← The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)
The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)
How Marketers Can Be Better Partners with Sales (with Jen Allen-Knuth)
00:54:37
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- [00:01]
Dave Gerhardt
This episode is brought to you by Customer IO. You know that feeling when you open your inbox and it's just noise, bad marketing, spam, some brand sending you another, just checking in email, or hey, Dave, did you get trapped under the filing cabinet or referencing some line about your college that you don't care about? Most companies are out here just talking at customers, not talking to them. Marketing messages should do more than just land in an inbox. They should create an impact, mean something to your customer. And that's where Customer IO comes in. They help companies send smarter, more personalized messages using first party data. So instead of another generic, hey, first name email, you're crafting messages that hit at the right time, in the right place, on the right channel. Email, sms, push notifications. Wherever your customers are, your messages can meet them right there. And the best part is it's all automated. So you're not just blasting campaigns and hoping for the best. You're running a machine that delivers real human engagement at scale. This is why 7000 brands already trust customer IO to make their marketing feel less like noise and more like a real connection. You can join them by visiting Customer IO to get started. That's Customer IO. Check them out and tell them that we sent you at exit 5.
- [01:20]
Jen Allen
1, 2, 3, 4, exit.
- [01:28]
Jen Allen Knuth
Exit, exit. Jen is here and I'm excited to do this. You were saying really nice things about me offline. I don't want anybody else to hear those things because I'm, I am just a thought leader. There's a narrative, there's a lot of chatter out there that I'm just a thought leader, just a guy with a lot of LinkedIn followers. So I don't want to put any of those things on the actual record.
- [01:54]
Jen Allen
Right, okay, we'll keep that secret.
- [01:56]
Jen Allen Knuth
All right, so the reason that I reached out to you initially was I'm just going to be completely open and transparent. I'm going to share this stuff. This is my podcast. I can do whatever I want. I have this crazy vision of, I think there's a possibility to expand Exit 5 into sales at some point. I think we have product market fit within marketing. I think that we have a strong enough brand and knowledge that we could replicate what we've done for B2B marketing and do it for B2B sales and become the number one B2B sales and brand marketing community. The look in your face tells me you don't necessarily disagree. And so, anyway, I made a short list. I made a list of people that I think have become Strong voices in this space and you're on the top of that list. And actually I reached out to a bunch of people that I really respect and trust. And not only did people tell me your name, but like, the way they said, what's your full name? Jen Allen.
- [02:51]
Jen Allen
Yeah, I didn't know how to pronounce it for like, months when I first started dating my husband. Hard K, Knuth.
- [02:57]
Jen Allen Knuth
Is it a hard K? It is a hard K. Jen Allen Knuth. Okay. You're responsible for the Allen parts. It's not.
- [03:04]
Jen Allen
That's what I bring.
- [03:05]
Jen Allen Knuth
Yeah, yeah, it's okay. My wife did not. She's like, I'm not taking your last name, buddy.
- [03:10]
Jen Allen
I don't blame her. It's hard.
- [03:12]
Jen Allen Knuth
Yeah, it's all good. She has a beautiful last name and she has kept that. And there's actually a, a scene at my wedding of my old old Jewish grandparents saying, Lenny literally overheard my grandmother say to my grandfather Len, she didn't take his last name. So it's all good. But anyway, we're already off the rails. This is good.
- [03:36]
Jen Allen
Perfect.
- [03:37]
Jen Allen Knuth
So anyway, people really recommended you strongly. They said, hands down, you are that voice. So I started like liking all your stuff, engaging all your stuff. I've seen all your videos. You have an awesome way of delivering your content. And I was like, you know what, I just want to reach out to you because I want to talk to you about your story on this podcast. And so here we are, crossover episode, baby. We're going to talk about sales today.
- [03:58]
Jen Allen
I love it. And I think the reason I was smiling when you said it is, you know, your LinkedIn header image. It's the same can be said for sales. Like, nobody goes to school for sales. It's very much a try it, figure it out, screw up type of profession, which in many ways I think is the same for marketing.
- [04:16]
Jen Allen Knuth
All right, so with that lens, who the hell are you and how did you become this well respected sales voice? Like, you clearly didn't grow up and you're. My daughter is seven. She's not out there riding her bike up and down my street being like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna talk about sales on LinkedIn one day. So take me. I just wanna know. I don't care if anybody thinks it's interesting. It's my podcast. I'm gonna interview. And so I wanna know, where did this start for you?
- [04:42]
Jen Allen
Yeah, I think the same could be said for a lot of people in sales. There are very few people, I think, in sales. Today that were out in front of their house, like hustling a lemonade stand or baseball cards and stuff like that. I very much thought that sales was a totally icky career. I never even imagined I would go into it. And so as a kid, I grew up in a, like, low to mid income family. My dad was a construction worker. He never finished high school. My mom was an insurance agent. She never went to college. And I was just always taught, like, you just work really hard at no matter what you do, right? So that was the only thing my parents wanted for me was just work really hard at whatever you choose to do in life. And so when I went to college, I actually majored in parks and recreation, which was like the biggest joke of a major ever. I remember there was a test that was like the 25% of the test was, what's the largest roller coaster in America? And I missed it. So I did not ace that test.
- [05:40]
Jen Allen Knuth
Wait, that was 25% of the test?
- [05:43]
Jen Allen
I was like, nobody told me to be on the test. But I finished college. And like a lot of people, I was just like, all right, what are my roommates doing? And my roommate called me, and at the time, she was working for this company called corporate executive board. I had no idea what it did. I just knew it was in a city. I knew that. She said the people were really smart, the culture was really fun. So I went and I interviewed, thinking, why the hell not? Let's just see how it goes. And in that interview, in walked this woman, Jessie Dingwell, who would eventually become my manager. And she just blew me away. Like, her force of presence was crazy. And I just remember sitting up straighter in my chair and there was just a way in which she was asking questions that was kind of intimidating, but also kind of awesome. And I think largely the reason I chose to go on and work in sales was because I just really wanted to be like her. And so I ended up spending 18 years in a frontline selling role, which is kind of wild for sales. I think a lot of people just like, how fast can I move up to manager? And then leader and leader. I just always thought sales was like, you can never totally figure it out. So it kept me, like, intellectually stimulated for a really long time. And then my last year working for that company, I created the role of chief evangelist. Love that. And that's kind of what set me off on this path to go off on my own so very. Leaving out some big pivotal moments.
