When Lisa Martin got the chance to land one of the biggest and most formidable corporations in the country as a client she knew her fledgling marketing firm had a lot to prove.
“We’re a small, woman-owned business. They didn’t have a lot of expectations from us,” said Martin, founder of Fairfax-based LeapFrog Solutions.
“They wereused to working with the big guys. They weren’t prepared to be wowed.”
But Martin, who was running LeapFrog out of her basement at the time, impressed the suits at ExxonMobil — a company that topped this year’s Fortune 500 list with nearly $340 billion in annual revenue — to win a major contract with the oil giant.
Martin’s company took Exxon’s (which was still Mobil Corp. when she started working with it pre-merger in the late 1990s) supply catalog from an antiquated book to a streamlined, online order form.
Martin’s success with Mobil quickly won her other Web site contracts with various Fortune 500 companies, and today LeapFrog, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last month, is one of the Washington region’s top design firms with clients in the government, health care and technology sectors. The company expects to pass the $2 million revenue mark by the end of this year and is looking to move from its Chantilly offices to accommodate a growing staff.
Martin got her start in the meetings and trade-show industry. The 44-year-old mother of two worked on the marketing side preparing messaging for clients and after four years with a local firm decided to strike out on her own.
She launched LeapFrog Solutions in 1996 right as the Internet was starting to take off and seized on the growing popularity of the medium to take her company to the next level.
“I saw a Web site as a marketing tool,” she said. “If you could drive people to a Web site, you can constantly be updating. … It’s a dynamic medium versus a static medium.”
Beyond Web site design and management, LeapFrog provides full-service strategic marketing to its clients, from branding and copywriting to brochure design and database management.
But even 10 years later — when Web sites are the norm, not the exception — LeapFrog’s internet solutions still remain one of the top focuses of the business,Martin said.
“Companies are constantly changing,” she said. “There are so many other priorities at a company, so the last thing they’re doing is concentrating on their Web site.”
Lisa Martin
» Current job: President, founder and CEO of LeapFrog Solutions Inc.
» Last job: Director of Sales for Image Communications Inc.
» Number of e-mails a day: 100 to 200 a day — too many!
» Number of voice mails a day: Five to 10 a day, but we minimize voice mail; direct one-on-one contact is our norm
» Essential Web site: www.potomactechwire.com
» Best perk: My commute is 2.7 miles.
» Gadgets: Treo 700 and all of the accessories
» Education/credentials: B.S. in Marketing, University of Arizona; MBA, The George Washington University
» Last conference: Management conference in May
» First job: Worked as a cashier for Gino’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken
» Original aspiration: To be a marine biologist
» Compensation: Confidential
» Career objective: To continue to grow LeapFrog Solutions as a leading full-service marketing communications agency, focusing the company’s growth in the government, technology, health care and business sectors.
» Born: July 18, 1962
» Hometown: Air Force brat, but born in Gulfport, Miss.
» Sports/hobbies: Yoga and kickboxing with my 15-year-old daughter, tennis with my 11-year-old daughter, skiing with my hubby, traveling and volunteering
