Changing Your Buyer’s Status Quo - Jen Allen - Revenue Today - Episode # 010

1, 2, 3, 4.

Sales, marketing, and RevOps. It's sink or swim out there, and yesterday's strategies and tactics won't help you today. This is Revenue Today, and I'm your host, Jared Robin. Join me as we interview revenue leaders in our community to learn what steps we could take right now to help you scale yourself and your company. Revenue Today is sponsored by Rev Genius, and we're on a mission to bring inspiration and creativity to all revenue professionals in the world. Wanna shout out our sponsor Demandbase. Demandbase is smarter GTM for B2B brands. They help marketing and sales teams spot the juiciest opportunities earlier and progress them faster by injecting account intelligence into every step of the buyer journey and orchestrating every action. For more information about Demandbase, visit demandbase.com. Hey everybody, before we get started today, I want to take a quick second and thank our producers of our show, Ringmaster Conversational Marketing. They're a bunch of homies and have done an awesome job producing the show. They're so easy to work with, so cool to work with. In addition to us, they launch B2B podcasts to create connections between companies or communities in our case, and their future buyers and members. Go to their website at ringmaster.com, hit them up, tell them I sent you. If you end up producing a show, they'll hook you up with a microphone. Today's guest is somebody who I've grown to know of late, a fellow Penn State alumni, but also a sales leader, thought leader, and speaker. Really a B2B sales badass. She's the host of Winning the Challenger Sale podcast and is the chief evangelist at Challenger. Welcome, Jen Allen.

Thank you so much. No one's ever called me a B2B sales badass. I'm gonna wear that like a badge of honor coming from you.

I mean, you know, a supporter of one of my favorite books on how to sell and methodologies and all of that. I think, I think you've earned it.

I'll take it. Thank you.

So yeah, I want to jump right into things and put you on the spot. quickly so that everyone, um, here could hear about you. So debunk a myth about generating revenue today.

All right, let's do it. The biggest myth that I get lit up about is this notion that to earn a meeting with a prospect or a customer or anybody, we have to help that customer realize why our solution or our company is better. I think that myth is busted, right? I think it is. To earn a meeting, we actually have to help our customers realize the underappreciated cost of status quo. So in my mind, it's not leading with ROI, it's leading with something called COI, which is cost of inaction.

Well, yeah, talk to me about cost of inaction and, and why are reps not doing this now?

Great question. I mean, look at onboarding for most sales organizations, right? You show up, you get your shiny new laptop, you get your notebook, and what do we do? We probably go into 3, 4 days straight of learning about the product and solution that we sell. Like, how often do you hear a seller that says, before I ever learn about the solution, I'm learning about the customer, the customer stakeholder that I'm selling to, I'm learning about the like all the business acumen that surrounds that stakeholder, it's really rare. More often than not, it's like, hey, here's all the shiny objects that we sell and here's how we talk about how great they are. And so when they leave that and they go start making dials or sending emails, I, I think it makes a lot of sense why most of them do what they've just been immersed in, which is they talk about us, they talk about the solution, they talk about why it's better because that's what we are teaching them effectively to do.

And we're probably quizzing them too, right? Like, like, what does this solution do? Like, tell me all about it. So I'm thinking back to like old school sales books, Overcoming Objections, Tom Hopkins. That, that's the one chapter I read there. I'm thinking about, you know, some other things as well. And It feels like understanding the other person is kind of like a newer phenomenon.

