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Readers react to articles from the October and November issues of Inc, including Joseph Rosenbloom's "For Sale: The American Dream," Julie Bick's "The New Face of Self Employment," and Paul B. Brown's "Seven Steps to Heaven."

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The November article " For Sale: The American Dream" explored a pattern of customer complaints racked up by Great Western Business Services, a company that markets for-sale businesses, based in Dallas. A surefire conversation starter, the investigative piece, written by senior editor Joseph Rosenbloom, pushed the buttons of entrepreneurs who have had similarly unhappy experiences.

Another Dissatisfied Customer
Whenever Joseph Rosenbloom writes an article on the alleged malfeasance of a company that sells a service to small businesses, other entrepreneurs pop out of the woodwork, claiming that they too were victims of the article's subject. The Great Western Business Services investigative piece proves no exception to that rule.

It was great to see your article on Great Western Business Services and their slick-talking sales staff. I was once a client of theirs, too. I was told that Great Western would advertise my business until it sold because they really didn't make any money until they found a buyer, as all the deposit money I paid them -- more than $7,000 -- was absorbed by their advertising costs. Great Western did send me a few leads on potential buyers, but some of them were impossible to reach and others were simply not interested in my deal. Imagine my surprise a couple years ago when I received another postcard in the mail from Great Western, again asking if I wanted to have my business evaluated. Not only couldn't they find a buyer for my business, but they couldn't even keep their database sorted out to know they had already milked me! I sent them a strong letter reminding them they were supposed to be finding me a buyer and, since they obviously weren't, asking them to refund the money I had originally paid them. I never heard back from them. I hope your article saves others from making the same expensive mistake I did.

Dave Helgeson
Show Director
MHRV Show Association Inc.
Renton, Wash.

Another reader seconds that motion.
In reading the stories of the two companies profiled in Rosenbloom's article, I experienced dÉjà vu. I contracted with Great Western Business Services the day before Thanksgiving 1999, albeit with misgivings, to "generically advertise" for the sale of my remotely located small business. I wanted out and didn't know how to effectively put the company on the market or what price to ask. The business evaluation I received was worthless (and at first incorrect -- the figures used in the report were not what I had submitted), and the "potential buyers" sent to me monthly were either unreachable or uninterested.

In disgust, I terminated my contract 11 months later. I asked for a full refund of my $3,575 deposit, claiming that Great Western's matching process was inadequate and its database inaccurate. In addition, I noted that I hadn't received anywhere near $3,575 worth of service.

Their reply was courteous and slick. "We are disappointed not one of the 54 individuals responding to our advertising was interested in your specific business," they wrote. I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan Dallas and soon after received another letter from Great Western stating that the company had fulfilled its contractual obligations and, therefore, a refund would not be forthcoming.

Early in 2001, I sold my business to a local couple at a price less than half what the field representative had calculated and a mere third of the evaluation's bottom line. I hope your article saves at least one small-business owner from wasting a chunk of hard-earned money contracting with Great Western.

Lynn Wright
Former Owner
Nature's Paper
Fort Jones, Calif.

Great Western responds: Next to the start-up period, the time in which decisions are made about selling an enterprise is perhaps the most difficult period in the life cycle of business ownership. Owners generally have deep personal and emotional stakes in their businesses, along with very strong expectations as to the business's attractiveness and worth. As reported in the article, our job is to match business sellers with potential buyers. We cannot and do not guarantee how attractive any given seller's business may be to buyers in our database. Likewise, because we provide marketing support and not business brokerage services, we do not participate in the actual sales process. As a result, we have no control over how the business is presented, beyond the tools we furnish. The type of business, price, and geographic location initially drive buyer interest. More complex factors, such as the chemistry between the seller and the prospective buyer, affect whether a sale actually occurs. As with any company, we continually are seeking to improve the quality of our services.

Umbrellas of Shared Work
Julie Bick's November cover story, " The New Face of Self-Employment," profiled a collection of maverick soloists clustering together to form a powerful entrepreneurial engine sans the organizational burdens of an outright company. It is a trend that's here to stay, according to this devotee of the idea.

Full Circle Management, founded in 1999, has an approach that's similar to Indigo Partners'. We develop growth plans for organizations and are involved from conceptual development to execution. To implement plans we team up with several organizations -- from telemarketing and software businesses to marketing companies -- but never lose control of the relationship. Our clients appreciate our agility and benefit financially from our lean structure. With today's technological tools, creating a brick-and-mortar structure for every business simply doesn't make sense.

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