Center for Creative Leadership Brings Teams Together

Global Nonprofit Center for Creative Leadership Experiences a 4X ROI and Brings Teams Together with Highspot

The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) is a global nonprofit focused on leadership development. With a presence in 120 countries and 30,000 people a year benefiting from its training courses, the organization is well-equipped to make an impact. “We can train anyone, from a second grader to a five-star general, on how to lead themselves and other people,” says Marie Leonard, Knowledge Manager, Sales Enablement & Training at CCL. “We are one of the few organizations that is solely focused on research-based leadership development.”

However, CCL faced a challenge when it came to helping sales reps be their most effective selves. “The number-one challenge reps faced was searching for collateral across an array of platforms,” remembers Sonja Huck, Director of Sales Enablement at CCL. With that information in mind, Huck and her colleagues began a search for a sales enablement platform that would connect sales reps with the latest and most impactful content faster. The organization chose Highspot and quickly realized significant cost and time savings. In just a short time, Highspot has made a lasting impact at CCL.

“An Intuitive Tool”: Highspot Quickly Wins the Loyalty of CCL Sales Reps

CCL reps’ pain points persisted until the organization launched Highspot at their sales kickoff and introduced a single source of truth where reps could find up-to-date content faster. “Highspot has saved me countless hours of time … I can simply look in one place and get everything my clients need quickly, professionally, and packaged beautifully,” says Taylor Logan, Business Partner, Societal Advancement Group at the Center for Creative Leadership.

When searching for a sales enablement platform, Huck and Leonard evaluated several options. “Ultimately, Highspot rose above the competitors because of the intuitive nature of the tool,” says Huck. “We also gravitated towards Highspot for its ability to integrate with Dynamics 365, the competitive price, and speed to deploy.”

After selecting Highspot, CCL then focused on getting sales reps excited about the new tool. “I was worried about adoption, but Highspot is so intuitive that it was quickly embraced,” says Leonard. “If Highspot was taken away, there would be a rebellion.” Today, 4,300 items are stored in Highspot and the tool has become indispensable to CCL reps.

“They Saw the Value Right Away”: Reps Use Highspot to Tailor Communications and Be More Effective

Adoption of Highspot quickly took off at CCL. Leonard was pleasantly surprised by Highspot’s success among tenured sales reps. One tenured rep was impressed with the analytics Highspot provided, a capability that CCL lacked prior to Highspot. “They could suddenly see how clients engaged with content and when they opened an email,” remembers Huck. “Having those metrics and open rates was huge,” says Leonard. Today, CCL employees continue to explore Highspot capabilities, such as the ability to create vertical- and product-based microsites.

The move to Highspot came with some unexpected benefits for CCL, including a sense among new hires that the company was committed to providing leading edge tools. And when COVID-19 transformed how organizations around the world worked, Highspot became the go-to platform where CCL communicated with employees. “We created a COVID spot where we shared the most current information,” says Huck. “I don’t know how we would have managed without it.”