BY SEAN SCHULTZ
The Business News
July 19, 2010
No new business gets it just right, but the judges of the Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year Awards competition found that Legato Marketing & Communications orchestrated its operation successfully enough to merit this year’s Entrepreneurial Award.
Just two years old, Legato was cited for “achieving significant growth in overcoming a struggling healthcare industry.”
Legato’s president Mike Milligan called the award “a milestone for us, recognition for a lot of hard work. It’s a nice affirmation to say that we’re on the right path.”
Milligan, already well-regarded in Green Bay and the region for his roles as director of public relations at Aurora Health Care and vice president of marketing and business development at Prevea Health, used that recognition and background to offer Legato clients something most marketing firms can’t.
“When I’m working with clients, I’ve been in their shoes. I can predict their needs,” he said. “I can tell them, ‘You’re going to get this reaction.’ I’ve been in their environment and that creates a lot of value.”
His firm deals primarily with healthcare industry clients, although not exclusively. Milligan knows how CEOs, CFOs, physicians and other healthcare providers react to the world of marketing and communications. He understands the politics that take place within an organization, too, and as an outsider now, he can be objective while helping that healthcare group focus on its marketing goal.
“You learn a lot knowing both sides,” he said. “I know what the client needs and expects of my agency and we’re here for the long-term relationship, trying to make them successful.”
And in these trying economic times, he has seen marketing departments at hospitals and medical clinics reduced in size, causing greater demand for Legato’s services. “I’m like their co-marketing director,” Milligan said. He isn’t doing it alone. In fact, he has joined forces with several companies to create Legato, among them Craig Gagnon and The Gagnon Partnership, brand strategists; Avastone Technologies for application, software and Web-development services; Cheri Larson of Larson Creative Services for account management services; Deb Stauffacher, media buyer and owner of Echo MarketMedia; video producer and copywriter Stephen Blecha of Stephen Blecha Creative for multimedia productions; Lashbro Production Services and Relations, owned by Rod Kolash, for corporate video production; and Primadata Inc., for HIPAA-compliant forms, billing and communications.
In addition, Milligan said Legato works with other freelance vendors as necessary. Most of them work off-premises, allowing the firm to work efficiently and keep overhead low. “That lets us keep competitive rates,” he said. And since his colleagues also are well versed in health care marketing, “We understand the industry. We don’t need to be educated.”
Milligan, 42, is moving his offices from their present Ridge Road location on Sept. 1 to 2149 Velp Ave., Howard, for more space. Legato has come a long way from its launch in the incubator space at the Advance Business Center on the Northeast Wisconsin Technical College campus. He praised the assistance his business received from Advance, from office space to expert advice to camaraderie with other business startups. “It gave us the foundation to move on,” Milligan said of Advance, the economic development arm of the Chamber of Commerce.
“Like any business, we want it to continue to grow,” Milligan said. So far, Legato has even outpaced its name, which is a musical term meaning “smooth, even style between notes.” “We’ve grown to where I thought we would be in five or six years,” Milligan said.
