How LeaderSharp is taking their Canadian leadership development services into the global market
Let’s get to know Chris Jones and his company, LeaderSharp Group
Chris Jones is the CEO and Co-founder of LeaderSharp, a leadership development group founded in 2014 alongside his business partner and wife, Lisa Scott. Based in Calgary, Alberta, their rapidly growing Canadian leadership training and coaching business consists of eight coaches, trainers, and facilitators, and an operations team of five. The coaching and training team call themselves The LeaderSharp Collective.
LeaderSharp is guided by their Core Values, Mission, Purpose, and Vision, which focuses on advancing the development of generative leadership for a complex and ever-changing world. They are passionate about creating more effective leaders that are able to lead teams, functions, and organizations with courage and compassion, through the ambiguity, uncertainty, and disruption faced by today’s corporate and government leaders.
Now, with their Docebo Learning Management System, Chris and LeaderSharp are providing state-of-the-art Blended Learning programs for leaders, creating new opportunities for growth, expansion, and scalability. Chris recently engaged in a Q&A Session with Docebo.
Q: Can you tell me more about your organization, the background of your learning programs, and where Docebo LMS fits within your business growth strategy?
A: LeaderSharp Group began in 2014 when my business partner, Lisa Scott, and I put our coaching and facilitation businesses together to form something greater. Since then, we’ve been steadily growing our client base across Canada, bringing on coaches, facilitators, and trainers, and adding internal resources to support our growth even during the pandemic. We’ve seen significant revenue growth over the past year.
In early 2020, when COVID first hit, and lockdowns began, everyone was craving community and connection. So we decided to gather a select group of coaches to form The LeaderSharp Collective. Unlike many coaching companies where coaches sit on the roster and do some coaching if and when it comes in, the Collective is a team—it’s like a partnership. We enjoy learning together, collaborating, working together for customers, and creating strategies for new services that are guided by our Vision and Purpose.
Our leadership courses and programs are usually custom-designed for each client, and often supported by individual and group coaching. We believe in creating a far more engaging learning experience for leaders using Blended Learning design and delivery. Now with the Docebo Learning Suite and all its amazing features, we can offer our leaders a far better experience than traditional classroom training—one where retention is high, and so is their enjoyment of the program!
Docebo has many aspects that we’re really excited about, such as Learn LMS powered by artificial intelligence; and Shape which allows us to create content right in the platform, also supported by AI features; and especially the ability to invoke social learning in the flow of work that comes from Docebo Discover, Coach and Share.
Docebo has many aspects that we’re really excited about, such as Learn LMS powered by artificial intelligence; and Shape which allows us to create content right in the platform, also supported by AI features; and especially the ability to invoke social learning in the flow of work that comes from Docebo Discover, Coach and Share.
Over the past decade, people have been changing the way they learn, but leadership training hasn’t evolved with it. That’s why we find platforms, like Docebo, a world apart from how we used to do it—creating a new world of experiences for leaders that really make the learning sticky and create an enjoyable experience.
Q: Wow, what an incredible story. Can you tell us a little bit about how were you managing the sales of your training courses before exploring Docebo?
A: Honestly, we weren’t managing it well! But now we’ve got a CRM that offers great technical sales and business development tools and processes. We love being able to integrate it with Docebo, along with other applications we use too, such as with Zoom.
We like how Docebo offers the ability to create impactful custom experiences for our clients, whether it be self-directed learning, synchronous instructor-led training, or any range of experiences through the variety of features the platform offers.
We like how Docebo offers the ability to create impactful custom experiences for our clients, whether it be self-directed learning, synchronous instructor-led training, or any range of experiences through the variety of features the platform offers.
And of course, using Docebo has now given us the opportunity to tap into a global audience, especially due to its self-guided learning features—anyone in the world can access our training content at any time! It’s acting as a global marketing tool in a way and scaled our offerings from national to international which is a big deal for LeaderSharp.
As we deploy more leadership courses and programs using Docebo, we’ll get more references and testimonials from our customers. Learners will want to not only subscribe to our programs, but also corporations will want to have us host their own LMS using Docebo’s Extended Enterprise capability. This fits in brilliantly with the growth we are seeing from more and more customers asking us to build or replace their old leadership programs.
Q: That sounds exciting. I’m curious to know why did you select Docebo LMS when there are so many platforms out there?
A: We actually hired consultants to research LMS platforms and they used 50 different criteria for measuring and evaluating the features and functionality. At first, we were able to narrow it down to 13 different platforms, then down to 5, then 3, then got demos of each before choosing Docebo.
We wanted extended enterprise functionality because we knew our client base. Some are larger, national companies with an interest in having us host their learning programs with the client’s branding. Not many LMS platforms have this capability, but Docebo certainly does.
We actually hired consultants to research LMS platforms and they used 50 different criteria for measuring and evaluating the features and functionality. At first, we were able to narrow it down to 13 different platforms, then down to 5, then 3, then got demos of each before choosing Docebo.
We also wanted e-commerce integration. We haven’t done much with e-commerce before, but with Docebo, we’ll be able to have clients sign up and pay for courses from anywhere in the world and in other time zones. This is a huge opportunity for us because we are now able to offer eLearning, especially self-directed courses, to truly scale our business.
Q: Love that, Chris! Let’s talk about the main objectives you are looking to achieve in the next year!
A: Definitely scalability. The ability to design and deliver world-class learning programs for a global audience is significant for a small business like LeaderSharp. But more importantly, we want to continue to support people in becoming the best leaders that they can be.
With Docebo, it changes how we design and deliver learning, opens up a new world for these learning leaders who can come and experience something amazing. It changes lives—not just their own work life, but personally and, importantly, has a positive impact on the people they lead.
Another key aspect of Docebo is that the platform allows us to more effectively deliver “vertical development” for leaders, as well as horizontal development. This means we can help leaders expand their mindset as well as add skills and competencies, which we believe is the best technique to develop them into truly effective leaders for a complex world. It’s a powerful catalyst for growth and development.
Docebo brings to us the opportunity to be agile as a service provider. The platform, its features, and its functionality allow us to leverage new and evolving learning requirements and keep pace with new training techniques as well as adapting to our clients’ varying needs.
Lastly, we’re excited to see further expansion into the global marketplace. With Docebo, we’re thrilled to have the ability to build and deliver training content on a cloud-based platform 24/7 to any client around the world! It’s exciting to be able to deliver our services this way. Docebo will accelerate our growth as we step boldly into the global eLearning market and open many more opportunities to fulfill our Purpose: The World Needs Better Leaders.
With Docebo, we’re thrilled to have the ability to build and deliver training content on a cloud-based platform 24/7 to any client around the world! It’s exciting to be able to deliver our services this way.
Growing our business in this way could be seen as a challenge, but it’s the best challenge to have—it’s a huge opportunity!
Q: Absolutely agree! Do you have anything else that you’d like to share about yourself or your business?
A: One thing I would say is we’ve loved dealing with the folks at Docebo. They’re warm, friendly, fun, very talented, and all highly professional.
Our main contact has been fabulous to deal with and we have a great relationship with her. She really helped us learn and go through the decision-making process to subscribe to Docebo.
This is a new frontier for us as we’re not a big company. So we’re being pretty courageous but we believe in our ability, are pulled by our Vision, and are guided by our Values. In fact, we feel that this is stepping up and living right into them! We’re proud of that and we work hard to be in service to others.
We are making an important difference in the world, one leader, one team at a time.
Learn more about LeaderSharp Group on their website.