Training That Works

Have an Opinion with Jen Allen-Knuth

Rustin Schroeder | Host of Training That Works

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0:00 | 20:28

Eighteen years in sales, and she didn't want to share her opinion on what she actually thought.  Then everything changed.

In this episode of Training That Works, Rustin Schroeder talks with Jen Allen-Knuth, founder of DemandJen, about why having an opinion beats sounding smart, and why the training that sticks is the training you actually do.

Jen's unfair advantage isn't a flawless résumé. She spent 18 years carrying a bag, closed more than 50 million in revenue, rose to chief evangelist at Challenger, and built an audience of over 100,000 on LinkedIn. But her real edge is that she's just like the room she's speaking to. If you've ever felt you needed a book deal or a big exit before anyone would take you seriously, this conversation hands you a different, more honest path to authority and trust.

What looked like a credibility problem turned out to be a courage problem. The turn came when someone asked Jen why a person with all that experience didn't have an opinion about anything. She'd been posting safe stats, terrified of being wrong in public. So she ripped the band-aid off, wrote honestly about losing her dad and what it taught her, and watched real connection replace the polished performance. That's when the audience, the stages, and the business followed.

Here's the part most leaders quietly worry about: your training has slowly become a compliance exercise people forget the moment they leave the room. Jen makes the case for killing the theory and grounding every session in real accounts, so reps walk out with an email to send or a call to run instead of a worksheet to file. You'll learn how to build a voice people remember, run sales enablement and sales kickoffs that actually change behavior, and lead change by getting people off their old beliefs first.

Listen in to learn how to stop sounding smart and start being memorable.

Jen Allen-Knuth is the founder of DemandJen and a former chief evangelist at Challenger, now one of the most in-demand sales kickoff speakers.

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