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Clients that don't respect our company's methodology are ones we can afford to lose.

Elizabeth M. Johnson
CEO and president
E. Johnson & Co.
Lakeville, Connecticut

Exit Strategy Distractions

Thanks to Norm Brodsky for taking us on the ride with him as he decides what is next for his company ["The Offer, Part Six," April]. We have recently had offers to buy our company. The bids were fair and flattering. However, I quickly decided that I am not ready to sell and that even the discussion of a possible sale was personally distracting.

A close friend of mine had a large company pursuing his business. They had a protracted due-diligence and kicking-the-tires session that lasted 10 months. He went from being mildly interested in the offer to taking himself out of the business mentally. Instead of replacing reps and adding new product, he was dreaming of golf and taking it easy. They went down to the very end, when the money was going to be wired. Then the big company had a change of management, and the offer was withdrawn. He woke up with a company that was leaderless and in need of fixing. It was with great effort that he got back into the company mentally and did what was necessary to move forward. Three years later, when he was approached again, he made the stipulation that the process had to move fast or no deal. They did the whole dance in 60 days from start to finish.

Rob Auerbach
President
Candyrific
Louisville

Shedding Tiers

Jennifer Gill's analysis of credit card processing fees was fantastic ["Cracking the Code," April]. But the part about tiered pricing needed a bigger caveat. If a processor is charging you "qualified" and "midqualified" (or worse yet, "nonqualified") rates, you're usually better off switching to another processor. Businesses should look for a processor that takes its entire profit on the front margin above interchange. Doing this also lets you see when transactions are missing information and being downgraded to a higher interchange cost, so you can act to prevent those downgrades in the future.

John Robinson and Scott T. Pierce
Analysts
U.S. Merchant Services
Cypress, California

Learning Curve

I teach computer applications, so I understand Leigh Buchanan's complaints about the typical training process, which involves sitting in a classroom and doing what everyone else is doing ["Train in Vain," April]. Different people learn in different ways. I loved the performance evaluations Buchanan wrote about bug circus employees. I would have encouraged her to do more. Maybe then she would have learned how to use the program better.

Dolores Russo
CEO
Dolores Russo Photography
Orlando

What About the Books?

It's telling that Part Two of Bo Burlingham's story about Kepler's, a bookstore, doesn't once mention a single author or book title ["The Plot Thickens," March]. Burlingham also fails to include views from anyone outside of the store's management team and its consultants. I couldn't imagine him writing a similar story about a software company without mentioning an engineer or views from outside industry observers.

If Anne Banta and Clark Kepler want to revive the business, it's essential to pay more attention to their primary product and how customers relate to it. Banta may know good business, but without knowing good books, her efforts will be futile.

Ricky Opaterny
Founder
SaveKeplers.com
Palo Alto, California

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