Jen Allen-Knuth

DemandJen

Delivering SKO keynotes + in-person and virtual workshops to help Sales teams defeat buyer status quo.

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 make their sales conversations a competitive advantage.

Head of DemandJen

30 Minutes to President's Club

Co-Host

Women in Sales

Advisor

Lavender

Head of Community Growth

Challenger

Demand creation for Challenger Sales methodology. Host of Winning the Challenger Sale series.

Sourced $3M+ of closed-won revenue for AEs on Challenger's new logo sales team.

Influenced $7M+ of sales-qualified pipeline. 

Hosted 52 weekly podcast episodes (and grew monthly downloads from 2k-->20k).

Hosted 18 monthly webinars, with an average of 400+ live attendees each. 

Facilitated 25+ keynotes at sales kickoffs and industry conferences (for up to 1000+ attendees). 

Guested on 50+ Sales and Marketing podcasts.

In addition, I carried my own reduced, annual new logo quota of 750k (and crossed it in June).

Chief Evangelist

Sold $11.4M in Challenger Sales training, consulting, and professional services engagements.

New Logo Sales - Large Enterprise

CEB, now Gartner

Team lead for a new team-based sales model. 
Team sold $5.9M on a $4.9M goal.
Individually, I sold $3.2M in Challenger Sales training.

Player/Coach - Large Enterprise Sales

Sold $5.8M in new logo revenue to Sales, Marketing, and Corporate Strategy leaders.

Managed renewal, cross-sell, and upsell of 40+ key accounts within CEB's Sales, Marketing, and Communications practice.

Key Account Management - Large Enterprise

Managed a team of 3 AMs and 2 SDRs.
Managed a $10M+ international territory of CMO clients.

Team Lead - Account Management

Director, Member Services

Account Director

Account Manager

Account Analyst

Collegiate Athletic Travel

Event Manager

aka DemandJen | Co-Host 30 MPC Podcast | Keynote Speaker

40-60% of complex B2B purchase attempts end in "no decision" and involve ~11 customer stakeholders. 

We're not losing to our competitors. We're losing to customer risk aversion.  

We're losing to the customer's gut feeling that no matter how much "better" our solution may be, the road to "better" involves change, cost, productivity losses while the team learns how to do/use something new. 

We're losing because in an environment where uncertainty is high, humans will do everything they can to avoid risk. 

How are you showing your customers the cost of inaction in your outreach? How are you helping them realize that the pain of same is greater than the pain of change? 

I'm passionate about partnering with B2B Sales teams to help them stop losing deals to status quo, price, or no-decision.

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.

I was 1-call closed yesterday. Here's how he did it.

1 - Led with observations + a POV.

No upfront contract. Some love them. I don't. IMO - it sets the tone of "this is a sales call". This felt like a conversation. He didn't open with his business. He shared what he observed about mine and why it prompted him to reach out. This gave me context for his POV.  

2 - Used unsure tonality & sought to be corrected when he was talking about my business.

Unsure tonality sounds like "seems like maybe" or "looks like you might be". It invites the human desire to correct. That sparks a 2-way conversation. Humility is powerful (and rare) in Sales convos. 

3 - Used relevant social proof. 

Highly relevant customer examples. Less of a brag, more of a context layer for how he built his POV. It helped that 2 of them shared positive feedback in casual conversations before I ever spoke to him.

4 - Created an "I never thought about it that way before" moment. 

Most of you know I sold the Challenger Sales methodology for years, before becoming the Chief Evangelist there. So, I LOVE a moment where someone introduces new information that causes me to reconsider my beliefs/assumptions about a problem. There's a stark difference between a sales call that is "tell me your needs, I'll share how I can help" vs. "here's an outsider's POV, have you ever looked at your business this way?".

5 - Zero pushiness. 

He wasn't trying to close me. This isn't Boiler Room. His insight (#4 above) was what created urgency for me.  I'm excited to activate his idea. His explanation of how we'd make that happen wasn't fancy. It was simple and clear. 