- [07:00]
Jen Allen Knuth
But so the. Yeah, that's okay. But you spent. So 14 years was. I'm just looking at your LinkedIn. 14. 14 years was CEB.
- [07:09]
Jen Allen
Yeah.
- [07:09]
Jen Allen Knuth
So CEB, was that a company that was acquired by Gartner?
- [07:11]
Jen Allen
It was. Gartner acquired them, and then there was a division under CEB where the Challenger sale was created. And so I had moved into that division right before the Gartner spun us off. So when they spun off Challenger, that was an established brand, that was basically a new company under private equity. So it was interesting. My beginning of my career was, like, working for midsize company, and then Gartner was a large enterprise and then went back to kind of a startup, and then I spent about nine months at Lavender, too. So it was interesting to see, like, how different all those places were.
- [07:43]
Jen Allen Knuth
So after Gartner, you went to Challenger and you sold there for four years and then created this chief evangelist role. Did you have a moment where you're like, all right, I'm done with selling. I want to do this? Or, like, how did that role. How did that role come up inside of Challenger?
- [08:01]
Jen Allen
Yeah, so I actually kept a quota as the chief evangelist, so I'll come back to that. But basically the year prior to that, so I think it was 2021, was when I really started posting on LinkedIn. Challenger had just started a podcast and a monthly webinar series, and one of the hosts was leaving, and so the other host tapped me and was like, hey, would you want to do this? I thought, sure, why not? And the more I did it, the more I was just talking about all the things that I screwed up as a salesperson and these conventional beliefs and assumptions I had, and people started getting really attached to it. And so I started posting about that. And then as I'm posting, I'm getting these dms from people that never, ever liked or commented on shit that I wrote. But they would be really senior and they'd say, hey, I don't know that we want to buy a sales methodology, but I do know that things you're talking about are the exact things that we're talking about in our team meetings. Let's have a conversation. And so over time, what happened is a lot of these came in. They'd ultimately become deals, but they weren't in my territory because we had geographic territories. So after about nine months of doing it, I approached our CEO and said, listen, I came across this job role called chief evangelist. It really is less about talking about the solutions we offer and more about educating the market on the problems. I think we could use that to help drive up more qualified leads. Would you be open if we experimented with it? And I was really lucky that she said yes. But in that year of being a chief evangelist, I kept a quota of 750,000. My normal quota was like 3 million because it allowed me to stay really close. And I also just like loved selling and I didn't want to lose the comp from selling so I kept it there too.
- [09:38]
Jen Allen Knuth
And now, now you work for yourself. You had this realization that you could turn this powerful content skill into a full time business. Tell me about demand gen. Yeah, well.
- [09:50]
Jen Allen
To be clear, I weenied out at first.
- [09:53]
Jen Allen Knuth
So I left.
- [09:55]
Jen Allen
Totally weenied out. Left. Challenger was like, oh my gosh, am I a one trick pony? Did I only do well because I was at Challenger? Like I had all this self doubt and Lavender had reached out and was like, hey, we're creating this kind of community role in marketing. I'd never done marketing, so I tried that. But the whole time I was there I just felt this pull of, you know, you're kind of giving up on yourself a little bit. Like just suck it up. You can always go back to corporate work. So I left after about eight months. And when I started Demandgen, all I really planned on doing was speaking at sales kickoffs. Like that was the stuff I was doing as a chief evangelist. It was the stuff I was doing at Lavender. And then I had people again when I announced that I was leaving. Started showing up in my DMs, being like, would you be open to doing a workshop? And I was like, oh no, would I? Yeah, that sounds fun. Like let's do that. I had people be like, do you want to do coaching? I was like, no, I don't want to do that at all. I think that sounds like not that much fun. So I just started saying yes or no to things based on whether it actually lit me up. And now what is it? Seven months into the year, I've got a really great book of clients and they use me to come in and help kind of their teams unlearn some bad sales practices that we've probably all learned at some point in our career. So I do a lot of workshops and a lot of speaking engagements and I'm having a lot of fun.
- [11:08]
Jen Allen Knuth
That's awesome. Yeah, I feel like there's something with like a lot of people that want to go out on their own. And I didn't realize this until I actually did it, but you almost have to just go and then like see what comes in and do stuff and then, like, do some work that you don't like. And like, oh, that was really shitty. I didn't like that. I don't want to do those. Okay, I want to do more of these. And then. But you can't do that when you're in the company. And so, like, there's a narrative that's like, you know, have a side hustle. And I believe that, but you also can't fully go all in. And I had a similar conversation with Devin Reed a couple months ago where he was like, how did you make the leap? I'm like, dude, you have to just, like, you're a competitive person. You have to just, like, make the leap. Because you can't if you've built a mini brand. And then you can go to LinkedIn and say, starting today, I am a free agent. You can work with me for anything. You just need that moment. And then you need to see what comes in. But you can't. When you're working for somebody else. You can't go and write that, because then your company's gonna be like, wait, what the heck is she doing? Just taking all these inbound opportunities, right? So you. You need to do it. And, like, for me, even I see that now with Exit 5, like, I needed to go and commit to going all in and just, like, betting on myself and say, like, yeah, I don't know, I'm going to figure it out. And then you kind of get one project and then that leads to another. Is that kind of what your experience was?
- [12:28]
Jen Allen
100%. And I tell people who are on the verge of leaving that all the time. I'm like, that first LinkedIn post will change your whole opinion of the matter. But you have to take that leap of faith, because you don't know until you write it. And it doesn't matter how many years of experience you have. I think in many ways it is that free fall of like, okay, eff it, we're doing this. Let's see what happens. You need the free fall, and you almost need a little bit of that imposter syndrome, because I think that's what ultimately drives you. If you go off on your own and you've got no reason to believe that you'll fail. I. Look, I admire that mentality, but I think in many ways, the people that I respect, we all had some sort of belief system around, well, what if it doesn't work? And what if I made the wrong decision? And so I think if you just acknowledge that's part of the Process and go for it. Not to sound like some corny, like self help person, but I do think that's really part of the process. It is a free fall and you gotta do it to see what's on the other side.
