given 10 random LinkedIn posts, I could pick the one she wrote. Her voice is so uniquely hers. 

Shali Rana Reed
She's the people's champion. You can feel Shali in your corner when you read her posts. It's impossible not to click "see more" when her posts appear in the feed. She's one of the best at sparking curiosity in her hooks, without making it feel corny. You never know if it's going to be a pun, a serious post, or a work post. I like how she keeps us guessing. She has this no-nonsense energy about her. Big sister energy, in the best of ways. 

Your turn. Whose voice stands out to you as completely their own?

zoë hartsfield 🌊

good @ building pipeline | bad at most other things | currently building pipeline + evangelism at Apollo

I've generated over 100MM impressions for brands on social media in the past 24 months. Most coming from LinkedIn. Building world class employee, executive and influencer advocacy programs for B2B software companies. 

I'm a marketer by trade, but sales has my heart. Also passionate about helping younger professional level up in their careers (mostly by charing lessons I learned the hard way).

-------------------------------------------------------------

If you're a brand and want to collab on content, shoot me an email at zoe@zoehart.co

If you're a young professional looking for tips, hacks, and learnings to help you level up, hit the bell & follow me on IG (@zoepatience) and TikTok (@zoeeharttt).

If there are other ways you hope to work together, shoot me a DM- let's chat.

Head of Marketing & Evangelism

Standing up the content, community & demand gen functions at Swantide. 
Q1 & Q2 OKRs + Wins:
- 4x inbound traffic
- organized and generated Sales Collateral Library
- guested on 15 podcast + webinars to evangelize the brand
- onboarded tools: HockeyStack, Warmly, Demandwell
- Stood up content calendar
- Stood up product release marketing with CS
- Trained the GTM team on social selling
- Created Community Driven Pipeline Playbook
- Launched Events marketing program hosting in-person and virtual events
- Stood up partnerships program
- Stood up first-ever referral motion (generating 15% of pipeline after 2 months)
- leveraging my personal brand to generate new business opportunities
- Set up GA4 + marketing attribution model
- Generated 50% of pipeline from inbound, content + community
- Generated 39% closed-won revenue from inbound, content + community
- did all of this without ads^ 😏


We are making implementing and configuring salesforce 10x faster, 10x simpler at 1/5 the cost. It's so easy, I can set up your Salesforce instance. DM me if you're about to or just bought SFDC and need help with configuration & system management. We've got you covered 😎

zoë hartsfield

I just saw Block (CashApp & Square) announced major layoffs.  Approximately 40% of their 10k employees to be replaced by AI. And you know what happened to their stock? 

Fricken jumped. 


I’m not here to debate the ethics of AI or dismiss the heartbreak of major layoffs. 

As someone who’s been thru one once before it absolutely sucks. 


But the biggest thing this signals to me is literally every person, regardless of their role needs to get dangerous with AI yesterday. 

Get comfy with: 
- Chatgpt
- Claude  
- Perplexity AI 
- Gemini

Adapt workflow & productivity tools like: 
- Zapier 
- Wispr Flow 
- Gamma 
- Lovable  
- NotebookLM
- Fathom.ai 


just force yourself to use these. a little each day. try eliminating 1 repetitive task or speed up 1 work ritual each week. 

ai can be an extension of you instead of a replacement, but you’ve gooooottta put in the work now to get comfy with it.

zoë hartsfield 👻

i build executive and employee brands on linkedin that drive audience, authority & inbound | executive brand strategy & ghostwriting | founder @ the little ghost

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

i'm gonna be honest. 2 months into going full time on my biz i've never been more stressed out in my life. instead of showing you the sexy numbers, here's the harsh reality of going out on your own:


YES you have more freedom

 → you also are a team of one. It's a little lonely out here. 



the money is already 2X what I made in my day job.