One-call closes aren't the goal. And, they're impossible for ENT sellers selling complex solutions. 

But, I love seeing great sellers in action. Sales isn't easy, but the great ones make it look that way.

I finally met the legend Devin Reed yesterday.

On a 17th story basketball court in Chicago, overlooking Big Willy (FKA Sears Tower). 

If you haven't watched his new show, Reed Between the Lines, it's not another Sales & Marketing tips and tricks show. 

We talked about confidence. We talking about delivering a polarizing point of view on stage. We talked about self-doubt. We talked about the creative process. 

I can't think of a single Q he asked that I've been asked on a show before.

The experience was a reminder of how powerful it is to make someone feel seen, heard, and understood through a conversation. 

When we don't overcomplicate it - that's exactly what the best Sales conversations and Marketing content is all about. 

(Shout out to Nicholas I. Knuth 📸 for catching this moment.)

PS - if you're an AE in Chicago - I'll be back downtown on April 16th with Leslie Venetz for our AE Masterclass workshop! DM for the link to register. 

We treat most MQLs the same. It's why people bail when they're asked to submit their email/name/phone/social security number to access a white paper.

They know they're opening the door to an automated, 15-step "Saw you downloaded X. Want a demo?" cadence.

Learners are not the same as Handraisers. 

I'm a believer that our goal should be to increase the number of prospects learning WITH us.

We don't earn that right when we treat every email address like an opportunity to be converted into a demo. 

Here's a different way to segment and engage with our MQLs.

(Excited to talk more about this at Sales Assembly REMIX at the end of the month!)

Are you waiting on a contract signature?

Are you thinking about sending your 2nd or 3rd "just checking in..." email? 

Consider this. 

Buyer excitement wanes as the contract works its way through rounds of procurement, legal, and finance approval. 

The very thing your buyer was excited to buy 3 weeks ago has become a nuisance and extra work for them. 

It's a byproduct of the internal systems in place designed to prevent companies from recklessly spending money. 

It's our job to anchor our follow up on their business, not our EOQ deadlines. 

Here are 3 steps to do it:

1) Acknowledge the pain of change (aka the hassle of buying).

2) Raise of the pain of same (aka the cost of inaction). 

3) Invite the answer we don't want to hear. It's better than hearing nothing because they feel guilty telling us the truth. Here - use "we" language, not "you" language. Removes the blame.

Here's one alternative email instead:

Mary, 

You've been an absolute hero working through the contract review. Appreciate it's a grueling process.

I was reflecting on the story you shared re: the $5M of Q4 pipeline that was lost to status quo. If the team could've converted just 25% of that, the business would've crossed Q4 target. 

Have we hit an unexpected roadblock that will affect our plan to reduce that number for Q2?

Here's why this cold email will almost always get deleted before it's opened.

1 - Subject Line

- Questions: lower open rate by 56% (source: Lavender)
- First name: lowers reply rate by 12% (source: SalesLoft)
- Length: 2-word subject lines see 60%+ opens vs. emails with 5+ words (source: Lavender)

Data aside, overly generic subjects like these (who DOESN'T want to boost revenue?) suggest this is an automated email blasted to a bunch of prospects.

Specificity is our best friend. The reader wants to see there is a specific reason for "why them, why now".

In SMB - it can be problem specificity.
In MMKT & ENT - it often needs to be problem specificity + company/prospect specificity. 

2 - Preview Text

I/We Count: Two. Suggests this is an email about them, not us. 

"Last time I'll reach out": Suggests they've already emailed us a bunch and we ignored it. 

Right or wrong - we assume there's a reason for that. 

Worse, it might unintentionally give an impression we think we're 'owed' a reply because of our persistence. (We're not.)

PS: Before we judge....let's open up our outboxes/SEPs and see how many times our OWN teams are sending emails like this. I review hundreds of cold emails every month and this is a common one, regardless of industry. 

