May 10, 2009
Liza and Rick Looser Inducted into the Mississippi Business Hall of Fame
Cirlot Agency, CEO and COO
The Clarion-Ledger
On a hot summer day 25 years ago, Liza Cirlot stepped from the scorching heat through the doors of a Deposit Guaranty Bank branch on Tombigbee Street downtown with a $78 state tax refund in her wallet.
Since receiving the check a month earlier, she made sure it was there each time she opened her wallet.
She hoped the check, which by now was neatly creased in her wallet, would be a fresh start on a new career.
But there was a wrinkle.
She didn't have enough to open a business account. She needed an additional $22.
"I said, 'I just don't have $100, so I'll come back,'" Liza recalled.
Mary Smyth, the customer service representative, stopped her from leaving.
Smyth got an exemption for the 25-year-old and, smiling, passed along unexpected inspiration: "Go get 'em tiger!'
"It was such a vote of confidence and encouragement that I left feeling like I could rule the world," Liza said.
What would become a multimillion-dollar company was founded that day, July 14, 1984.
The day after opening her business checking account, Liza began making cold calls, using the skill she honed during her year as a newspaper sales rep. She ventured to a library pay phone booth with $2 in dimes - calls were 10 cents then - or stayed home and called the companies she recognized.
Twenty calls a day, each time a similar pitch: "I'm Liza Cirlot. I have my own advertising agency. I would love to talk to you about doing your advertising or public relations."
Many calls. Few appointments. But Liza didn't give up.
"You just have a fire within you and you know you have to do it," she said.
A few weeks later, she got her first job, promoting Mississippi's Special Olympics. She and her roommate celebrated the win, but the cold calls continued, many days in an unheated, 12-by-12 room in her rented house.
Gloves. A coat. And hope.
"Today, it's cold calls in a big office. Nothing has changed," Liza, now 50, said laughing, seated next to her husband in their 10,000-square-foot office on Airport Road in Flowood. "You have to just keep building your business over and over again."
Nearly 500 clients later, The Cirlot Agency touches base with at least 25 customers daily, that include some of the largest public and privately owned corporations in America.
Liza married Rick Looser 21 years ago and made him her chief operating officer. CEO Liza smiles looking back on their success.
They do marketing in the U.S. and Europe, and their client list ranges from baked beans to battleships; that's Bush's Baked Beans and Northrop Grumman.
The shipbuilder has been a client since the 1980s.
"They do good work," said Jim McIngvale, government affairs director for Northrop's shipbuilding operation in Pascagoula. "They've got an excellent business ethic. They treat their employees like family, and they treat their clients like friends."
Cirlot represents multiple defense companies whose ads monthly appear in The Hill, Congressional Quarterly, Defense News, Jane's Fighting Ships, The Army Times and The Navy Times.
The agency's "Mississippi Believe It" campaign pushed the state's modern image into the nation's dialogue. And they're the creative force behind St. Dominic's Compassion, Our Passion campaign.
Ashok Vasudevan, CEO of Preferred Brand Foods International, recently hired The Cirlot Agency.
His Stamford, Conn.-based food company has 150 employees divided among offices in Australia, India and the U.S. and hired Cirlot to help them align their communication, internal and external.
Although Vasudevan has known Liza for eight years - they met as students at Harvard Business School - Vasudevan didn't automatically hire the agency. His employees selected the company from others vying for the job.
"Liza knows the communication industry and issues and positioning," he said. "The most important thing about messaging is to keep it sharp and ... (she) is someone who understands the importance of positioning."
The Loosers acknowledge the recession has made the economy a "sobering issue," but their success recently has been buoyed with new, international business.
In the past six months, they've picked up an Israeli defense company and Angola LNG, a liquefied natural gas company in Africa.
Lynda Lesley, Cirlot's vice president and creative director, said the couple's styles are complementary.
"Rick is a big picture thinker and he likes to see what's out there, and Liza is a very detailed person," Lesley said.
The agency has picked up awards from the Southern Public Relations Federation, The Public Relations Association of Mississippi and been honored as a World Class Team Supplier for Northrop Grumman.
Despite the frequent accolades, at the end of the day, they're just Mom and Dad. Pleased with being inducted into the Business Hall of Fame, they sat down their children - daughter Regan, 18, and son Tripp, 17 - to share the news.
Tripp wasn't all that impressed. "Isn't that just for ... old people," Rick, 48, recalled him saying.
When Liza and Rick met, their careers were already under way and they both served on their local boards of the American Advertising Federation.
Rick Looser spotted Liza Cirlot across the room at an advertising convention in Louisiana in 1987. He grabbed a photographer, went to Liza and spoke the line he swears to have used only once.
"I turned to the photographer and I said, 'Now take a picture of the night we met, so I'll be able to show it to our children," Rick said, grinning.
The two were married in March 1988.
Unless out of town, they're together all day every day. They've learned to draw the line between work and home.
Few would dispute they've found a successful formula.
The Loosers said they're honored to be included among so many well-known business leaders in the hall of fame.
"We've had our heads down and worked hard and accomplished a lot," Rick said. "I don't guess we ever really see ourselves as maybe the rest of the business community might see us."
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