→ but the expenses are insane right now. tools, branding, a website, accounting, taxes, payroll, new equipment. ya'll i have spent nearly $30k in startup costs for this business and we aren't done yet. 



you get to pick the work you do and what you focus on

→ there are soooo many things that need my attention and it's hard to prioritize. build pipeline, make content, client work and deliverables, brand, strategy, partnerships, operations, accounting, automating what i can automate. sometimes i feel a tad overwhelmed. 



sometimes at night i just drive around my neighborhood with music blaring louder that the scary thoughts in my head and i just mutter to myself "im gonna figure this out" over and over again until my playlist ends or i finally get tired enough to turn my brain off.




i've never been more stressed. 

i've also never had more fun. 

this whole thing is insane, but i am committing to the process and believing i will in fact... figure this out. 


i wrote a little more about it PLUS some interesting trends i am seeing on LinkedIn (for personal brand + those trying to social sell on here) in my latest newsletter. 

dropped it below if ya wanna check it out.

the realities of working from home: (a pros and cons list) 

pro: my commute is 14ft 
con: there is almost no separation 

pro: i can easily take a break & run and errand or do laundry
con: so many things to distract me from deep work 

pro: my dog gets to hang with me all day 
con: n/a

pro: my home office is optimized for me & the way i like to work & focus 
con: right now my home is a construction zone and i am banished to the living room 

pro: free coffee and snacks all day 
con: i supply all the coffee and snacks for the team (the team is me) 



i get why people like an office, i really do. but you will not catch me working 5 days a week from an office ever again. the flexibility and freedom are too valuable to me. 


this office set up sucks rn though 


the price we pay i guess 





kloveyoubye

i know people are frustrated by linkedin's algo, but as someone who's made content here for 4+ years... change is the name of the game. here's some shifts i've seen on Linkedin in 2026 (and what to do about it):

- the rise of ai means there is MORE content. 

creating your own style and flare to content is more important than ever


- content that could only come from YOU is the way to stand out/cut thru the noise


- pivot away from "advice" and lean into lessons learned 

how i > how you should


- share proprietary data

"i analyzed my top 50 posts" > "reach in general is down"


- go outbound with your audience. 

you have 100 weekly connection requests, use them


- up your comment game

engage with your ideal audience AND the creators who already have your ideal audience (steal their followers)

- a team of creators > one voice

if you're a founder, exec or marketing leader do whhhhatever you have to to get a handful of team members on linkedin. 5 employees will feel like a brand FORCE more than just one founder posting 3x a month.




i spend too much time here, so steal my nerdy observations

or don't

i'm not your mom




butidoloveyoubye

LinkedIn Algo update 2026

i saw 4 major brands all attempt LinkedIn takeovers on Tuesday. 

the two that dominated my feed?

Nooks​ + Profound​

why did their plays work and the other two kiiiiinda flop?


Nooks leaned HARD into the founder's post. 

they got employees, customers and partners to like, comment, share. I managed to see Dan Lee​'s post 5 times in the same day. 

well produced video.

tons of engagement. 

lot's of "reposts" from their team. 


Profound took a slightly different route. 

i also saw their founder's post CRUSH 

again, highly produced, massive engagement etc.

but they leaned harder into the influencer/brand partnership angle. 

i saw at leeeeast 5 posts from your favorite marketing influencers sharing the announcement from their own unique POV. 


my money is on Profound having garnered more impressions but both companies were unavoidable on Tuesday. 



common denominator? meaningful story post giving context to the announcement from the founder.


if you haven't baked executive brand into your 2026 marketing plan- you may want to revisit that strategy doc. 





if you don't your competitors will, and it's reeeeeally hard to catch up once they get ahead.

5 years ago i had 6 followers on LinkedIn. today i have 73k.

these are my top 4 recommendations to grow on linkedin in 2026:

1. write about the same 4-5 things, over and over

instead of "picking a niche" just pick a few topics you could speak about with a friend for over an hour.

people have to know what you know, and if you talk about everything they'll never be able to nail down what your expertise is actually in.

2. make people better at their life or job

i ask myself two questions before i hit post:
1. will this help someone be better at their job/have a win TODAY?
2. will this make people feel something?

if the answer is no to both, scrap it and start over. 

3. format doesn't matter as much as familiarity does

people talk all the time about which medium is going viral. 
pick 2-3 you like making and stick to them. 
i do static image, video and carousels. 
people expect those from me.
pick yours
do those

the goal is to be familiar and that comes with repetition.

