Selling, bodybuilding or blogging, Jennifer Taskan commits to the process
Jennifer Taskan had never walked into a gym until she was 39. Four years later, she’s a successful amateur bodybuilder, looking to earn her IFBB pro card. Much as she loves it, though, she’s not leaving her day job as district sales manager, Upstate New York, for Medline Industries.
Her father, Al Woods, is a Vietnam veteran who worked for 35 years as an engineer. Her mother, Maryanne Woods, worked at the local phone company for the same length of time. Her brother, Frank, is a retired captain in the U.S. Army who also works for Medline.
Born and raised in Rochester, New York, Taskan graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in applied science and a minor in communications. She wanted to be a writer, but found a calling in sales while still at RIT. “In my first year of college, I disputed a grade with the dean of my department, and after he heard me out, he told me I needed to go straight into sales.” In his 42 years of teaching, he told her, no one had ever convinced him to change a grade.
She followed the call, and got a job selling commercial airtime for a local “love jams” radio station. After seven years of doing so, she needed a break, and managed a Bally Total Fitness center for three years. Eager to get back into selling, she sold Internet services and magazine ad space, and in the middle, opened a concierge business in Orlando, Florida.
“I had my third child and took a few months off working,” she recalls. “I wanted to take my time and find the perfect job for me.” She decided to look at medical sales. “Up until then, I had always sold a ‘want,’ but I felt that medical sales would be selling a need.” She started looking, and found her way to Medline, which she joined in 2014.
“Selling radio was hard. You are selling air, basically. If you can sell that, you can truly sell anything. I learned very early in my career that … you have to believe in what you’re selling, regardless of what it is. For me that was the key to success. I never worked for a company selling a product that I didn’t believe could truly help a business succeed.”
The gym as outlet
As a kid, Taskan was always athletic, playing soccer most of her young life, dancing at her aunt’s dance studio in Rochester for 16 years, cheerleading throughout high school. “I actually never walked into a gym until I was 39. I was always naturally fit, so I hadn’t thought about needing or wanting to work out. But after my third child and a horrible divorce, I needed an outlet.” That first trip to the gym turned out to be more than that.
“From that very first day, my entire life changed. I felt completely different. I walked out happy. I felt amazing. I felt like I could conquer anything that was placed in front of me. I felt renewed.” And that feeling is still with her today.
“I don’t do a lot of things for myself,” she says. “I’m a single parent to three young children, so that really doesn’t leave a lot of free time in my life. And as a sales rep, your job isn’t an 8-to-5 job. You don’t work 40 hours a week. It’s more like 60 or 70, and you almost always work at night, and typically on the weekends. So the gym is my one hour a day to let go of the stress and daily struggles of life, and just focus on my mind and body.” The deeper she got into her workout routine, the more interested she became in competitive bodybuilding. She found a coach, Casey Marshall, of Team Boss Bodies, and entered into her first competition in June 2018. She has competed in four regional shows and two national shows.
The Arnold Classic
She competed in the Arnold Classic – a national sports and fitness competition – in 2019 and recently competed in the bikini division of NPC (National Physique Committee) Universe, which is a national show. Her 2021 goal is to earn her IFBB (International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness) pro card. She will have five opportunities this year to compete in national shows to earn it. “I look at a pro card like a college diploma,” she says. “It’s something that you and only you can earn. And once you earn it, you’ve earned it for life. It can never be taken away.
“I love bodybuilding. I love the commitment to it. I love the changes you see daily. It’s pretty cool when you see tangible proof in the mirror of the dedication and hard work you put into the process. You and only you are in control.
“If you put in 50% effort, you will only see 50% results, whether it’s bodybuilding or sales. If you put in 100% in diet and working out, you will see 100% of the results you’re looking for. You trust in the process to get on that stage, standing next to anywhere from 10 to 30 other females, hitting your poses, waiting for your number to be called. Making it to the top five is indescribable.”
And it’s kind of like selling – beginning with the opportunity and ending in the sale. “You have to dedicate yourself to the process. There are obstacles along the way, bumps in the road, but closing that deal or winning first place, there’s nothing sweeter!”
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Prep work
Preparing for a bodybuilding competition is similar in some ways to preparing for a sales call, only it involves eating more green vegetables and drinking a couple of gallons of water a day.
Beginning 12 to 15 weeks prior to a competition, Jennifer Taskan gets up at 5 a.m. and works out for an hour and a half, comes home, works on emails, gets the kids ready for school, then leaves for appointments. After work, she has dinner with the kids, does an hour of cardio, then works for a bit after the kids go to bed. “I have a pretty tight schedule,” she says.
During prep, she eats six times a day. Her diet consists of chicken or fish, white rice, green vegetables, rice cakes, peanut butter, oatmeal and eggs. When she’s in the field, she brings her meals with her, and keeps a cooler and food warmer in the car. “The best thing is when you get a refeed meal, where you eat something normal, like a burger and fries or pancakes,” she says.
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Balancinglove.com
In addition to her kids, medical sales and bodybuilding, Jennifer Taskan has another passion – blogging. Her blog, Balancing Love (www.balancinglove.com), is intended to help people find a balance in their lives with love and their relationships with others.
Following her divorce, “I was back out there, a fish in the ocean, trying to juggle a new life as a single parent with a full-time job, ready to date, and it was overwhelming,” she writes in the blog. She searched the Internet but all she found were a few articles on how to date or how to recover from a breakup. “I got to thinking, ‘How do people start over? How do they start out?”
“Whether you’re single and 20, or divorced and/or widowed in your 50s, male or female, everyone needs help balancing love,” she told Repertoire. “Love is many different things – not just being in love with someone. It’s about having a good, healthy, loving relationship with our spouse, children and most important, ourselves.”