Yes, right? It's like when I— the reason I was always so scared shitless about sales is because I never thought I would be comfortable with negotiation and closing and convincing. Like, I looked at sales as a career as like, I have to go convince people to do things that they don't want to do. And just my personality, like, that did not jive with my personality. But I think what you said is absolutely true. Like, you can still do that. You can look at sales that way. And I'm not here to say that it doesn't work. I'm sure some people get by doing it. But I think if you look at how buyers have evolved, right, like 10 years ago, you needed to talk to a seller if you wanted to buy something. Today, more people are just comfortable saying, I'm willing to take the risk by doing it on my own because I don't want to be convinced. And I will tell you, like, This job that I'm in now, this evangelist role, has really helped me see that firsthand because my job is really to go out and just sort of talk about the problems that sales leaders face, obviously hoping people come to Challenger to learn more. But it's crazy, Jared, like these people who could go to our website, who know about our business, could fill out a lead form but don't because they're like, I don't wanna be pressured. Like, I'm looking to learn. I'm not yet looking to buy. So I will have a conversation about what you do, but I will not fill out that lead form because I don't want to be in somebody's pipeline before I'm ready. And so it's really been interesting and fascinating to see like what type of conversations senior, senior people will have on social in a direct channel when they know who they're talking to. And I think it's exactly what you, what you described is they're looking for someone who can help them make sense of their business, not someone who's going to pitch them on their stuff.

Yeah, no, I love it. You talk about cost of inaction and this and, you know, gaps that you create and things like that are out there. But outside of hiring a Challenger rep, like, how can companies, you know, change the way they make this, you know, a bigger part of their culture early? Like, like, how can, how can you first off understand the cost of inaction, and then teach others what it could be and what to look for?

I love this question, because there's this like perception out there that Challenger or gap selling or any of these like awesome models that are effectively geared at sort of better helping your customer understand themselves. It's like, yeah, but you have to wait until you're 10 years into a sales role. Like, I think that is absolute garbage, right? Why would you ever learn to sell a way that does not reflect what buyers want, only 10 years later than to have to like completely rewire your brain. So I'll give you an example of like directly that we use in our own business. So we get, for our SDRs, they're often people that maybe have had like one job, not necessarily selling in the past, but they're interested in exploring selling. So they come in pretty fresh perspective before we're training them on what Challenger does and all the solutions and what our trainings look like and all of that stuff. We're sitting down with them and we're helping them see what is it like to be a sales leader today, right? Like, how do people move up the ranks to get to sales leader? What are the different paths you can get to? Why would someone even want to be a sales leader? What are the different types of responsibilities that a sales leader might have? And then you're looking at what are the things that are pretty consistent across sales leaders. Now, it's not universal truths, right? But for a lot of sales leaders today, right, they're not just pursuing growth, they're pursuing profitable growth. So what is profitable growth, right? Like when I joined CEB 18 years ago, like I didn't even know what B2B was. And I think we're so focused on being like, this is our solution, that we end up creating these people that just talk almost like— the comparison I make is like if I tried to speak Italian right now, I could search up how to say something, but I wouldn't have the passion. I wouldn't have the understanding behind it. So I think we really have to slow down and say, let's understand the stakeholder that we're selling to. Now let's understand second their conventional wisdom. Like, what is the belief system that they've always had about how things get done? Why do they believe that? What information, what gut experiences, what things formed that? And then what has changed in the world that would cause them to look at that differently such that they would then have an interest in what they do? So classic example, right before we hopped on, we were talking about outbound, right? Like, there's plenty of sales leaders who think that outbound is just about sending as many cadences and as many emails and making as many phone calls as possible. And it's hustle. game, right? Like, that is a deeply held belief system.

That sales leaders believe that, not marketing leaders.

Fair, fair call out. Like, that's a deeply held belief system. I'm not going to get someone to buy Challenger if that's their belief system. So what I really— it's a long answer. But what I'm really trying to teach the SDR at an early, early part of their career is to understand, like, why do people hold on to status quo? What is shaping that? Because we have to attack that before we can ever convince someone to change. So I So I think focusing more on like customer acumen, stakeholder acumen, before you ever start teaching your people your solutions.

You know, it's funny, I used to joke that like GAP selling, Challenger, they're like where you need to be. But because there's not a true acronym around them, they're not going to be adopted. So I say, how do you sell acronym selling? Is it SPIN? Is it MEDIC? Is it BANT? Like, or, or do you break away from the acronym? And, and dare I say, acronym selling, even if part of the acronym is implication, which, which is better than ones of old, right?

Yeah.

Um, leads a thought process very much to me, me, me. What do I have to check off? Right? So even if you're asking the right me questions, the empathy and the connection With the other person, aren't there? Now, Challenger and Gap, some of the hard—they're—they're harder, but they're most—they're more potent. And when I say harder, they're harder day one.