- [13:23]
Jen Allen Knuth
I mean, don't take this wrong day with all due respect. Like, you're in sales, you gotta have some of that in you. Like, you know, you gotta have some of that. Like, go and get it. And then like, what's your experience been like as a woman in sales? Because typically the sales influencer does not look like you.
- [13:41]
Jen Allen
Yeah, I appreciate you saying that.
- [13:43]
Jen Allen Knuth
I'm a very astute observation of mine, isn't it?
- [13:47]
Jen Allen
I'm very smart, but it's sincere. Right. You go like, one of the most disheartening things I think as a woman in sales is you go on LinkedIn and look it's gonna happen. Like, I don't lose sleep over it, but you go on LinkedIn and you see, like, here are the top five bros to follow and they're all look the same and act the same and say the same things. And I think that's largely why we in sales get in trouble, is we just love to repeat what somebody else did. And the more cookie cutter, the better, because then I know exactly what I need to do. So I'm not gonna lie. I was very lucky coming up in sales. I had, like I said, Jesse, she was a phenomenal woman in sales. I had someone to look up to. Her boss was a woman. Like our managing director was a woman. Most of the people in Jesse's role on the team were women. And so when I started in sales, I actually don't feel think I had an appreciation for how tough it often is for women in sales because I was lucky enough to be surrounded by so many good ones. So I was really lucky. It wasn't until I got like years into selling and then, you know, I was working often, like Midwest territory. I had a lot of manufacturing companies where I'd walk into these meetings and I wouldn't even see a woman on the floor. And then I started realizing, like, okay, is it unusual that I look like me and that I am a woman in sales? And I'll never forget the worst meeting I ever had was with a company. Will not name names, but there were two EVPs of sales for two different divisions. And I was helping onboard a new seller. He was a guy walk in the room. We sat down side by side. The two EVPs sat across from us. I started talking and they did not look at me in the eyes. Once they looked at the guy I was training and when they had a question, they asked him and luckily he said, look, I'm like two weeks into this job, dude. Like, I, I don't know any of these answers. I'm here to shadow her. So Jen is probably the better person to ask. Even still, when I answered, they wouldn't look me in the eyes. And now maybe they just thought my personality sucked. Maybe, like, I was just doing a bad job. There's a lot of babies there. I'm not gonna say it is because I was a woman, but that stuff like that happened enough where you just, you feel it, right? And I think it's largely why women second guess themselves in this job. And it's. I hate that because women bring a lot to sales. So it's kind of good. It's bad.
- [15:59]
Jen Allen Knuth
But I think what you mentioned like about earlier in your career actually makes the whole point of diversity in all facets, gender, race, whatever, because you came up, like, that's just that buy. Like I even noticed it. I even still do it myself. Like, if I got a pick 5 speakers for something because I'm a dude, I am more likely to just have a network of dudes. And there's nothing like malicious about me doing that. But like, oh, I know four people that could speak on this topic and they all happen to be guys and I just picked them for a panel and then all of a sudden that's how it happens, right? But if you grew up working, your boss was a woman, you had another mentor that was a woman, like, that does make a huge difference. And I do think it's pretty sweet to see you become a voice of B2B sales on LinkedIn. Because, like, I get a lot of just being a guy. I didn't do anything wrong, but just be a guy. And I talk about marketing on LinkedIn. And so therefore I am tech bro. When it's like, actually in reality, in my life, that's like the furthest from my personality type. But, like, I'm a white man, I'm bald, there's a picture of me on LinkedIn. Therefore I am tech bro. Like, I have lots of followers on LinkedIn. Like, I am tech bro. And so it is what it is.
- [17:13]
Jen Allen
And look, I also think, like, we make no progress on this issue when we make men out to be the enemy. So, like one of the. I'm only an advisor for two companies.
- [17:20]
Jen Allen Knuth
No, this is the podcast we need. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, we are not the enemy.
- [17:26]
Jen Allen
But honestly, like, I look back on my career and some of the influences that were strongest, some people that believed in me the most were men. And they would not let me second guess or use being a woman as an excuse or anything like that. So it's like, it's one of those issues that I think on LinkedIn just gets butchered, right? Because it's like, bring the pitchforks. Like, you put an all white male panel on and it's like, I don't know that that narrative necessarily helps anybody. There's a lot really, really helpful men who care just about as much about women and diversity and sales as some women do.
- [17:56]
Jen Allen Knuth
Well, I have a lot of open beliefs and I believe in progress and everything, but I'm also like a. I hate the cancel culture of like, this Come. Like, let's get the pitchforks out. Could this company put three guys on a webinar? Like, really? This is how we're going to fix the world's problems? Like, I'm sorry. Anyway, I don't want to. I don't want to. Do you ever not like being like the woman in sales? Does that ever, like, bother you?
- [18:22]
Jen Allen
Do I ever not like being the woman in sales? No, I don't. The.
- [18:26]
Jen Allen Knuth
We're in confidence. Like, I, I worked at this one company and the CEO was like a legendary tech CEO and she hated. She used to get invited to speak on, like, you know, women in business this and that. And she was a big, like, she's like, I don't want to do that. Like, fuck that. Like, I just want to be like, on the business. I want to be speaking about business, not women in business. And it was like, huh, that's actually interesting. And I see both sides of that and I just, I wondered what your perspective is on something like that.
- [18:55]
Jen Allen
Yeah, I mean, I made a, like a spoof video talking about how to create like a great sales kickoff. And one of the things I said, I saw that.
- [19:04]
Jen Allen Knuth
That was recent, right? That was so damn good. That was so good. I.
- [19:10]
Jen Allen
It was like my first.
- [19:12]
Jen Allen Knuth
This one. Tis a season for mid year revenue kickoff.
- [19:15]
Jen Allen
Yes.
