What do you do when you’re helming a blossoming ad agency and you lose an account that’s half your billings and three-quarters of your income?
You keep advertising.
Chiat/Day partner and co-founder Guy Day wrote this one. His son Cameron Day writes, “It was uncharacteristic of my father to revert to low-brow language. That was a clue to how righteously pissed he was. If you read the copy, you’ll see that he was as pissed at himself and his agency as anyone, for stepping outside themselves in an effort to elevate advertising to the level of show-biz puffery.”
Some games just aren’t worth winning unless you get to play your way. That’s not to say you shouldn’t take in anyone’s feedback. Just don’t play a game you don’t want to play, and don’t get suckered—or cajoled, challenged, or threatened—into it.
Hide from nobody. There’s no shame in defeat, so long as you dust yourself off and keep playing. You can’t change what happened, and you have the facts; but you can make meaning out of it and share something valuable with the world—in this case, a manifesto to return back to what made you successful, and to inspire others to do the same. (All the while assuring existing clients you’re still in business, and future clients that you’re still fresh and exciting.)
Learning will involve failure. Rich Ziade calls this ad the gold standard on dealing with failure. Rich and his co-founder Paul aren’t hiding the failure, and it doesn’t look like they’re embarrassed about it. They’ve been late before. They’re just gonna keep it moving. If you want a business that people trust, you need to lean into honesty and candor; otherwise you’re just not going to demonstrate your expertise enough. And you’re not gonna have fun. Experts aren’t afraid to own up to their mistakes and talk about how they’ll move forward.