Yeah.

They're significantly easier to drive higher closes, you know, down the road. And there's a reason for that. I'm—I'm a strong believer. There's there's a little more finesse. There's a little more chutzpah needed at certain points, and and to ask different difficult questions. And probe a bit, right? Do you— so the question I have is, do you see like acronym selling be part in the calling it that acronym selling being part of the challenge?

So first of all, I've never heard it referred to as acronym selling. And I love that phrase.

I mean, which acronym is better? They're all the same.

And I think like, look, I'm not— I'm never gonna knock if someone is find something of value. Like, I think it's really important not to be told what to do. It's like, you really have to understand like what feels natural and what feels like you're delivering the right sales experience. But what I will say is a common pattern is a lot of those are more process-oriented, like seller does this, this, this, and this in this order. And that's where I think we find ourselves getting into trouble. Because when we approach sales as a rigid process, we tend to do things that actually get in our own way. So your example is a perfect one. Right? If I'm told you need to do discovery to qualify if someone is a buyer or not, you're gonna ask questions that are wildly self-serving, like, are you the decision maker? And have you set aside budget? Right? But if I'm selling something disruptive, more often than not, people aren't going to have budget for this unknown category. Like, I have to create enough need, enough pain such that they think differently about it. And so I think that's the place where I think Acronym selling can get us into a little bit of trouble because it's built on this notion that buyers move left to right, when in reality buyers are going all over the board. And what they really look for are sellers that can help them make sense of it, not someone who's just going to push them through a process.

Well said. I love that you took on the acronym selling model. It serves your purpose, I guess, as well. So

now,

Moving on, like, that, that all resonates. Like, you need to sell to buyers, right? Like, and understand those gaps. But what KPIs are driving you right now, you in your current role?

Yeah, so my role is a bit funky. So I kept a sales quota just because given the nature of what I evangelize, like, I didn't want to be one of those people that got super far away from selling and was just talking about how I like walked through 12 inches of snow to school every day. But there's a few things that I really pay attention to. One is I'm paying attention to where leads come from. So I actually really, really love Chris Walker at Refine Labs. I think he is so sharp and has a really different take on marketing. What I'm particularly keen to understand is when you look at when a lead comes in or fills out a form, like where are they learning about you? And what I think is really— we just changed our form to this a couple weeks ago, so it's early learning. But I think why I'm so laser-focused on that is because very few of those answers have come from like, I learned about you from a Google search or Challenger's website, right? It's like, it's interesting things. It's like, I went to this barbecue and my uncle's friend worked in sales and he said I should check this out. And I think To me, that is one of arguably the most important things we should be keeping an eye on is where our customers go to learn and where they're finding out about us. But I know it makes marketers uncomfortable because then we don't have the nice neat charts that's like Google paid ads and like LinkedIn and organic because it doesn't fall into line. But I think right now it's just, it's crazy to hear where some of these origin sources are for where customers are finding out about us. And if we don't do that, I really don't know how you can effectively make good use of marketing or sales budget by going out there and just continuing to do what we've ever done. But that's, that's just a big one for me personally, since I'm spending more time in this evangelist gig.

What I love the most about the gig that you're in is how, you know, conscious your company is, which is a traditional sales company with the new marketing. And essentially, you're floating, um, in Dark Social, in, you know, other, um, other rooms and, you know, things like this. And, um, it's so massive and it's cool that, that you all are bought in, uh, to that. Now with, with this, what challenges are keeping you up at night though?