- [19:15]
Jen Allen Knuth
You're like, yeah, everybody needs to see this. Everybody needs to see this video. Go to Jen's profile. She has it pinned at the top.
- [19:23]
Jen Allen
It's so funny because you see this effort that people make and it's so shallow, right? It's like, oh, look, we've got women and black people and diverse people on stage. And it's like, right, but you're putting them on a fucking DEI panel for 15 minutes. It's always right after lunch when nobody's in the room. Like, that ain't it. And I think largely why I don't think I get frustrated is I don't feel like I don't get pulled into a lot of that stuff. I don't get pulled into, like, sit on a stage and talk about what it's like to be a woman. I get pulled onto stages to say, like, how do you sell when your enemy is status quo? And I appreciate that in many ways it's people trying, but we don't want to do it like that. Like, 15 minute DEI panels are just making a mockery of the whole thing. Like, put women up there, show them that they can lead, have them talk about the subject matter that they're really great at. Like, if you reduce us down to just our gender or whatever, that's where I think people probably, like your friend, get frustrated. Because I do get that.
- [20:20]
Jen Allen Knuth
All right, this made me think about the next thing I want to ask you. Let's talk about you as a content creator. We're going to talk about sales at some point. Maybe. I don't know. We'll see.
- [20:26]
Jen Allen
Ever.
- [20:30]
Dave Gerhardt
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- [21:46]
Jen Allen Knuth
You've been making good little videos and I haven't been following you for that long. So I can't say that, like, maybe you've just been doing this forever and like, you're a secret video maniac. But what is your current, like, take me into your content strategy a little bit. What do you write about? What do you create? When do you make a video? Seems to be rarely like you, out of breath, walking down the street filming a video. You're always kind of have like a take and you're sitting down. And I want to know, where do those come from? Who makes them? What is your current content strategy on LinkedIn?
- [22:21]
Jen Allen
You're spot on that I've not classically been big on video, mostly because when I scroll my own feed, I just scroll for written. I have a preference towards written content. I don't know why, it just helps me learn better. I can reread it five times. I can do it while I'm on a call where I'm probably supposed to be paying attention, attention. So my own preference is for written content. But I have a friend, Will Aiken, who produces and edits video content. And from time to time he'll be like, hey, I'm coming into town, I need to shoot some video content. I'll give you all the raw footage if you want to use it. And so I always say yes to that because he's a dear friend of mine. Well, this last round, those are the videos that you've been seeing. Will did such a great job of asking smart questions, which I think is hard when you're shooting your own video content. You're like, I don't know, I know about a lot of stuff. What am I going to talk about? So he sends the prompts and then he's like, I want you to talk about it in like 60 seconds or less. And so we shot a lot of that kind of stuff. Like, highly tactical. Here's a conventional belief, here's what taught me it was wrong. Here's what I do now instead. And I just started doing this, I think two weeks ago was the first time I just posted all video content for one week. And it was absolutely wild how much. Not just impressions and shit like that, but like my inbounds skyrocketed. It clearly gave me a realization that what I do is stand up in front of teams and I teach them and coach them. Whatever. I think reading it versus experiencing how I deliver it are two totally different things. And I think what I was neglecting is people sometimes just want to know, what do you like and how do you sound? And would I listen to a full 60 seconds? And if I'm not going to listen to 60 seconds, I'm probably not going to H you. So I think it is newer for me. I am technologically like a dinosaur in every aspect of any sort of technology. And so Will's been really helpful to me because he shoots it, edits it, and then I can just post it. But it is definitely now going to be a priority.
- [24:13]
Jen Allen Knuth
So are you actually, like, with him in person filming these? Yeah. Okay. Maybe you're a technological dinosaur, but I think it's important for people to hear this. Like, you're amazing as a speaker and you're really good on camera. And so, like, you don't need the video skill, you don't need the chops. You're, like, clearly a good speaker and you have somebody else that can do it. So is this just one batch? Like, you two hung out at some point and filmed a bunch of these?
- [24:39]
Jen Allen
We just hung out for, like, an hour. We filmed a bunch. I think I've got, like, seven or eight more. So we turned out a ton of content.
- [24:46]
Jen Allen Knuth
And he's just sitting on the other side of the couch just, like, asking you questions. Awesome.
- [24:50]
Jen Allen
Exactly.
- [24:50]
Jen Allen Knuth
Which is great because I think anybody listening that wants to just create better videos, go to Jen's LinkedIn profile and you'll see this style of video. I think you could do this with a founder, with somebody else inside your company, like, whoever the subject matter expert is. By the way, I have a horrifying Will Aitken story, actually for you.
- [25:06]
Jen Allen
Oh, God.
- [25:06]
Jen Allen Knuth
It's not horrifying. No, he was. We did something together at this golden hour event.
- [25:12]
Jen Allen
Yeah.
- [25:13]
Jen Allen Knuth
And I don't know why, but I thought I had seen Will Aitken and Will allred both on LinkedIn, and I thought that he was the Lavender founder. And turns out it was awful. It was awful. And I think it was, like, on a panel, I said that. Well, you know, it was something like. I was like, oh, well, you know, as, you know, as the founder of Lavender, you know, oh, you went in, you went hard. And he was like, he has an accent. Right. He's like, oh, you know, mate, I'm actually not him. You know, something like that.
- [25:49]
Jen Allen
Right.
- [25:50]
Jen Allen Knuth
So, anyway, I'd like to know that I can build some trust and credibility with you and then you can go repair that for me in the future. So. And then your videos, you're getting crazy engagement on your videos. And so this is, I actually think this is like. So this posted this video as we're recording this two hours ago. This video has 266 likes, including a like by Kyle Lacy. Shared connection. Hello Jen. I noticed we have 175 shared connections on LinkedIn. Isn't insane that people use that. Anyway, this has 266 people that have liked this, 120 comments. And I think you could write something like with just copy that would go more viral and be really witty and pithy. But I think this is like middle to bottom of the funnel content that like showing your face, being on camera, actually having a take like this works really well for you. This speaks the value of video content. But are you just posting one a day? What's your actual content? You got all these videos that you and Will did. How are you putting them out?
