Letters

Inc.'s readers comment and question articles and topics covered in past issues.

Most readers embraced the challenge to revitalize their businesses posed by May's " Innovate Now! An Instruction Manual." They also defended bankers and musicians. For their comments--and an update on the ousted language-school owner profiled in April--read on.

All-Nighter

John Grossmann's " Jump-Start Your Business" (May) chronicled two manic days with Doug Hall and his haven for creativity, the Eureka! Mansion. Many readers wanted in:

After devouring your article about innovation guru Doug Hall, I feel certain I will spend 48 sleepless hours myself just digesting the excitement portrayed during the two days spent at the Eureka! Mansion's unconventional, enthusiastic, and highly successful business. I want to be one of Hall's Trained Brains!

Gwendolyn DeCrow
Freelance Writer and Proofreader
Salem, Ohio

I really enjoyed the way you took the reader through Doug Hall's two-day creativity session. As a business consultant (with a background in psychology) who works with executives to help them learn and think better so they can market more effectively and serve their customers better, I've had the pleasure of using some versions of Hall's techniques. I can honestly say they work, and they work well. Everyone should consider the approaches brought out in the article. In fact, I'm clipping it out and passing it around the office to my colleagues and clients.

Richard F. Gerson
President
Gerson Goodson Inc.
Clearwater, Fla.

I rarely can make it to the end of 2-page articles. But John Grossmann kept me involved and interested the entire 10 pages.

Michael Webb
Editor
The RoMANtic Newsletter
Raleigh, N.C.

Another reader thought choosing to follow Celestial Seasonings, a $75-million company, through Hall's program was off base:

When a small-business person reads about how Celestial Seasonings is jump-starting the company, he or she might as well be reading about how General Motors is going to build a new Saturn. You people are way off base with regard to the small-business person. Unless, of course, you think we are all going to be a Bill Gates.

Mel Freedenberg
President
Broadway Bus Sales Inc.
Elizabeth, N.J.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

One reader found inspiration in information architect Richard Saul Wurman's observations in " Get Dumb and Grow Rich" (May):

The article on Richard Wurman was fabulous. Entrepreneurial types do ask a lot of questions; when they tire of being rebuffed, they form their own companies. As a longtime electronics-systems designer, I, too, have found that questions are more important than answers. Questions are the fuel that can drive a company forward.

Unfortunately, asking questions can easily get the inquiring individual driven out the door, too. Managers that are secure in their ignorance are very rare. At most companies, you trifle with the assumptions that underlie management decisions at your own risk. Stay at risk long enough and you become an entrepreneur.

Rodger Rast
President
Rastar Corp.
Sacramento, Calif.

Don't Bank on It

In his May Street Smarts column, " What's Good About Bankers," Norm Brodsky observed that bankers are poor salespeople. While some bankers saw eye-to-eye and others took issue with him, all laid blame at the feet of the federal regulators:

Your article was really on point. We at Farmers Bank (a small country bank in Arkansas) are the first to admit that we're poor salespeople. We have to try every day to remember to sell our services. We do believe that what is good for the customer is in our best interest, although that isn't what's playing in our marketplace today. You know, if the other financial-service providers had to live with banks' antiquated federal banking regulations and federal examiners, they would not be inclined to be very good salespeople, either. But that's our problem.

Cole Martin
Chairman and CEO
Farmers Bank & Trust
Clarksville, Ark.

On the West Coast, professional selling at banks has been established for years. Think about the definition of a true sales process, and I think you'll find that banks have become very good at it. As an entrepreneur you can always pick on banks for being conservative (as they should be, given the return they get), but you're very out-of-date if you want to pick on them for being poor salespeople. By becoming better salespeople, banks have been very successful at competing against unregulated competitors.

Kevin Foster
Sales Manager
San Francisco Commercial Banking
Bank of America
San Francisco

Making Noise: And the Band...Quit?

After reading " Labor-Union Disharmony Silences Symphony" (Obits, May), Phaedra Hise's tale of how management and labor issues plus a weak market led to the demise of the Sacramento Symphony Association, one reader felt too much blame was placed on the musicians' shoulders:

Giving former Sacramento Symphony director Lynn Osmond the final comment, "If we'd only had flexibility from the musicians, we could have made it work," could leave your readers with the impression that these 76 skilled professionals alone caused the failure of the organization. What about the board of directors? Give money, get money, or get off is the credo of successful nonprofit boards. What about the other million or so individuals in the greater Sacramento area? Would they take a 25% pay cut (following several years of frozen pay and reduced benefits) to save their community's symphony orchestra? The greatest threats to orchestral musicians have always been weak boards and management, which, as a response to poor financial performance, try to reduce musicians' pay rather than increase community financial support. These threats are why musicians have unionized.

Robert Travis
Management Process Consultant
San Antonio

Update: The Take on the Takeover

Sue Mackarness thought she had it bad. But since Inc. shared her story about how she and her now former husband battled an equity-owning business manager for control of their company (" The Takeover," April), her phone has been ringing off the hook. Mackarness estimates she got six to eight calls a day for weeks after the story appeared. Aside from calls from former students of the now-defunct Transworld Teachers offering condolences, potential employers offering jobs, lawyers proffering advice, and even a couple of anonymous callers vowing to even the score for her, she's heard from former company owners around the world who've been in her shoes.

One caller had lost two businesses within three years. She lost her first catering company to an equity-holding business manager, which left her personally bankrupt to the tune of $750,000. She lost her next catering venture to a husband-and-wife team, who 18 months earlier had become her financial partners. They allegedly stole client lists, equipment, and her original recipes. "I didn't know what to say to this woman," says Mackarness. "I felt so sorry for her."

"Your story broke my heart," another caller confessed. Turns out it wasn't the first time he'd had his heart broken. Five months after hiring a business manager and giving him equity, the company founder showed up at his semiconductor business to find that the locks had been changed. Then his fiancée dumped him for the business manager. Now he's starting a support group for other business owners who've lived through similar traumas. -- Stephanie Gruner

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