Ever heard of The False Tradeoff?

It's Parentaly's podcast for working parents.

Allison Whalen invited me on to talk about becoming a stepmom to 4 at the age of 41, while making a career pivot to start my own business. 

When I became a stepmom to kids who lost their mom at a young age, Reddit communities were my best friend. 

I spent a lot of time in communities for widows, stepparents, working parents, and stepkids. I tried to learn about it from all perspectives because I was scared sh*tless of getting it wrong.

The experience forced me to recognize things about myself I didn't like. 

One of those things was how much my performance at work dictated my self-worth. 

Allison has welcomed some INCREDIBLE leaders on her show. CEOs, best-selling authors, TV hosts, and more. 

The Parentaly team is making a huge difference for working men and women who are navigating parental leave. I hope you'll check them out. 

Episode here: https://lnkd.in/da326kcs

Here's another cold email killer: forced, generic flattery in the preview text. 

Preview text = first line of your email that the reader sees before they open it. 

Overly generic stuff like:

"Loved your post!"
"I'm impressed with the work you're doing!"
"You have an impressive background!"

I used to think if I warmed up the prospect with a flattering opener, they'd say, "Golly, she's nice. I'll read this one!".

Here are the 3 problems with that thinking:

1 - AI-generated emails LOVE this opener. It's quickly becoming a 'tell' that the email isn't written by a human. 

2 - Generic compliments scream insincerity. Especially when they quickly pivot to, "Anyhow, I'm reaching out because...". 

3 - "Warming someone up" is the wrong goal. We don't need to warm them up. We need to respect their time by getting to relevance, quickly. 

Here are a couple other options instead: 

1) Be specific. 

"I'm impressed with your work" vs. "Saw your team landed a big deal with Choice Hotels in Q1". 

2) If it's personalized, but irrelevant to the message, remove it from the first line and drop it into a PS. 

"I saw you love dogs! Anyhow, we're the leading provider of..." vs. "PS - Loved seeing Cookie in the background on your webinar yesterday. I have rescue dog, too!"

Imagine being a little kid who just lost their home in the Texas wildfires.

Then, your parents have to make the heartbreaking decision to say goodbye to your 2 dogs, because they lost everything in that fire. 

Today, Nicholas I. Knuth 📸 and I were back at Many Paws Global Rescue in Palatine, IL. 

The head of Many Paws pulled me aside to show me something.

It was 2 drawings (one below) that child made for whoever adopted her dogs. 

That black mark is a paw print.

It ripped my heart apart to think of this child dipping her dogs’ paws in ink to make this.

Knowing she would have to say goodbye. 

But wanting whoever adopted those dogs to know how loved they were.

These were 2 of the 15 new dogs Nick photographed today. 

Two beautiful, gentle dogs Many Paws rescued so they wouldn’t die alone in a shelter. 

I know most of you follow me for sales content.

But, our absolute worst day in Sales is nothing compared to a bad day in animal rescue. 

And while I’ll continue to post sales content, I would like to use my platform for more than just sales tips.

100% of the proceeds of April sales of my Grove Cookie Company cookie pack will be donated to Many Paws Global Rescue (and matched by me and Grove Cookies).

Order here: https://lnkd.in/gRp6Tfdd

And, check out Many Paws adoptable pets here (for foster or adoption): https://lnkd.in/gmsE-Pd8

Thank you to everyone who has shown such beautiful support so far. Your kindness makes a difference ❤️

3 reasons to create a Chief Evangelist role at your company (even though the title kinda sucks). 

1 - We have Product Marketers, but we don't have Problem Marketers. 

Most of us store Marketing collateral & pitch decks in the same folder (Deleted Items) because it's all about us. At best, it shows a surface-level understanding of customer problems ("do more with less!", "drive growth!"). 

The goal of Evangelist content is for the prospect to say: "That's the EXACT problem we were just talking about in our leadership meeting last week."

Goal: humanize the problem.