- [26:48]
Jen Allen
Yeah, I'm not sophisticated at all in thinking about my content creation. So I wake up in the morning, I think about like, what is something that I heard yesterday, I saw yesterday, that makes me think people are operating off some sort of flawed belief or assumption? And then what piece of video content connects back to that? And so I'll post it in the moment because if I start scripting everything out, scheduling everything out, it feels to me personally just like a duty. I love writing. I love it. It really helps clear my thinking. It helps me prepare for like, workshops I have coming up. Because I'm digesting things. I'm learning about that company. And so I really enjoy just every day waking up, picking one and saying, all right, now what's the point I'm gonna make? I think the reason, two reasons why I think it's working is one, it is really short. There is no preamble. It's just like, here's the problem. Here's what I used to do, here's what I do instead. And two, I do think it is that when I first started creating content on LinkedIn, I was really worried about people being like, well, you don't have a book. You were never like a true sales leader. Who the hell are you to tell me how to sell?
- [27:57]
Jen Allen Knuth
You don't have a book. I love how you, you use that as a thing like you don't have a book. Like, I actually see the opposite now, which is like, oh, everyone has an effing book. Yes. Who doesn't have a book?
- [28:07]
Jen Allen
Me.
- [28:10]
Jen Allen Knuth
Well, don't write one.
- [28:11]
Jen Allen
Okay?
- [28:11]
Jen Allen Knuth
One of my Favorite Amazon reviews on my book was this should have been a blog post.
- [28:17]
Jen Allen
But see, like, that's the kind of content. You do this too. So I really like you. I think people expect content creators to stand up and be like, I am the expert in the room and hear ye and you must listen to me and all of my disciples. And I think you do this. Well, I try to do this. I tried to be like the anti expert in sales particularly. But I think marketing is the same thing all day long. If you go on LinkedIn or any freaking social channel, it's just people being like, you're doing this wrong and this is dead and you're terrible at this and this is the new way. And it's like, for fuck's sake. Like, I'm just trying to get my job done. I'm not trying to be barked at and pointed at the whole time. And so I think what I'm thinking in my head is how do I like to be spoken to? I don't like to be told that you have no idea what you're doing. I'm not some helpless like lost puppy. And so I think some of it is also just in the way that I talk about it. Like, I don't believe in pointing the finger at people because often it's a systemic problem, it's an organizational problem, it's not like an individual problem. So I think that's probably the other part of it.
- [29:16]
Jen Allen Knuth
Well, thank you for noticing that. You know, although people project their comments and so people who don't know me or haven't had an actual conversation with me, they think that I am that guy. And so they read my writing through that lens when if like you've actually heard my voice or listen to a podcast, it's very wild. There's. I'll talk to complete strangers and they'll be like, man, you're much more humble and nicer and funnier than I thought you would be. And I'm like, well, is that, is that on you? Is that like how you've been reading my writing this whole time or. And I'm like, thank you. I think, like, let's move on. It's very strange, I think, where you.
- [29:56]
Jen Allen
Talked about like at one in the morning, I wake up and scream at my co founder and then I do 100 push ups and I take an ice bath. I live. It's just, it's not that serious. Like what we do is not that serious.
- [30:07]
Jen Allen Knuth
Not that serious.
- [30:08]
Jen Allen
And I think that's what made me so excited when you Reached out because I'm like, this is a real person with a real sense of humor. He's not trying to tell the world. Like, I'm the all being, all knowing marketing guy. Like, I admire that in your content.
- [30:20]
Jen Allen Knuth
I mean, it's just, it's like I actually think that is like the best ingredient for marketing, period, is like, nobody wants to be sold to, nobody wants to be marketed to the way you can. I wrote something last week where I think I said like, I think that authenticity is the most important marketing strategy. Especially today where you have more content that's written by AI, more video, more fake stuff, right? If you can find ways to sprinkle your personality. And it doesn't mean you have to like write silly nonsense like I write sometimes like that. But it's like, maybe you're Jen and you're like delivering some message about B2B sales, but in that you sprinkle in a little like, personality. Like, for me, last week I made this video about five reasons you should join Exit 5. And while I'm sitting there in my bedroom, my kids are downstairs, I'm hiding upstairs trying to film this video so nobody sees me. I made a bunch of mistakes and I was editing the video later and I just was like, you know, I think I'm going to leave some of these outtakes in there because I think it's works as an ingredient to like cut through the noise a little bit. And I got a bunch of comments on that and I just think that that's a huge ingredient to like, whether you want to write on LinkedIn, whether you want to build a brand online, or whether you're like selling B2B software. I think you don't have to be this perfect thing. People want to feel like they can actually relate to you and that's one way to do it.
- [31:38]
Jen Allen
I ride very hard for that. But I will also say I do think there is this wave. I'm curious to see what you think about this of like, forced authenticity where people have been hearing, be authentic, be authentic. And now it's like these like operatic posts where it's like, what are we even talking about here? You don't have to say. It's. When I was seven, someone made fun of me in the lunchroom. Like, no, not against it. I know that shit cuts deep, but at the same time it's like there's a difference between truly being authentic, like just being who you are, and then being this version of authentic that you think gets LinkedIn impressions and likes and that Drives me nuts. Like that's the stuff that I think we are seeing way more of in the feed where I think people are getting really frustrated. Like yeah, you should hire old people. You should be able to decline job applicants who don't get the job. We get it. Like we're on, we're there, we got it. Stop writing about it.
- [32:31]
Jen Allen Knuth
Yeah, I mean that's just the era that we're in though. I don't think that's related. I agree with you. I don't think that's related to like B2B sales or marketing. It's just like we're in the era of like performative social media stuff and yeah, there's going to be nonsense that everybody writes. You know, like six lessons my seven year old soccer game taught me about B2B sales. Like people real seriously write that type of stuff. That's a real hook for somebody. Like someone, someone somewhere is paying like a LinkedIn content creating creator agency. Seven grand a month and they're giving them those prompts.
- [33:06]
Jen Allen
It's true.
