Communications firm reaches across generations

Two things jump out at first blush about ­Schwegman Communications.

First is the multigenerational approach the small agency brings to the workplace.

Principals Jennifer Schwegman and Karen Winner match Gen X savvy with baby boomer sensibility respectively in bringing marketing strategies to their business clients.

Second, there is no home office for the 16-year-old firm as it strives to keep overhead low.

Schwegman and Winner can just as easily meet in a quiet corner of the Guthrie Theater building in the Minneapolis Mill District or at a table in the usually bustling Good Day Cafe in Golden Valley.

"Creative energy comes from different things and different places," said Schwegman, 45, the Gen X-er partner. Schwegman was born in Memphis but moved to Minneapolis in the 1980s and received an international business and economics degree from the then College of St. Catherine.

Winner, 62, grew up in Omaha and earned a journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin. She worked in direct marketing in Los Angeles before moving to the Twin Cities in 1992. She currently lives in Minnetonka.

Schwegman's specialty is with clients in the technology and health care fields, although the agency also has clients in other professional and business services.

The agency provides a broad range of assistance from public relations to marketing communications to Internet marketing. With an on-call staff of eight to 12 independent contractors, Schwegman Communications offers writing, graphic design and website development.

But Schwegman and Winner are clearly the yin and the yang of a business that has generated double-digit growth in each of the last five years.

"Five years ago, when our business started to take off, we asked ourselves, 'What is it that's working here?' " recalled Schwegman. "We realized that neither one of us needs to be in control. We both are happy to step back if that's the case."

Recalling her work in Los Angeles, Winner said: "I was frustrated with the agencies I worked with. None of them specialized in technology. So I went after technology companies."

"They provided a techno-centric focus," said Laurie Healy, vice president of marketing for the Eagan-based company. "I've seen a real virtual approach in building [support] teams. That really gives me a lot of flexibility. You can either ramp up or ramp down as your needs change."

Healy said the fact that Schwegman has freelance employees on call rather than on staff has been "very cost effective" for her company's marketing budget. Healy said the agency helped pull together case studies of services that Jump Technologies provided other companies, brought attention to Jump Technologies by getting stories printed in trade journals and helped with blog content.

"They got us visibility," Healy said.

Other present and past clients include Lawson, Imation, Target, 3M, PeopleNet and the technology and management resources divisions of Robert Half International.

As Schwegman and Winner established their client portfolio, they began to look at their age differences as a somewhat hidden business opportunity.

"It's understanding what's valuable to that generation," added Schwegman. "The Gen X mentality is 'I work hard so I can play hard.' We can just relate. You tend to hire yourself."

"Our experiences affect our problem solving and add different dimensions," Winner said. "We are not a traditional agency. It's good to get different approaches."