Working Woman's Top 500

February 10, 1999 -- Entrepreneurial Spirit

Under the leadership of Lois M. LeMenager, Marketing Innovators has become one of the most respected performance improvement companies in the country. Working Woman magazine recognized Marketing Innovators as one of the largest woman-owned businesses in America, and Crain's Chicago Business has repeatedly ranked the company as one of the ten largest woman-owned firms in Chicago. LeMenager has also been honored with many awards focusing on entrepreneurship, including Venture Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year, The Institute of American Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, Sales and Marketing Executives of Chicago's Entrepreneurial Award, and NAWBO's Influential Women in Business Award.

Founded in 1978, Marketing Innovators employs a staff of 50 people who work closely with its clients, which include both large and small businesses, to improve employee performance and enhance customer loyalty. LeMenager and her company have earned numerous industry awards including several SITE Crystal Awards, creative design awards, and Platinum Partner recognition from Incentive magazine. In addition, clients have honored LeMenager with outstanding supplier awards. 

In 1980, LeMenager helped to develop the Freedom to ChooseÒ program with JCPenney, with whom Marketing Innovators has an exclusive relationship. Out of this partnership, JCPenney Incentive Sales was formed as a full-service division of Marketing Innovators. In 1993, LeMenager was recognized with a special JCPenney Appreciation Award for exemplary professionalism, tenacity and dedication. In 1993, she was named Supplier Divisional Winner for JCPenney Marketing Division; and in 1999, was again named Supplier of the Year, this time for the Stores Division.

A True Innovator

True innovation is more than developing new products - it is developing new applications for existing products and services. Borrowing an idea from the consumer market, LeMenager was one of the first to use gift certificates in the business-to-business market some 20 years ago. She created the Multiple Retailer System, a network of over 200 national, regional and local retail stores for award fulfillment. The program was 
considered to be the first genuinely new concept the incentive industry had seen since its inception. Today, retail gift certificates are the most popular non-monetary award option used by businesses to improve performance. 

Marketing Innovators was founded in 1978 as an incentive travel company. Over the years, the company has expanded to become a full-service performance improvement company it is today. Marketing Innovators' numerous products and services include complete program development and management, administrative support, creative communications, meeting and event planning, training, corporate, individual and group travel, gift certificates, merchandise awards, database management, and program tracking and evaluation. 

Staying Ahead of the Market

In recent years, Marketing Innovators has developed several information system modules for the strategic and tactical management and tracking of the Multiple Retailer incentive programs. The MIBANCÒ personal account system allows the accumulation of program earnings. Another module, the MIPERCÒ performance tracking system, allows program participants to measure their results against established objectives. 

Technology is the gateway to evolution and innovation in performance systems. Marketing Innovator prides itself on its ability to keep up with the fast-growing incentive industry and move ahead with advanced technology. The company is developing new applications involving CD-ROM programs, corporate intranets, and the world wide web.

Strong Leadership Creates Strong Growth

Although Marketing Innovators was launched as a small business, it has since developed and grown into an impressively large business, with $70 million in sales revenue for fiscal 1998. In 1978, LeMenager and her then husband Charles Blabolil received their first business loan from the Small Business Administration. With this $160,000 loan, they were able to launch Marketing Innovators. Three years later, LeMenager had to take over the business when her husband died suddenly. With determination and tenacity, she has led the business through tremendous growth and development over the past 17 years. 

During her first five years as Chairman and CEO, LeMenager led Marketing Innovators to reach $13.5 million in sales in 1988. Over the next five years, LeMenager's company more than doubled its annual sales revenue, to reach $28 million in 1993. During the last few years, the company has continued to realize outstanding growth, doubling its annual revenue again. Last year, Marketing Innovators earned more than $70 million in sales.

Contributing to the Community

Ms. LeMenager has been an avid supporter of numerous community-oriented projects and organizations. She has been particularly active in organizations such as Junior Achievement and Students in Free Enterprise, that allow her to positively impact the lives of young people.

Her company was also one of the innovators in orchestrating an application for retail gift certificates beyond the corporate market. Through its non-for-profit Scrip fundraising program, thousands of non-for-profit associations, schools, churches and civic groups have literally raised millions of dollars in the last five years.