4. just keep going.

pick a timeframe
30 days
90 days 

whatever stick to it. 

i recently did a 100 day posting challenge, grew my following by 7k and garnered 10MM impressions. 

half of "winning" on this platform is just outlasting everyone else in your industry who gives up. 






and if all else fails and you're like- Zoe i do not have time for this... hire a ghostwriter 😎

your success as a content creator hinges directly on your willingness to feel cringe for a few months while getting started. 

most people quit.

and those that don't are all the people you call "lucky" and "a natural."


sharing your story isn't natural. 
talking to a camera isn't natural.
building a following isn't luck.


everyone starts at 0. 
few people push past the uncomfy to get to 1.






ps. i still hate filming myself in public but ya do what ya gotta do eh?


kloveyoubye

i have helped 4 companies do major announcements on linkedin. each more epic than the last. after running this play 4x + generating millions of impressions in a day for each, here's what works:


- you need individual voices (not just 20 reposts of the CEO)

- you need original copy (sorry marketing, you can't just spam LI with 15 of the same thing from different profiles

- you need POV/skin in the game (let each person share why this moment means something to them 

- you need customers (get them under embargo or NDA and have customers join in on the fun!)

- you need a unified theme or story (this is what ties it all together and makes it cohesive)

- you need this play to be rare (you can only run it 2-3x in a year so save it for the big stuff)


and for the love of all that is good-- do NOT repost with thoughts... 

idk why LI even has that feature it is the worst performing post you'll ever publish, just repost without thoughts and move on if you're not going to write something original. 





kloveyoubye

weekends are for renovation updates. If you didn’t know, i’m turning my 4 & 2 into two units. and so far the project is a disaster: 

turned out my plumbing needs to be moved behind the walls, the north side of my house is too close the the property line for a well-window and my electrical panel is too small. 

but don’t worry, for the small price of an additional $29k you too can have a bunch of stuff brought up to code that no one will ever see or notice. 


with more money and a positive attitude, you can solve any problem :) 

kloveyoubye

if i had a million dollars to spend on influencer marketing, i'd take $100K of it and throw it back at my own employees.
here's why:

when you pay external influencers (hi, it's me), you're paying for rented audiences. one post. maybe two. then it's gone. and you have zero control over whether they actually give a shit about your product long term.

but your employees? they're already on payroll. they already know the product. 
they already talk to your customers every single day.
they're homegrown influencers waiting to happen.

think about it.

LinkedIn is a virtual highway. your employees are 10 billboards on that highway.
right now? they're all blank.

or worse, they're posting about their weekend hikes and sharing company announcements copy and pasted from marketing that get 4 likes from other employees.

meanwhile you're cutting $50K checks to creators who pronounce your product name wrong and move on to the next sponsor by tuesday.

don’t get me wrong there is absolutely a place for influencer marketing in your stack- you cannot beat that reach BUT, you need to invest in a longer term strategy.

i've seen what happens when you flip the math.

at one company i worked with, 4 employees started posting consistently. app mentions went from 100/month to 300/month in 60 days. 3x. just from internal people actually talking about what they do.

customers started talking. prospects started talking. influencers hit us up to collab. it was mad.

i love getting paid to post for brands. but the smartest companies i work with? they're also investing in the people already inside the building.
homegrown + rented = big brand payoff.

i used to generate 40% of my pipeline as an SDR from my linkedin content. anywhere between 5-8 meetings a month straight off my posts. so this is now a core belief: 


content is a salespersons job. 
content is a salespersons job.
content is a salespersons job.
content is a salespersons job.
content is a salespersons job.


i’ve done this across 5 companies, different industries and selling to different personas. 

i’ve also trained hundreds of reps to do it. 


here’s the basics:


-(OFTEN) write about the problem your prospect faces 
-(SOMETIMES) write about the playbooks you use (or you’ve seen work) to get the results/solutions to that problem 
-(OCASSIONALLY) write & pitch the product you actually sell

sprinkle in your personal passions, and pov on the matter & you’ve got yourself an engine that drives audience, authority & inbound. 


it’s not easy- but it is simple. 




kloveyoubye

"i know some founders who use ghostwriters + their content is boring" 
yea... their ghostwriter probably sucks + just uses chatGPT. here's how good ghostwriters make sure your content doesn't suck:



1. they need decent source material. 

i do this with weekly sourcing calls, but you could also use books, podcasts, customer call recordings, team meetings, internal slack etc... if they are posting generic content geared toward your niche of course it's bland... its not YOU.