2 - We have a tenured, successful AE/AM who doesn't want to go down the manager career path. 

You'll get more pipeline out of your top AE/AM as a Chief Evangelist than you get from them now. 

Creating demand is infinitely harder today.

Yet, we ask the people furthest from the customer (SDRs & Marketers) to own it. 

An experienced, credible voice will cut through noise better than a bunch of generic email cadences. 

Ex: I generated $7M in sales-qualified pipeline in 11 months as the Chief Evangelist at Challenger. 

Goal: prevent top Sales talent attrition + generate pipeline

3 - Our Sales & Marketing are too busy fighting with each other in internal meetings to get quality work done that generates pipeline.

I've spent my entire career selling into Sales & Marketing. 

The number of companies I saw fighting over attribution, debating "should we do this or that", or playing the blame game far exceeded the number of companies who had Sales & Marketing alignment. 

Chief Evangelists get sh*t done. Especially when they report into the CRO. 

Goal: increase the speed of quality content creation 

If you're weighing the pros & cons for a Chief Evangelist role, this might help: https://lnkd.in/dWjz5P9G

Will you spend 30 seconds and $14 to help me give back to someone who does so much for others?

Last year, 6.5 million animals entered shelters. Only 3.2 million were adopted. 

Two of our rescue dogs, Milk & Cookie (pictured below), came from a small, family-owned shelter: Many Paws Global Rescue in Palatine, IL. 

I am in awe of the woman who runs Many Paws. 

She spends her money, her energy, and her time helping animals who have been abandoned, discarded, and forgotten. 

It's a thankless job, with a lot of lows and not enough highs. 

It makes the highs and lows of a Sales job feel pretty comical. 

So, when Grove Cookie Company asked if I wanted to do DemandJen cookie pack for the month of April, with ALL proceeds going to the charity of my choice - it was an easy yes.

Here's how you can help:

1 - Have a customer, prospect, colleague or friend who loves animals & cookies? Send them a DemandJen cookie pack: https://lnkd.in/gHHUYDV5

You do NOT need to know their address. Just enter their email address. They'll get an email where they can enter their preferred shipping address. 

2 - Drop a link to this post in your team's Slack channel. 

3 - Repost this (I never ask for reposts, but I'd love to get this message out to as many people as we can).

Grove Cookie Company and I are each matching the donations. 

Help us write 3 BIG checks to Many Paws at the end of the month ❤️ 

(And a VERY big thank you to the wonderful, veteran- and women-owned Grove Cookie Company.)

Enterprise AEs - this stupidly simple email helped me book more group meetings with cross-functional, C-level leadership teams. 

If your deals only require a single stakeholder - keep scrolling! This won't be relevant. 

Here's the context: 

- I only use it when I know I have a Mobilizer.
- I use it once we are aligned on the cost of inaction. 
- I write it. My Mobilizer sends it to the buying group and BCCs me.
- It doesn't reference the solution. 

The intent of my first buying group meeting is to surface disagreement on the problem, before we enter into a solutions discussion. 

Why?

It's rare that a cross-functional team agrees on the root cause of their business problems.

And, without problem alignment, it's almost impossible to get consensus on a solution.

Here it is. It's nothing fancy.

Team, 

I asked Jen Allen-Knuth to spend 30 mins with us next week. 

I met with Jen today to share context on the roadblocks we're up against re: OBJECTIVE.

She had some unique perspective on PROBLEM, based on X & Y. 

Any concerns spending 30 mins on this together? 

Sally

Etsy nailing empathy via a marketing email.

I love celebrating my mom on mother’s day. 

But, there are plenty of people who may not feel the same. Maybe it’s a recent loss, or a strained relationship.

I remember my first father’s day without my dad. 

Seeing an inbox full of “happy father’s day!”emails didn’t mirror the grief I was feeling. 

This kind of inbox consideration is rare. 

Love to see it ❤️

The biggest logic flaw in Sales is our belief that prospects will choose "better".