- [33:07]
Jen Allen Knuth
Anyway, I want to spend. Let's actually talk about sales for a second and let's talk about it from the perspective of this audience. Is is all marketers. Maybe there's two salespeople, maybe, maybe corporate bro listens to one out of every 125 episodes if I'm lucky. But let's just flip to the other side and maybe what are the things that you hear from your side of the table? Being in sales, working with high performing sales teams, the biggest gripes, like let's look at it from the opposite. What are the biggest gripes that sales teams have with marketing we spend a lot of time in the Exit 5 community where people are like, I just can't get the sales team to do X. But let's turn the tables and talk about it from the other side and let's figure out how to be a great partner to sales on the marketing side.
- [33:50]
Jen Allen
So I think to some extent if you think about sales, which is you get on a call, you have no idea what's about to happen. Right. And much of your day is like that your deals are all question marks. The buyer's behavior is all question marks. And then I look at marketing where a lot of the work we do is like somewhat process oriented, future planned out. Like we've got this strategic plan and we march against it. And I think in my own experience that's largely where the two butt heads a lot. So when I was a seller I was really noisy about marketing Like, I was like, look, thank you for the 5,000 word blog posts with all of the SEO language in there. But I haven't had a single customer or prospect ever ask me about this topic. What I am hearing is this topic and what can we share that would be insightful on that? It's like, well, sorry, that's not in the schedule. We can probably get to that six to eight weeks from now. Like, that is the stuff that as a salesperson is so frustrating because you're like, I'm in the conversations, I'm hearing the questions, I'm hearing the needs. And at the same time I can understand to a marketer who's got an army of salespeople being like, it's this, it's this, I need this, I need this. Why? There is a need to have a schedule and a plan thing, but I think it is most often because we are operating in this abyss of like, who the hell knows what's going to happen today? And marketing is probably operating with much more process and structure where those two butt heads. I think the second thing that is really, really frustrating is just how often, because we want to protect, like our brand or we want to make sure we say things the way we want. We see so many templates that are passed over to sales that none of us would ever feel comfortable saying or speaking into the universe. And so it's like, I get that you want to use these big fancy Words in these 12th grade English sentences because they look beautiful and they sound beautiful, but I'm trying to have a conversation with a customer who maybe is going to give me 30 seconds of their time in the inbox. I just can't use this here and now. And I think it's when you see those two functions going back and forth on that, it's often because those are the marketing teams. I think they're probably a little bit more distant from prospects and customers than maybe they should be. Not to dog on your audience right now.
- [36:00]
Jen Allen Knuth
No, this is great. This is what we needed. Yeah, it's this weird balance between. I think you can always tell when the thing has been made in a vacuum without doing it in collaboration with sales. And if I make a deck, if I. So many times that I've gotten burned by the sales feedback slap or whatever. It's like, oh, and we didn't do this together. And so my first job, like really doing marketing was at this company called Drift. And we had just had an early sales team. And so I sat. I was the solo marketer sitting with the three sales reps. And that was like, the best experience for my career as a marketer, because I had to sit there and have them be on calls of, like, leads that I generated or meetings that people that ghosted them or things that we thought were good. I'm watching them give the actual deck that I made, and they're not going through any of the slides. And Kevin's over there pulling up his, like, homemade, you know, three page presentation, like, lying about half the things that we can do, you know, Kevin, Kevin. Kevin's real, by the way. But it was amazing because every day we'd, you know, I'd sit there and I'm learning. I'm like, wow, I spent 15 days making this presentation and, like, not a single one of them uses it. That's not on them, that's on me. And so, like, let's. How can I be seen as, like. I don't want to say, like, I'm an agency to them because I don't want to be told what to do, but I want to say, like, we have a shared mission of, like, we're trying to, like, win revenue as a company. I think I can make your job selling easier. We can work together and collaborate on this, and let's make it together. And I think the emails is a great one. And they quickly learned that I was a pretty good copywriter. And so what we would do is we'd actually sit down together and literally open a Google Doc. And they'd be like, all right, I'm trying to write this email to this person. I'd be like, like, writing it out together. And we built so much credibility that way. And I think that's. I see you pointing, but I'm gonna let you hop in.
- [38:00]
Jen Allen
No, I'm just pointing every time you say something I love because I don't hear it enough. I think you brought up a good.
- [38:05]
Jen Allen Knuth
But I think, like, for all the nonsense, for all the, like, guides to working with, it's like, truly about a relationship. It's like, I actually think a lot of the whole relationship thing is too, which is like, yeah, you and I might be, like, friends and, like, we might go get coffee together and have a relationship. But the true way to do that at work is to, like, work on something together and have, like, a shared win together. And then you're going to be like, oh, I actually want to bring Dave into my next deal. I want to bring him into the fold. And I think that's how you build that relationship. It's not Just about knowing how you like your coffee and knowing what you like to do outside of work. Like, let's actually do some work together and, like, help each other win. And then, like, we both achieve. Achieve our goal, and then, like, we show that to the rest of the company. And I think just like, sales needs, like, champions inside of a someone that they're trying to sell to. I think the same is true for marketers for marketing and the sales team, which is, like, if we did a product launch or something, I would always bring in, like, one or two sales reps early and make them be, like, the advocate for marketing. And then they're. They're like, hey, let's actually listen to what Dave has to say, because, like, he actually helped me with this thing. It helped me close deals. Like, let's do this together. I think a lot of Those dynamics.
- [39:13]
Jen Allen
Apply 100% they do. And, like, I think what you talked about, just sitting down, observing, hearing it, even just that act is a sign of good faith to salespeople. And I think you brought up a great example, which is slides. I can't tell you how many times I work with sales teams who are like, here are the slides marketing gave us. And what you can tell is that the two teams are operating off of totally different beliefs and assumptions. Like, the marketing team is operating off this belief that the seller's job is to get this prospect to think we've got the best solution out there. But the salesperson knows, I can win that argument. That prospect can be like, you're right. You got a much better solution than we do, and I can still lose the deal because good enough is a really powerful enemy. And so you look at those two things, and it's like, marketing is operating off in this belief and assumption that this is what happens in a call. Prospect sees our deck. They're like, wow, it's magical. Here's my money versus sales. No, it's like, that's just part of the battle. I got to get them to prioritize this over all the other things they might fix. And so I think what happens when you sit down together is the marketer gets to hear and see that, and some of those beliefs and assumptions start changing. And when you're both on the same page in terms of the beliefs and assumptions of what needs to happen in a prospect or customer call, that's where I think you can really be helpful to each other. Because it's not two different points of view competing with one another, and marketing saying, just adopt it, adopt it.
