How Nuveen Expanded Their ‘Content Creator Pool’ for Better Learning and More Consistent Messaging

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Despite the much-heralded “democratization” of content creation that helps people every day, many companies still rely on a tiny number of “the usual suspects” for their communications and sales training content. If not for the fact that much of this content is distributed by email, you might think the year was 1992.

How Nuveen Democratized its Content Supply

Nuveen has chosen a different path. At this global asset management firm, the sales team competes in a rapidly changing environment – one in which market-disrupting events (such as the UK’s Brexit vote) can occur at any moment.

To respond to such events and provide relevant content to the sales force, Joy Crenshaw, Managing Director and Head of Sales Development and Business Solutions, uses Allego to expand the “talent pool” of subject matter experts while delivering more centralized and consistent messaging.

Says Crenshaw: “Who knew Trump would win? Who knew that the U.K. would leave the EU? These events have significant impacts on our business, and we need to be able to respond to our clients quickly. The old way was this: 12 different investment managers would send us an email saying, ‘Tariffs went through and here’s what we think.’ Some would send their emails in an hour; some would send them a week later.”

Previously Unknown Experts

After adopting Allego, Crenshaw added, “…we were able to get people to record information just in time and call our advisors (who were already getting calls from clients) … with very timely insights, accurate information and very consistent messaging.

“Not only do we get portfolio managers’ insights, but we also tap our best salespeople.” This includes people who were previously unknown “because they were traveling in the middle of Oklahoma or Rochester, New York. Some of them had great messages that nobody was hearing before.”

More Messengers; Fewer Messages

One risk of content democratization, of course, is that adding all those new voices into the communications mix will produce a cacophony of confused (or conflicting) messages. But at Nuveen, the opposite has occurred.

Though the company has increased the number of messengers, it has decreased the number of messages, and worked to make the messaging is more consistent.

Before Allego was adopted, for example, the director of sales implementation for the Boston area was often deluged with different pitch ideas from local reps. Today, the director uses Allego to create a “universal pitch” that’s distributed to the sales force. “Now you don’t have 65 to 130 people making up their own ideas,” says Crenshaw. “You have a starting point – a skeleton – that can be customized by each rep.”

Before Allego, client portfolio managers might have to respond to dozens of client questions every day. “Now we have an Allego on it,” says Crenshaw. “If everybody’s asking ‘why has the yield on this investment dropped?’ a portfolio manager can send a single communication to everyone to address that issue.

“Instead of them sending 20-30 emails a day, we can get the information out to everybody in a very timely way.”