Let's look at the data from DCM Insights:

40-60% of B2B deals are lost to prospects who express intent to purchase, but fail to act. 

56% of those are because of customer indecision (fear of f*cking up).

44% of those are because the customer decided to stick with status quo. They might agree you have a better solution, but "good" is good enough for now.

Put simply - we're losing to customer risk aversion. 

We're losing to the customer's gut feeling that no matter how much "better" our solution may be, the road to "better" involves change, cost, and productivity losses while the team learns how to do/use something new. 

I'm back with the Women in Sales crew for another free community session. 

This time, I'll be sharing messaging tactics to reduce the chance that we get ghosted. We'll talk:

Early-stage: How do we spark curiosity for a conversation that gets the customer thinking differently about themselves?

Mid-stage: How do we avoid the dreaded, post-demo "let us discuss as a team and get back to you"? 

Late-stage: How do we make it easy for customers to be honest about unexpected deal risk factors? 

https://lnkd.in/gf3bH3th

Only 10% of B2B buyers find vendor-supplied content "influential on buying decisions" (source: G2).

Why?

The 12th grade reading level buzzword bingo. The far-fetched case studies ("Acme grew 400% and it's all because they bought us!"). The product show-up-and-throw-up feature dumping. The email cadences that read like relentless SPAM. Excessive I/we/our language ("join our webinar to learn about our latest X!").

When we're learning - we don't want to feel like we're being sold. 

Our goal is decision confidence. 

Decision confidence isn't just about picking the right vendor. 

It's feeling like we picked the right problem and the right solution category for that problem.

To do that, a good chunk of our content should help the buyer learn about themselves + weigh the pros and cons of different options to solve a problem.

Not all Marketing content is bad. 

But, before we copy/paste it - ask ourselves - is this content:

1 - Written to be clever, or written to be clear. 

2 - Leading TO a solution, vs. leading with it (I learned this at Challenger).

3 - About us, or about them. 

I've reviewed 300+ cold emails for clients this quarter. 

There's a ton of variability in the prospect roles my clients are targeting (CIOs, CROs, Heads of Maintenance, Repair & Operations, CMOs, Chief Sustainability Officers, Directors of Engineering, Directions of Operations, etc.).

Yet, there were 2 cold emails I saw over and over.

#1 - The Kitchen Sink

"Dear prospect, my name is Jen and here's a small novel about who we are, what we do, and why we're great. Are you free next Tuesday for me to tell you more about us?"

Word count is 200+. Reading time is 90+ secs. Bullets. Lots of long sentences, big words, & commas. Large chunky blocks of text. 

I used to send these, too. I thought the job of a cold email was to impress them with what WE do. I didn't know exactly what would impress them, so I threw everything in there. I left no juice for my follow up emails, so I resorted to "bumps" and "thoughts".

What I didn't know is that when a reader opens these emails - it screams effort. Effort is our enemy.

Ever heard the saying "if you want to be interesting, be interested?".

Cold emails don't have to sell "us" yet. Job #1 is to show the prospect we have a unique POV into why them, why now. 

#2 - The Love Bomb

"Dear prospect, I'm so impressed with this overly generic thing I found about you after doing 3 seconds of research that has nothing to do with what I'm emailing you about. Anyway, I'd love to have the chance to schedule time with you so I can understand your priorities and then use that information to sell you something." 

It's understandable why WE'D love to have prospects tell us their priorities. 

But, consider it from the prospect's side. Does sharing publicly available information about their company priorities sound like a good use of their time? 

And, forced compliments or forced, generic personalization doesn't have the desired effect. 

It screams "I know I'm supposed to personalize, so I'm checking the box".

If you have something personal AND relevant to the message - great!

If you have something personal, but irrelevant to the message? Throw it in a PS.  

Leaders - if you haven't done so, ask your AEs, AMs, and SDRs to submit a cold email for one of their target accounts. It will help you understand what beliefs & assumptions your reps are operating under. 