2. they should use AI (but not how you think)

i don't use ai to actually write the final product. i use it for call recordings, note taking, parsing out posts/story segments, post analytics and checking for grammar. 

the writing is the only part i do myself, but i leverage ai in the process surrounding the writing (i write better hooks than chatGPT... what can i say 🤷🏻‍♀️)



3. they're recording the data week over week over week but analyzing month over month

the algo is weird. i don't put too much stock in any one post or trend. you want monthly improvement and to look at outliers to try and replicate success




and if the ghostwriter doesn't start the whole thing with a brand identity framework and content strategy, you're doomed from the start. 





please use this when you're evaluating ghostwriters. ^

i'm not trying to convince you to work with me. tbh, i am not a fit for everyone. 

but nooooobody should have to pay their good $$$$ for someone to just type "give me 10 posts for a CEO of a B2B Saas Company in MarTech for LinkedIn" and just copy and paste the results to you. 

and i know several ghostwriters pulling $20k+/mo just doing this for a bunch of founders and CEOs 


don't make that mistake.


your stories + ghostwriter's packaging. 



that's the magic.

it’s a shame i don’t have a brand deal with my call recorder… this would make a decent ad tbh. 

saved my life today. 


for real, record all your calls guys… you never know when disaster will strike. 

kloveyoubye

you ego makes you a terrible analyst. (myself included). look at these 4 posts from feb and tell me which one was the best.

1. image, 110k impressions 63 comments, 314 likes

2. video post, 40k impressions, 59 comments, 211 likes

3. image post, 50k impressions, 39 comments, 180 likes

4. image post, 9k impressions, 22 comments, 62 likes



off the top you'd think 1 was the standout yea? 

1. was a post about my sister's series and while it had great engagment, that's all it was.

2. was a brand sponsored post, drove a lot of clicks and i made $$$ off that partnership

3. was a post trying to help a friend who was just shy of 3k followers. she's a great writer so i told folks to follower her- she gained 350+ followers that day.

4. was a breakdown of how i think about ghostwriting as someone who's written for dozens of executives. 2 meetings booked- one call close. 




it's easy to get in your head about what's working, but linkedin like any social media can be used as a funnel. some posts grow your audience, some grow your business. you need a mix.


here's the split i try to stick to (and recommend to my clients):

60% Top of Funnel - Problem posts (educate the people about a problem in your niche) this content is lighter, broader and gains eyeballs

30%Middle of Funnel- Playbook posts (give away all your best info for free) break down a process, template or framework for the personas you help. help them solve one specific problem TODAY. make it easy to implement right now

10% Bottom of Funnel - Pitch your sh*t (or POV) tell personal stories, share wins or straight up hit em with a "DM me if you need help with X"




Which bucket do you think this post falls into?^

top tier VCs (any VCs really) should have an in-house team of ghostwriters for all their port-co founders. investors who aren't putting $$$ into founder content are wayyyy behind... it would be so simple:

those founders should be writing newsletters, posting on linkedin, X, maybeeee even IG and youtube.

they need to be telling stories, sharing the behind the scenes of building the company and walking people through the problem their product solves in real time. 

not polished marketing videos- from the desk of the CEO etc.


and i know investors want the founders focused on build the thing, but a founder brand is an essential component of the company brand in 2026. the need to be building the brand if they have a shot at beating out their competition. 

so if they don't have the time, give them a way to do it that doesn't require much of their time. 

have a professional interview them 2x a month (or just listen to call recordings, or drop in on team meetings) and write the dang content for them. 

and if you don't want to hire someone in house then have a handful of partners on deck and connect them with your founders early. 



executive brands can be the difference maker when customers are choosing between two products. 

in a world of AI when products can be spun up in a matter of hours with vibe coding... your TEAM is the moat. 



any VCs out there already doing this? 

if not, why not... what am i missing?

taplio

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zoë hartsfield

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taplio

The Battle

Jen Allen-Knuth

zoë hartsfield

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Engagements

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