- [40:33]
Jen Allen Knuth
Even when I was doing, like, consulting a little bit for a while, I saw like, marketing wants to create some, like, competitive positioning slides for sales. And then like, next thing you know, you got 15 slides with like a hundred bullets on each slide. And it's like, who could possibly. Not even the salesperson. But, like, if you're on the receiving end of this as the prospect, you're like, I have decision. Like, I can't possibly evaluate this. You just told me a hundred reasons why we're different than X. Usually it's one thing.
- [41:04]
Jen Allen
Yes.
- [41:04]
Jen Allen Knuth
Where have you found in selling in your selling world and maybe is like the Challenger sales methodology. Is that like, still your way? Is that your way? Like, okay, where does differentiation? Like, who owns differentiation? Because I feel like this is the thing that a lot of that makes a lot of the selling and marketing easier. But it's like sales is kind of coming up with their version, marketing is kind of coming up with their version product has it. The companies that do it really well. It's a strategic level thing. But can you help us understand, like, finding a true differentiator?
- [41:37]
Jen Allen
Yeah. I think the best examples I saw across my two decades of working with companies are where product marketing and sales were in the room together with an external facilitator. Because every one of those functions, every one of those people is going to bring their own sort of unique point of view on what's our differentiator. And I think it is really hard because often the loudest voice wins. Right. So many cases it's sales. Like, well, we carry the number the way we say goes. I think you really have to come together. And I think the process, which I learned from Challenger, which I'm a huge fan of, is you sort of set your product aside at first and just say, let me draw out the wheel of what is it that this person actually cares about? So there's a great story in the book that talks about selling to superintendents. And like, they use the example of Xerox printers. Xerox had the best color printer. It was the cheapest color printer. Highest quality color printer. It was differentiated, but no one gave a shit. Because superintendents don't wake up in the morning being like, how's the color quality on our printing copy today? They wake up and they're like, do we have crime in our schools? And how are we doing on the testing that gets us funding? And do we have absentee problems and things like that? And so what it taught me was you've got to start with what your customer actually cares about first? And then you start working backwards and say, what are the beliefs and assumptions underneath those things that are causing them to believe this is the right way to solve the problem? And so instead of trying to convince them to change the behavior, we introduce new information about the underlying beliefs and assumptions, which gets them to say, let me take a step forward, because this isn't what I've always believed. I want to learn more. It's not to say they're going to change their worldview because of it, but I think it's that idea of provoking that healthy skepticism where you're now starting to talk about a new way of thinking about a problem which ultimately then backs into a capability that only you can offer. But I think the mistake we make is we start with the capability and we try to force feed it into everybody to be like, this is why you should care. This is why you should care. And it ends up feeling like a sales pitch, which you said before, none of us like to be sold. None of us like to be convinced. If we start with the beliefs and assumptions around a problem that they do care about and back into our solution. Totally different conversation. And that's why I think, oh, this is really good.
- [43:50]
Jen Allen Knuth
Yeah. So it's less about, like, we have X feature and they don't. It's more like, hold on, hold on. Before we even talk about our features, let me tell you how we see the world at Dave's XYZ company. Because we see the world this way. We have built the product to do this and this and this, and then the differentiator becomes the story.
- [44:12]
Jen Allen
Yes.
- [44:13]
Jen Allen Knuth
Not like, oh, well, we send emails using this protocol.
- [44:16]
Jen Allen
Who cares? Who cares until you get. And that was the reason I love the chief evangelist job so much, because I wasn't talking about solutions. I was talking about points of view and worldviews around how we sell. And that's, I think, why people feel safe saying, let me spend time with you because I'm not showing up and throwing up about our stuff. It is only when they say, you know what? I can see how this is true and how this is not true anymore. And then they're like, now what do I do about it? Now you can start talking about your stuff because you and them are on the same page in terms of why doing what we've always done is no longer sufficient. And I think that's a way more fun conversation, too. It's what you do. Well. Like, if I look at anybody who has got a great presence, I don't think it's because of their company or their product or their features. It's because of the way that they can light up a room and talk about a problem and get people thinking differently. I think that's largely what it comes down to.
- [45:07]
Jen Allen Knuth
I love this because this is super actionable advice for people. It's like, and I actually think this is where a lot of people got messed up with this obsession around creating a category. Everybody wanted to create a category, and then you saw a lot of people starting to, like, roll their eyes at, well, what does that even mean? Where it's like, if you peel all that away. I actually think the reason that a lot of founders and marketing teams were after that is because they were searching for a differentiator. And the differentiator can be your story, but the story can't just exist in, like, what marketing says the story is. The story has to actually be tied to the company strategy and the story. When a company has it right, it makes the product roadmap obvious. And so you can look at it now and you can argue about the success or failure of this category. But when I was at drift, we created this category of conversational marketing. And because we had this view as a company of, like, we believe that marketing is shifting to be this thing, conversational marketing. Boom. We acquired a video company. Took us 10 minutes to come up with the positioning for that. Because it's like, oh, it's conversational video. Oh, video is the number one way that humans connect and interact online today. This fits perfectly into our story. Okay, now we got this email company. It's going to be conversational email. It makes the product roadmap so obvious where, like, anybody inside the company could almost guess because of the narrative, the types of things we're going to build in year two, three, four, and five. And I think that's the level of alignment you have to have to come up with. Like, a true differentiator.