Before you hit send on a cold email or Marketing email with any of the following verbs:

Transform, Harness, Revolutionize, Supercharge, or Unleash

Plz ask yourself, "Am I..."
 
A Magician
A Horse handler?
An American fighting for my independence from Great Britain in 1775?
A Tesla battery?
A Dog trainer?
 
If not – kill those words. They don't make us sound innovative. 

They make us sound like we hit copy/paste from ChatGPT. 

PS - if you don't know who the man in this high-resolution photo is, Google "Stephen Stevens TikTok Guy" and thank/hate me later.  No, you don't need to be on TikTok to see it.

Here are the 3 ways I’m using cookies to build pipeline today (and you can, too). 

1. Re-Engage Closed Lost Opps.

I lost some Q1 opps where they decided to go with a different SKO speaker. Or, they cut an external keynote from the SKO agenda to save $.

I’ll use the cookies to spark a new conversation about a Q2 workshop option.

2. Upsell/Cross-Sell Existing Customers. 

Do I NEED to send cookies to get existing customers to take a call? Probably not. But, it’s a nice touch to show appreciation for their business. 

3. Show Appreciation for Referrals.

I had an inbound lead yesterday that came from word of mouth. I never want to take that kindness for granted. Cookies as a thank you!

Break up the monotony of emails & calls by sending Grove Cookie Company cookies to your prospects (you don’t need their shipping address. just their email.)

For the month of April - Grove Cookies and I are matching the proceeds of all DemandJen cookie sales and donating it to Many Paws Global Rescue (where I adopted 2 of our dogs, milk and cookie).

Here’s the link to send as a gift: https://lnkd.in/dY2ZzBBd

Need your help for a presentation, please. 

Q: When you think of Sales creators whose WRITTEN content is scroll-stopping, who comes to mind?

Think about Sales creators whose writing is so unique that you could look at something they wrote and guess it was them who wrote it.

Ex: 4 of mine are Samantha McKenna, Amy Volas, Kyle Asay, and Nate Nasralla.

PS - it's ok if you don't want to tag them in your comment. just looking for names. 

Outbound pipeline conversion problem?

How we're running the 1st call with that prospect might be the culprit.

Take a listen (<2 mins). 

MMKT & ENT AEs: Here's my Deal Happy Ears Test. 

Pull a list of your stalled opportunities. 

What do they sell?
Who do they sell it to? 
How do they sell it? 
How does this company make money?
Who do they compete with?

If I struggle to answer these Qs with specifics, it's usually because I got Happy Ears. 

I got caught up in the prospect's interest what WE do (our solution), instead of getting interested in what THEY do. 

Bad answers are generic (ex: "they sell construction equipment").

Good answers are specific (ex: "This opp is in 1 of Acme's 6 business units. This BU sells and rents construction equipment, replacement parts, customer value agreements, and technology that helps construction managers reduce downtime at job sites. This is sold both direct (to ENT accounts) and indirectly, through a captive dealer network (SMB & MMKT accounts). The CEO set a $28 billion services target by 2026. They're currently at $22B. This is a higher-margin sale vs. their equipment sales. They own 39% market share, with their closest competitor owning 35%. The rest are smaller players at <10% market share."

This is situational context. 

Situational context helps us form a point-of-view.

A point-of-view helps us answers the question, "why might the business problem our solution solves be relevant to this specific customer, right now?"

Most of my stalled deals didn't have a great answer to that Q. 

It's 100% okay to be upfront with our champion if we realize this. It's better to slow the deal down and re-orient back to their business, vs. keep pushing.

It might sound like this:

"Jane - was reflecting on our conversations. Realized I probably jumped too soon at asking you to socialize our solution with the rest of the leadership team. Ok if we take a step back? Last week, your CEO shared the business was tracking behind against the 2026 $28B services sale target. Had an idea to share, based on a problem Acme was running up against with their dealer network when they were diversifying their revenue streams last year."

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