I mean, the number one challenge keeping me up at night personally is How do I drive more leads for the business without sacrificing what I believe to my core is my job, right? Like, I'm not out there trying to be sales at scale. Like, I'm not trying to be like, this is why Challenger is great and here's why you should buy from us. I'm trying to educate the market in a way such that they're like, hey, I like that perspective. How is that perspective formed? Where does she work for? I want to learn more about that. But what I struggle with, just speaking honestly a bit, is like how to toe that line because I don't want to just be doing free content and stuff like this for, you know, the sake of just doing it, even though as much as I love it, like I feel an obligation to generate business for the company. But figuring out how to toe that line is, it keeps me up at night. And then what I will say on top of that is like, I almost look at this job is what I believe sellers are going to need to do 5 years from now. Like, I don't think you'll have chief evangelists. I think this is just the motion of how sellers will show up to customer conversations. But it does keep me up a bit to think about, like, there's not really, like, anything at scale companies are doing to build that in their sellers, in my opinion.

So— Wow, that opens up a big can of worms. Because, you know, geez, we could take this in so many directions, making everybody an evangelist. Is essentially making everybody a quote-unquote social seller. It's turning people that might, um, be activity-based sellers different and, and opening companies up to that. Like, what, what would you say to others that are thinking through this, you know, the same challenges that you have, and also the reality that making more of your team evangelists is is an important future for you?

Yeah, I think a couple of things. So one, I think it doesn't necessarily have to be on social, right? Like, I think social and easy motions because it's free and there's no barrier to get started. But I know social freaks out a lot of sellers, and I'd rather see sellers not show up on social than sellers show up on social and just do the same things they do in their cold outreach and cold calls. Like, we don't, we don't want that at scale. It's just gonna make the whole channel noisier. But I think what it forces us to confront is the fact that I don't care who studied it, if it's us, if it's McKinsey, if it's Forrester, whoever, like every white paper I feel like you see these days on customer buying is about how customers want to take on more of the buying process. They want to become more digitally enabled, they want to learn on their own, they're pushing off that seller for as long as possible. Like, I think at a certain point, we have to stop trying to find like tricks and tips for overcoming it and really embrace it and just say like, it's forcing our hand to think differently about how our role as sellers. So instead of being product pushers, solution pushers, negotiators, right? Like we look at ourselves more as like, how do I aid buyers in those places where they go to learn? And I'll say like, for me, I kind of have it easy. LinkedIn is cool because a lot of my target stakeholder is there. But I was working with a company last year who said, you know, we sell to homeowners associations and homeowners associations are on Facebook. And like, we're having conversations on LinkedIn about what we do and our solutions and all this stuff, and nobody gives a shit because they're over here. And so I think even at a bare minimum, if companies just start with the question, where do our customers go to learn and figure out, would it be beneficial to have sellers Talking about underappreciated problems in that area such that it drives people back would be a great step in the, in the right direction. But over time, as we think about the shifting role of a seller, I do think things like writing skills are going to become more important. Like when you're not there, when you're not able to like smooth talk everything, you've got to be able to tell a narrative in a really compelling, concise way. And I don't remember ever getting training on that in the beginning of sales, do you?

No, no training on that. In fact, I don't even know if I sold, uh, in the year 2006 to 2010. I'm not sure I sent an email outside of to set a meeting up with somebody who I thought fairly certain would say yes. Um, you know, warm. You know, the question comes up in my head, we spoke today about, um, Company is not enabling reps well to like understand the client. We spoke about needing to transform to an evangelist. There's some marketing undertones there with content and stuff. Is and appeasing buyers? Is do buyers really want sellers? Like I get what you said with you know ushering through. So let's talk. On-prem, million dollars, got it. You need to walk them through all these departments. But if we're not at 6 figures ACV, are you just wasting people's time?

Oh, I love this question. And my answer is completely different than if you'd asked me 3 years ago. I will say I have— for the first time I was involved in a buying process here at Challenger. And I'll be upfront, it was for Chili Piper, right? So I came across Arthur at Chili Piper. He blew me away with this like overview of what they did and the problem they solved. And I was like, oh, we need this and we need this now. And in my mind I thought easy sell, right? He had set up like a great opportunity for us to trial it. So I took it back to our head of sales and I said, we need this. We take way too long getting our leads into the hands of sellers. It's a socialized problem. We all talk about it. Let's just fix it. Let's buy it. And it was not a lot of money. We're talking 4 figures, low 4 figures. I was blown away by how dysfunctional the process to buy something that cheap and that much of them, in my mind, a no-brainer for our company. We had 12 people, 12 freaking people involved in the decision to buy. And where I needed the Chili Piper rep was not on like, help me, like, you know, with a pitch deck or help me with, you know, making the deal sweeter. I was like, I just got this question. I have no idea how to answer that for legal. I got this question from IT. I have no idea what I'm doing. And I needed the chili pepper rep and they showed up in a big way to help me with all the dysfunction of buying. So I think I agree that like buyers don't want us until they need us and they need us at that mid-stage to help them with the whole like massive chaos that comes from all these different stakeholders that get involved. At least that's my take.