- [46:39]
Jen Allen
Yes. And as a salesperson sitting here listening to you talk about that, how much easier is it for me, let's say I'm two years into selling. When you've got this higher narrative that is making so much logical sense why we're doing. As opposed to go sell this. Sell this capability now go sell this. Where it's just like, how on earth am I supposed to memorize all these talking points and product feature benefits? Like, now all I have to do is have this conversation, and then I can sort of figure out, okay, what are the little faint levers I can pull where does there seem to be a greater need versus, like, a latent need and all that stuff? So I think what you described is every salesperson's dream. Like, what is that point of view? How do I show up and have an interesting conversation? Because the people we talk to are the people that make us laugh or make us, like, think, wow, that was really smart. But neither of those come true if we're just sitting here being like, you should really buy. All right.
- [47:28]
Jen Allen Knuth
I think there's so much nonsense that gets thrown into marketing now, and it's like, you gotta be an expert at this conversion rate and these benchmarks, and you got to know all this nonsense. It's like, you know what I'm really good at? I'm good at this. I'm really good at positioning and messaging and storytelling. And you know what gets you really far inside of a company to do good marketing? Is this.
- [47:45]
Jen Allen
Yes.
- [47:46]
Jen Allen Knuth
And, like, you can be really great. You can be the greatest spreadsheet operator and funnel optimizer in the world. But if you can't get the whole sales team, like, standing up in the room and being like, when I was at Drift, they would want me to go speak in front of the company. Like, when we had a new product launch, they would be like, we need to, like, have Dave make a presentation, and we need to have him go up and stand in front of the company and get everybody excited about it. And so if the marketing leader can get the rest of the company excited about the thing that you're launching, it's gonna go well, right?
- [48:16]
Jen Allen
It is.
- [48:17]
Jen Allen Knuth
If that person stands up and then presents and it's like, crickets, then, like, that tells you everything you need to know. And so I think you just. We need to get back to, like, investing in storytelling and strategic narrative and positioning and call it whatever you want. Have a methodology for how you do that. But that is, like, the 8020 for me in marketing.
- [48:36]
Jen Allen
What's the point of being good at tracking attribution and tracking performance if none of this shit we're doing?
- [48:41]
Jen Allen Knuth
You can track a whole lot of nothing. Exactly. Exactly.
- [48:45]
Jen Allen
Like I said, one of my clients and I watched an engineer get up on stage and do one of the best storytellings around, why they launched this product. If an engineer can stand in front of a room of salespeople, y'all, marketing, you can do it. Like, you can definitely do it.
- [49:00]
Jen Allen Knuth
That's my. You also just mentioned my biggest beef with, like, yeah, I get it. We can track and measure everything today, but, like, you can spend your whole Week setting up the best tracking in the world. And then, like, you can track a whole lot of nothing, or you could have lots of people start coming inbound and be like, whoa, we gotta. Like, how did you start to get. When you started writing about your stuff on LinkedIn, right? All of a sudden you get DMs, all of a sudden you get emails, hey, this company wants to have me speak at their thing. Like, you don't need attribution on that. You just started to feel it. You're like, wow, I got, all of a sudden, got a lot of inbound demand for this. This must be working. Let's go do more of it.
- [49:35]
Jen Allen
That's as simple as it was. And that's the thing that frustrates me so much about, like, I think it is the availability of tools and technology and all this. Like, you can go do all these things and in so many ways it probably makes us feel productive to go out and be like, look, I was able to assess the value of this LinkedIn post, but it is never one LinkedIn post. It is always a larger narrative. And the stuff that works to your point is the stuff that you can automatically, without looking at any fricking spreadsheet, be like, wow, our sales team keeps getting leads. This is working. So maybe let's lean a little bit more into it. We had a stupid, like, attribution thing that just said Jen. Like, when the lead came from me, it was Jen. And then we looked at how much the pipeline value was and it was working better than anything else. Like, that's all you need to know. That's it.
- [50:19]
Jen Allen Knuth
Hey, can we wrap up and can you tell that story I saw you tell a story about? I forget all the details of it, but it was like something where you were all pissed off because you were getting like, no leads or shitty leads. Can you tell that story and then we'll wrap up? Yes.
- [50:33]
Jen Allen
I'm a big, tough love person, probably because of growing up under my dad. He was the same way. I worked for a great sales leader called Kevin Hart. Not the Kevin Hart. Most of us would want it to be another Kevin Hart. And it was in 2020. We were selling a sales methodology when everybody's trying to keep their lights on. It was a shit year. And so I went into his office, I said, kevin, I've got like, maybe one, maybe two leads a month. This is totally unacceptable. There's no way I'm going to hit a multimillion dollar target if this is the volume of leads I'm getting. Can you go get marketing to fix this? And I fully expected Kevin to be like, this is unacceptable. Let me save the day. And instead, Kevin was like, you are not wrong. It is unacceptable. But you cannot go about your career as a salesperson pointing figures at everybody else and waiting for other people to clean up their side of the street. This is your number. This is your business. So I would encourage you to go back and say, what can Jen do in the absence of marketing generating a lot of leads? And in the moment, I was like, that stings. Like, I wanted to hear, you're going to kick the door down. But it is what I needed to hear, and it is why I started doing all those things on LinkedIn. And it is the thing that ultimately helped me hit my goal and then create this role that helped other sellers hit their goals. So I'm a big believer that it's not sales or marketing today if I'm a salesperson, I've got to be just as good at creating my own demand as my marketing team. And that's why it's a big thing of what I teach.
- [51:56]
Jen Allen Knuth
I love that those are the types of people that I would want to work with. It's like, yeah, no pressure on me. You're going to get your own leads.
- [52:03]
Jen Allen
Yeah.
- [52:05]
Jen Allen Knuth
No, but the realness of that is, like, when we can team up on things, then you get it together. I thought there was a good story for marketers to hear. Okay, I could talk to you forever, but I got work to do. You got work to do. Jen, thanks for hanging out. I think we're gonna have to make this a regular. A regular chat of some time in the future. Everybody will go find you. I'm gonna. We'll plug your LinkedIn in the notes here. Very active and engaged audience here. So I expect a lot of DMs coming your way to let you know that your appearance on here was well worth it. So, Jen, nice to meet you. Good to hang out with you. I'll be in touch. Thanks for coming on the EX5 podcast.
- [52:37]
Jen Allen
Thank you for having me. This is a lot of fun.
- [53:08]
Dave Gerhardt
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