The Ad Agency "That Just Won’t Go Away" by Susan Sawatski

RESPONSE 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY (AS SEEN IN ADNEWS)

partner for a few years, and helped get the agency back on its feet. The client who fired them returned. (“Everything you guys did for us worked,” said their CEO. “Nothing worked after we left.”) And the client they resigned changed management and once again became a solid client.
“When I look at those first few years,” Cuno said, “it’s amazing we stayed in business, and that my kids and I survived intact at home. Yet not only are we still here, we’re doing well.”
Doing well just might be another Cuno understatement. Today, Response Advertising has an enviable active client list that includes Zions Bank, Westminster College, Strong & Hanni Law Firm, ATA Services, Altius Health Plans, Red Hanger Cleaners and others.
“We’re fortunate,” Cuno says. “I am by no means a gifted entrepreneur. I make mistakes, and I have this smart mouth that’s always more than willing to get me in trouble long before my brain even hears about it. And yet, somehow, I haven’t managed to totally wreck things.”
Good fortune has touched Steve Cuno at home, too. “Remember the client we resigned, in our early years, who came back? I had no idea what regaining their business would eventually mean to me. Three years ago, they hired an employee to interface with our agency. Last September, she had no better sense than to marry me. Allie and I have a great marriage, and there’s a complete family in our home again.”
The future at Response Advertising? “We’ve spent ten years honing our craft and learning how to run our business to best serve our clients,” Cuno said. “And it’s working. We’re ready to take the world by storm. Providing,” he adds. “Our good fortune holds.”

outcomes of your choices, you can always have the assurance that you made well thought-out, wise decisions to the best of your ability — providing you did.

Successful people acknowledge good and bad fortune. Failures take credit for the former and blame the latter.

Failures blame. Successful people accept blame, but tend to call it “responsibility.”

You can’t fix another person. No one else can fix you.

Working with what is will serve you far better than lamenting what should be.

People who talk about how well they know themselves are mistaken.

Solving isn’t complaining, but the first part of the process may look like it.

Complaining isn’t solving.

People who urge you to “just get along” at the expense of dealing with issues are not peacemakers. They are fearful. They frustrate their friends and hold up progress.

With some people, the only way to win is: don’t play.

Winning has nothing to do with defeating anyone. It has more to do with learning how not to defeat yourself.

Things change.

Move on.

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