I mean, personally, I was gonna buy a CRM that is is common, the most common. And I asked, I had to cold call my rep because we were such a small company. I had to cold call him. I'm like, am I wasting your time? And I asked a question to which the response was, "Can you Google it?" And um. And you hear the pin drop, right? So like, I'm like, like, wow. So you take it for what it's worth. And then, and, you know, I want to segue this with what excites you about the future?

Yeah, I think the exciting thing is the same thing that's excited me for the last 5 years, which is like, we can sit here and knock and shit on sellers all day long. Like, I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn, you see it all the time, people like Cutting up SDRs, cutting up AEs, like all this nonsense. But every year we study what drives loyalty, and it is always, always the sales experience that is the number one driver of that. And that is empowering, right? And I think it's going to continue to shift and change. But what I think is cool about what, what I perceive to be the future of selling is it's blending sales and marketing. And I think the thing that is the biggest nightmare is this fight of like, you know, sales and marketing alignment. I'm so sick and tired of hearing that battle. Like, it is constant. It's not getting any better. I have yet to see a solution that's like the magic silver bullet for it. But I think when we as sellers start to show up differently and appreciate the role that marketing plays and start thinking not just like salespeople trying to close, but like marketers trying to open, like, I think that's going to create a really empowering, really cool career for people that maybe aren't your traditional sales reps, like your teachers that are frustrated with the education system and want a different job. Like, that's what's exciting to me is this, this old profile of like, you have to be an extrovert, and you have to look like this and sound like this to be a seller. I don't think there's ever been a time where I think that's been thrown out the window more than right now.

Well said. So the first half of this, we learned About you. I'm sorry, we learned from you, I should say, um, and learned all about your experiences. By the way, I'm a massive Chili Piper fan. Yeah, phenomenal process, and they could do no wrong in my eyes.

Same. Love them.

They could do no wrong. But I, I do appreciate the anecdote because, you know, a lot of companies are, are set up like that. Now, the second half, I want to learn more About you, um, how you became an evangelist, everything from, you know, I, I, we'll go into more detail. Pardon the, the dog barking in the back.

Oh, don't you ever— I got 3 here. I can't believe they haven't timed up yet.

We spoke about it. I kept the dog in the office today. But, you know, moving forward, I want to learn about you. I want to learn how you got into this this spot. So who are you?

Who am I? That's a great question. I— so as it relates professionally, I was someone who never wanted to be a sales leader, never wanted to be a manager, and no knock against it. I just have always found that selling has been my passion. And I think as you move up, the job just gets really, really hard in a way that you can't see that in sellers. Like, I think about great managers I've had in the past and some of the personal issues they've had to deal with and like letting someone go and all like, that's a hard-ass job. And so that's never been something I've been drawn to. So I spent the last 17 years finding ways to just create different flavors of the sales jobs. So I started in account management, then I moved to like a blended kind of like hunter-farmer role. Then I went to a pure hunter role. Then I moved to like big enterprise selling. And then the end of last year, I kind of was like, I can't see what my next iteration of the sales job is gonna be. And so what drew me, and I, I do this kind of every 2 years, is I said, let me sit down and think about all the things that like light me up. And what I realized is, as much as I love collecting the commission check, you love closing a deal like that never goes away. The part of the sales process I was really drawn to was the first part. Like getting someone to think differently, to change their belief system. Like that's a high, that's always been a high. But I think as of late, like that's been the thing that really, really lights me up. So I said, how can I create a job that's a lot more of that? And so I did, you know, what most people do. I Googled and learned and said, you know, what can you do to make that more of your job? And I came across an article from BombBomb where they had interviewed like Guy Kawasaki and Dan Steinman at at Gainsight, and they were talking about evangelism. And I had always just assumed that was like a religious thing. I'm not a very religious person. And so I was like, this feels weird. But the more I learned about it, the more I was like, this feels like exactly what I want to do. So I was really, really fortunate. Our CEO is super open-minded. I drafted a job description, went to her and said, I think this could solve this, this, and this problem for Challenger. Are you open to me trying it? And she said yes. So it was the first time in my career I've ever like advocated for a job that didn't exist, and it was a really positive experience, honestly.

