Down the Drain

Beer Money: A Memoir of Privilege and Loss, & The Decline of a Detroit Dynasty by Frances Stroh (Harper, $25.99, 336 pages)

“The house (my father had purchased in New York City when I was six) and most of its contents would soon be gone, just as the brewery was. We’d somehow allowed ourselves to be pinned into place by these things; and in our search for freedom, some of us had self-destructed.”

Despite the title, this poor little rich girl memoir offers no insight into the brewing industry. That’s because Frances Stroh, a one-time partial heir to billions of Stroh Brewery dollars – all of which vanished into thin air, was far removed from the family’s management (and mismanagement) of the company. As with most of these memoirs, Frances did not realize early on how rich her family was. In her bored teen and early adult years she carelessly used and abused alcohol and drugs. And as a grown-up she learned to mourn the fortune she would never acquire.

However, the rich are different. Even as Frances writes about Stroh’s going down the drain, she makes sure to inform the reader that she flies first class; she lives in a fine abode in San Francisco. And when her spendthrift brother came to visit her in The City, he’d rent out entire floors of swank hotels for parties and feast on the best food and drink from room service.

Stroh’s was a “beer giant… in the eighties and nineties…” But Frances has no explanation for the Detroit company’s rapid downfall other than to admit, “we’d simply blown it.” Indeed.

Beer Money is a pointless, meaningless tale of privileged denial.

Joseph Arellano

A review copy was provided by the publisher. Note: According to Forbes magazine, the Stroh Brewery Company blew through $9 billion in profits. That’s a lot of beer money.

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Carry That Weight

Now, Build A Great Business:  7 Ways to Maximize Your Profits in Any Market by Mark Thompson and Brian Tracy (Amacom; $24.95; 256 pages)

I read a lot of business books.   I read business books on how to love your customers, how to hire and fire, how to think big, how to narrow your focus, how to be more creative and yet more disciplined.   Such in-depth attention to select issues is incredibly useful to business practitioners who know just what they should focus their attention on.   But for new or growing business owners, a more holistic treatment to the business of doing business is needed, and that is what Mark Thompson and Brian Tracy’s new book, Now, Build a Great Business provides.

The front flap on Now, Build a Great Business pronounces:  “You’ll find no theory here – just practical steps you can take immediately, with simple explanations of exactly how to measure how well you’re doing at each step along the way.”   For some, this approach may seem rote, but the authors, absolute business gurus, make the material fresh and memorable.

And being memorable is important.   None of us have the time to reference back to books we’ve read in the past, so we need any mnemonic devices to remember some of this key advice in times of need.   Thompson and Tracy make complex and subjective concepts structured and linear.

To be a good leader, they suggest that you remind yourself of three key Ps:  Purpose.   Passion.   Performance.   When hiring, follow their Law of Three:  Always interview at least three people for a position; Interview the candidate you like in three different places; Have the candidate interviewed by at least three different people.

Stocking their book with stories and brief anecdotes about other companies’ successes, failures, decisions and risk-taking, the authors enable you to assess your own company and mindset – all with the goal of devising a plan with measurable goals.   In one of the most simple and useful sections of the book, the authors offer “a very simple sample set of thirty-three measures to inspire or provoke you to create your own dashboard for your business.”

After reading each chapter, you’ll be given a worksheet where you can reflect on your own personal experiences by way of the terminology and wisdom given.   I particularly love the last question on the worksheet, “What one action are you going to take immediately?”   Now, Build a Great Business is oriented toward action and will help you be too.

Recommended.

This review was written by Jack Covert.   To see the original version, go to: 

http://blog.800ceoread.com/2010/12/10/jack-covert-selects-now-build-a-great-business/