Letters

Readers react to articles from the May issue of Inc., including Nancy K. Austin's "Buzz," Jerry Useem's "Failure: The Secret of My Success," and D. M. Osborne's "When Is a Law Firm Not a Law Firm?"

Readers were really buzzing about our May issue. Features about generating buzz, failure's silver lining, and a novel California law firm provoked lots of responses. Here's the choicest dish:

Completely abuzz

Nancy K. Austin's two May articles--" Buzz" and " The Buzz Factory"--convinced readers that positive word of mouth is almost as good as money in the bank.

I just finished devouring your articles, and I have to tell you the buzz level in my brain is now particularly strong. I have a small PR firm, and we are known for creating buzz. I have been struggling with how to grow it, and your articles have energized me.

Susan Mccoy
President
Impact Marketing and Reputation Management
Kennett Square, Pa.

"The Buzz Factory" profiled a San Francisco company, Tattoo, that generates word of mouth for clients and for itself. This reader also seeks to generate buzz and hopes to garner the ultimate reward:

I read your prescient and compelling article on buzz with considerable interest. As the CEO of a company that's "rolling up" telephone-answering services--one of the most boring industries in history--I have the enviable task of creating excitement despite the perception that my product is a dinosaur. Although many businesses still need our services, we are challenged by constant competition from exciting, if not useful, new technologies. As a result, I have recently been working to develop a revolutionary way to draw attention to our company and to then use that attention to reeducate our prospects and sell them on our services. Your article was an inspiration to me and has set me thinking of new and exciting ways to create buzz out of my bore; I don't want to tell you what I am thinking about, but if I show up on the cover of Inc. within the next year, I suppose that will be evidence enough that I learned something.

Dan Joseph
CEO
Xact Telesolutions and Suncap Management Group
Laurel, Md.

One reader, however, suggested another viewpoint:

The ultimate reality is that if you're in a profitable business with no buzz, you're still 100 times better off than someone with great buzz and no money. I think there is a real danger that buzz can become a siren song that can lead strong companies onto the rocks. Once companies get the fame and recognition that come with buzz, there almost always seems to be a subsequent letdown in performance.

Joe Hadar
R&D Director
Hadar Manufacturing
Humboldt, Iowa

Mythed opportunity

In FYI, editor-in-chief George Gendron advised readers to "forget" Michael Gerber's new book, The E-Myth Manager. Readers--Gerber among them--wrote to express their differing opinions:

I was surprised to see your minireview miss the point so thoroughly. I wonder if you read the book. It clearly does not say, "Do what you want, and to hell with the company." It says, "Know what you want and know what the company wants, because only then can you expect your people to move beyond their limitations." This is exactly what I, as a business owner, have been trying to articulate to my managers for years. I want my people to think like entrepreneurs, and they can't do that if they don't even own their vision of what the company does for them. In conjunction with Gerber's other books, The E-Myth and The E-Myth Revisited, this book clearly represents the most powerful management and ownership philosophy going.

John Jantsch
President
Jantsch Communications
Kansas City, Mo.

This reader also disagreed with Gendron's review, feeling that it conflicted with Inc. 's philosophy:

Your readers are entrepreneurs. Many of them are entrepreneurs because they figured out what they wanted in life. They looked at their jobs and decided that they needed to get out on their own. Their reason? Because the jobs they had wouldn't allow them to achieve their goals. I hope you're not advocating that your readers go get boring, unfulfilling jobs, without caring about the impact they have on their workplace, and in the process, forget their dreams!

Mitch Barney
CEO
Virtuoso Publishing
Schaumburg, Ill.

The book's author also had something to say:

Let me set the record straight for you and your readers: The E-Myth Manager does not recommend that a manager say, "To hell with what the boss wants!" What a dumb idea! The E-Myth Manager recommends something significantly different and far more intelligent. The book says that to become an extraordinarily effective manager you must first take absolute accountability for knowing what you want your life to look like and how you intend to live it.