Now I'd love that. Um, what KPIs did you set yourself, you know, accountable for? Because evangelism to some is kind of nebulous.

It totally is, and I wish there was a different name for it because it is so cheesy, and I hate— I feel like everybody rolls their eyes, and I get it. It's That's no knock on it. And I think there's— what I've come to realize is there's different flavors. So you've got some evangelists who are like building community, you've got some evangelists who are trying to create brand awareness, you've got other evangelists who are trying to do like existing customer feedback. For me personally, my big KPIs are I'm trying to originate leads from people that would not have filled out a lead form. So I get that primarily through social, through different speaking events, through coming on podcasts like this. So that's really important. The second KPI that I'm looking at is influenced revenue. So it was kind of tricky to figure out like, how do you, how do you track that? Like I have a podcast, we have no idea who watches that podcast, right? Like, or listens to the podcast, you can't attribute it. So that's where we kind of got into like any keynotes I do, any like, you know, guest spots and things. I'm trying to get our team to be better about asking where did you hear about us from so that we can sort of check the box on that, but it's not a perfect science. And then just for me personally, like on a more monthly cadence, I'm looking at how many opportunities like this do I have? It's a good sign to me when I'm getting invited to a lot of them. If I'm not, I'm like, shit, my stuff's stale. Like I need to start thinking of a different talk track. So those are the big ones for me personally.

No, that always helps. And it has become a marketing-like role. I'm gonna invite you to some more stuff to help with that. But I see you, like, just looking at the history of who Jen is, you're somebody that stays at companies for longer than most, right? And, um, how'd that go? 14 years in one spot? I'm curious. And then how the heck did you get into that from Parks and Recreation?

My turn.

14 years in a not Parks and Recreation spot, something I don't, I don't know if, if there's anything further away.

Yeah. So this is something you will not find on my LinkedIn because I'm truly embarrassed of it. But Jared knows this and, and he outed me, which is totally cool because that's what we're doing. Um, so I'll start there. The Parks and Rec thing was just because I was completely frustrated that I couldn't go to the school I really wanted to go to, which was Boston University, because it was too expensive. So I said, you know what, I'm gonna pick the easiest major at Penn State. And I'm just going to party the whole time. And candidly, I did. Like, I'd love to make it out like I had this big moment where I was like, I need to take education more serious. I didn't. I had a lot of fun at Penn State. And in retrospect, like, I'm very glad I went to Penn State. Boston U would not have probably worked out well for me. But I picked recreation park management because in my mind it was like a really easy major. And then I got into more of like event management for commercial purposes. Like I was doing alumni travel for bowl games and Final Four games and stuff like that. And that was in central Pennsylvania. And, you know, like, once you graduate, it might be cool to stick around for a little bit, and then you're like, I gotta get out of here. Like, where am I gonna go? And so I had a college roommate that had worked at CEV, and she's like, you gotta come here. Like, everybody's really cool. It's a smart company. I had no idea what they did, but I wanted to get out. So I interviewed, and I interviewed for their event management kind of meetings management role, and they actually said, we want you for this account management role, and I just was willing to take anything. So that's how I ended up there. Had nothing to do with my, my major.

How long did it take you to figure out what CEB did since, since going there? Like, like, did you get the job knowing what they did? Yeah,

at least I was one of those people. I was like, here's what CEB— this is why I speak so passionately about this, because I'm like, here's what we sell and here's why it's great. And meanwhile, I'm like, what does a CMO care about? I have no idea. So Yeah, it took a while.

