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Participants wowed by inaugural “Fuel” workshop
October 16, 2006 10:00am
CHICAGO -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- October 16, 2006 -- If your company’s
marketing efforts are running out of gas, it may be time to start
pumping “Marketing Fuel.”
That’s the opinion of participants who were surveyed after attending
the inaugural “Marketing Fuel™” workshop created by SwanDog Strategic
Marketing LLC, a Chicago-based consulting company.
Marketing Fuel is a strategic marketing workshop with practical,
hands-on exercises and interaction tailored to the marketing needs of
the audience. Attendees included marketing, sales and allied
professionals at every level of an organization. The inaugural workshop
was custom-designed for LPL Financial Services, the nation’s leading
independent broker-deal.
“This was truly the best workshop I’ve experienced for building the capabilities of a marketing unit,” said Janette Kolega, vice president of corporate marketing for LPL. “Our marketing team walked away with practical tools for getting at the heart of a project and leading the marketing efforts of a company.”
Currently, the workshop content is aimed at marketers and salespeople in the financial services and investment industry. Participants learn the elements and benefits of planning and are given a proprietary set of tools to help them evaluate options and make critical day-to-day decisions.
“Marketing Fuel” Fueled by Former Execs
The SwanDog group has the unique distinction of being staffed by former CMOs and CDs (chief marketing officers and creative directors), mostly of whom worked in or for the investment industry.
“I think we bring something to the table is tough to match,” said Dave Swanson, founder and principal of SwanDog. “We were practitioners in the financial space for 20 years. We know all the skeletons in the closet; we know the real issues.
“I think that many of the organizations advising business to business marketing departments just don't get the fact that the financial space is in the marketing Stone Age relative to other industries. Web 2.0? We’re still using soup cans and string,” said Swanson.
Kandis Bates, executive vice president of marketing for LPL, initiated the idea of bringing a customized version of the workshop to LPL. “I asked Dave for a customized workshop because I know he doesn’t believe in taking a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing problems. I knew it would be unique,” Bates said. “The combination of knowledge and advice that my department took away from the session was beyond anything I could have hoped for. They were so excited about the processes they’d learned that they couldn’t wait to apply them—and they already have some wins!”
A process that really works: Intelligent Interrogation™.
The workshop is presented by a 3-person team of former financial marketing executives and creative professionals. The team presents content that emphasizes real world experience and practical tools and processes. One of the proprietary tools is an analytical process that SwanDog calls Intelligent Interrogation™. "So much of the stuff that’s peddled today is just hooey that will never be implemented,” said Swanson. “What really works is simple but effective processes like Intelligent Interrogation that are easy to implement right way.”
Ms. Kolega, a marketer with 15 years of experience in the financial services industry, agreed. “We’ve changed our approach by using the Intelligent Interrogation technique developed by the SwanDog team,” she said. “This technique is a series of key questions that we can ask a business or client in one meeting that quickly gets to the objectives of a project, the target market and the critical information we need to easily develop a first-rate integrated marketing plan. It’s easy to understand and implement. This tool works for any marketing project, and helps us get to the solution much quicker.”
The Marketing Fuel workshop can be set up as one-day meeting or two half-day sessions, to accommodate the demands on a marketing department and its work flow. The seminar is priced on a per-attendee basis.
About Swandog
SwanDog is a strategic consulting and marketing firm founded by investment industry executives to serve the unmet needs of companies seeking growth and dominance through market expansion and product line differentiation. The firm helps clients identify key growth opportunities and inhibitors, evaluate distribution and acquisition options, develop distinct and effective marketing programs, and execute to winning metrics. SwanDog’s scope of services includes strategic to tactical marketing, branding, product line management, process and measurement implementation, outsourcing and recruiting, technology implementation, and exclusive marketing program development.
SwanDog principals can be reached at (630)234-1676, or by email at
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