I love that. And then, and then from that to Challenger, why, why Challenger? How did that work out?

Yeah, so this is even more of a—

Why 14 years? I'm curious. We never got over that part. We got the— I'd like to backtrack a minute. Why, why 14 years in one spot? You're, you're a unicorn.

Well, maybe I'm just like scared of change. That probably plays into it. But actually, it's even longer, right? Because what happened was CEB was acquired by Gartner. Then Gartner spun off the Challenger division and we stood up our own separate company. So really, like, I've worked with certain colleagues for 18 years. It's really been the same company. It's just been through byproduct of like mergers and acquisitions that it looks different. But I think for me, the thing that has kept me this long— I don't think, I know— the thing that has kept me this long is we study how buying and selling is shifting every year. And so it is every year I learn something new. Every year I have something different to talk about. And while I didn't love school, I love working in an environment where I'm learning. It's kind of weird how that worked out. I just, I like learning for a purpose. And so it just, I never got stale. I never got bored. There was always something that was like counterintuitive to what I knew. And so it would light me up. I would get excited to talk about. And if I had been selling like a widget, I, I don't know, maybe I would imagine I would've had a harder time sticking around that long.

That's even more fascinating that you put it that way. Like 18 years. Do you get, um, do you have, do you have the Rolex?

The Rolex? No. I've got, I've got like some chipped glass, like crystal over there that like did not survive a move very well. And that's like really all I have to show for it. Other than my LinkedIn.

Penn State folks are loyal. And, uh, as an alumni, I know that. I was at FedEx for 7 years.

There you go.

And they, they were fully vested in me staying for longer. Um, and, and I remember, you know, especially because we graduated roughly the same time, like, it was a different generation where having a job for a long time is a good thing, but could never, can never have gotten into tech personally without making that move. And you're in an awesome situation because Challenger is adopted— Gartner and Challenger adopted by everywhere. So you're transcendent across industries. So that's super dope. Now, outside of your 18 years in your current company in 3 different formats, what do you do for fun?

Yeah, so that's a great question. What are your passions? So it shifted. So in COVID, I met my now fiancé, moved out to the suburbs. So all my previous passions of running around Chicago and going out and doing all that stuff have changed. I picked up skiing during COVID Now, I hadn't skied since my senior year of high school. But COVID happened, right? And I was like, I need to do something where we can get outside. And so I started trying to learn it. Oh my gosh, is it hard to learn something like that at 40? It's just so much harder. And we have these kids that are like 7 and 9, and they're out there learning how to snowboard and they're just killing it.

Yeah.

And I think it was really good for me to go through that because it was something other than work. stuck in work during COVID And it was another challenge. It was something to get me thinking about other, you know, other things than just Challenger. So that was a big one. And then by Friday—

How'd you meet during COVID Because COVID, uh, is a time when my partner and I got closer, uh, but we didn't meet during COVID We met a little before. I'm curious. I'm curious. And then, and then how— I guess skiing was open throughout, so distance. I got the skiing part. But I'm just curious to learn more about you.

Yeah. So we met on Bumble. And this is wild. But I had been in back-to-back long-term relationships, like 4 years, 3 years, if you consider that long-term. I had gotten out and I said, I'm gonna stop the cycle. I'm gonna take 6 months. And this is right before COVID And I'm gonna like just be single and not worry about that. And then when I felt like I was ready, I got on Bumble. And I was He was the first guy I matched with. It was wild. And we went on a date. And it's not like it was like this perfect story. Like, we went up and down and all that stuff. But yeah, it was Bumble. And I'd never done online dating before. So totally different.

I love connecting it to where you're at in life, right? Like, however it was, is something outside the box, your new habits outside the box where you're at a new role. outside the box. Am I just drawing connections where they don't exist? Or—

No, you're on to something. Someone else I was on— it actually may have been Casey, um, when I went on his show. He was like, there's a pattern here, Jen. Like, you have this like every 2 years type of thing where you're like, how do I find a way to reinvent myself? And I, I think because he was looking at my history and he was asking these questions He saw something that I didn't. So I guess I have like the 2-year itch. Every 2 years I get bored and try to reinvent something in my life.

So 8 months into your current role as evangelist, which you reinvented yourself with, um, and, and I think it's super astute based on, um, where, where companies are now, where they should be, uh, how do you find— how do you think your role is going to evolve there? Like if you were to, being that you created it, you could theoretically evolve it, assuming that you're hitting your KPIs. Where does it go next?

Yeah, so this is something that in retrospect I would've done differently. I had such an insecurity moving from a quota, like a full-time quota carrying role where I was like, I know my value, it's written up here on the board and this is what I bring to the organization. I had a ton of insecurity into moving into more of like a support role. So in my job description that I wrote, I added in all these other things. Like, I was like, I'm gonna do internal training and I'm gonna like work on marketing messaging and I'm gonna do all this shit because I felt the need to prove my value, right? So that was leading to absolute burnout. Like, it just became like I was kind of the catch-all for everything and it was my own doing. Like, I don't blame anybody at this organization. It was because my inability to say no. So when I look at 2023, like, I wanna be so focused on just spending time on the things that like someone else internally at Challenger can't do. And that to me is like, you know, doing things like this, going and trying to get on keynote, you know, opportunities, helping with that thing. Because what I was just doing was trying to find ways to be helpful, but in turn, like probably taking things off of people's plates they didn't even necessarily want me to take off. So that was a big miss on my part. So I think really doubling down on like teaching where our customers go to learn, being smarter about where they go to learn, and spending more time on that as opposed to more internal-facing activities.

I love it. I mean, if you look at like one core metric, like a CQL, community qualified lead or something, and you just focus everything towards that, and I think you'll be much more than a quote unquote support. I think you're going to be the key driver to Challenger's growth. Out on a, out on a whim on that one. But I honestly, I honestly think so. And I think that's, that's special about yourself and the role you're in.

Thank you so much for saying that. You got me blushing.

Oh, people are gonna be able to see it on YouTube. So yeah, so break it down. How can people find you and connect with you?

Yeah, I'll make it real easy. I'm not on Twitter. I barely spend any time on Facebook or Instagram. I'm very, very, very Big into LinkedIn. So DM me, connect with me. I have it set to followers, but I think that's just like makes it easier. But I definitely encourage people to reach out. And if you're on the fence about Challenger, if you're on the fence about saying like, hey, I just don't know if I'm getting the right kind of training based on this conversation today, like let's just have a conversation about it. Hit me up in the DMs. And then the second place would be the podcast. So every week what we're trying to do is just take the theory of challenger, which anybody can read about in the book, and actually bring some personality to it. So bringing in people who think like challengers and having them talk us through how do you run a group meeting? Like, how do you approach discovery? Like, what's different in your mind? So people have different examples to learn from instead of just a rigid book.

Where can they find the podcast? Is that on your profile?

It is Winning the Challenger Sale Podcast, wherever you listen to your podcasts.

All a dozen places.

Of which I can name 3 of them, so that's why I answered that way.

Jenn, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. Thank you for the work that you're doing. It was seriously such a treat to meet you and to have a conversation an hour with you. Thank you.

This isn't the end of our conversations. I'm excited to plug you into some other Stuff that's aligned with what you're doing and excited for that. Want to thank all the listeners. If you learned something today or laughed, tell somebody about this podcast. Certainly tell somebody about Jen B2B Badass Allen as well. And Jen, thank you so much again.

Thank you.

So this has been another exciting episode of Revenue Today. See you next time. Whoa, another great episode of Revenue Today. For show notes, links, and mentions, visit revenue today dot live. For all my friends in the Rev Genius community, thank you. It's been awesome to spend this time with you. Please DM me any feedback and ideas in our Slack channel or on LinkedIn. If you're not in Rev Genius, join us at revgenius.com. It's free and it only takes like 2 seconds and you'll be joining a group of 27,000 revenue professionals strong. We've got it all. Looking forward to seeing you there. Catch you on the flip side. Thank you.