Beans: Four Principles for Running a Business in Good Times or Bad

Being successful in bad times means remembering how you got the business the first time. As the very insightful Jack reflects, the authors organize his approach with four P’s: Passion (experience and sustain passion about work), People (create enduring staff relationships), Personal (building a community of regulars), and Product (sustaining product excellence). These "Ps" are prosaic in name only. They are used to illustrate nuanced connections. For example, the link between employee loyalty and customer loyalty and the synergy between an employee’s pride in their product and their devotion to it.

While some readers may find the storyline contrived, the success and the charm of the El and its owner--both renamed to protect the regulars--provide engaging and stimulating ideas about how to nourish a business. --Barbara Mackoff

Product Description
Beans is the story of The El Espresso, a legend in its own time in Seattle and a coffee company that has prospered by intentionally staying small, inspiring fanatical customer loyalty in the process. Told over the span of a single day, it follows The El's founder, Jack Hartman, through a business crisis that will challenge him and make him clear on why he does what he does. Unsure of whether he has lost the passion needed to sustain his business, Jack hires a consultant who flies to Seattle to "help" him but in reality bears witness to the secrets of good business, whether it's a company of 20 employees or 20,000. In the process, Jack learns about "the Four Ps" and how applying these universal principles can reenergize his employees, his customers, and even himself.

Though fictionalized, this is a true story in the best sense of the word. It arrives at a time when people are yearning to return to honest ways of doing business -- before corporate dominance, inflated executive salaries, accounting trickery, and outright greed became so much a part of our everyday business headlines. It is the story of how a pushcart David up against the corporate Goliaths succeeded by focusing on what is core to good business and a good life: honoring customers, trusting employees, building passion around a product, and turning an honest profit.

Even your most reading avoidant client or friend will love this. Buy a supply, I keep handing them out to people. Apparently there is another book in the works . . . I've pre-ordered it.

You will never look at another cup of coffee again in quite the same way . . . likewise, you will never approach a business challenge again in quite the same way.


I Recommend You Buy "Beans!" Today   June 11, 2003
John Henderson (Louisville, KY Area)
32 out of 36 found this review helpful

I like books that tell a story, use examples and create benefits that is I can use. "Beans: Four Principles for Running a Business in Good Times or Bad" is that kind of book!

The authors choose the "Ps" of Passion, People, Personnel and Product. They lead us through the success of Jack and Diane's coffee shop. It is an easy read. It will urge you to understand your workplace journey. It doesn't matter if you are an employer or the employee.

"Beans" is a journey from employment for a major airline (working for money), the unfulfilled entrepreneur step of self-employment selling martinis, and arriving at a passion for selling a cup of coffee. The realization that the "Ps" of Passion, People or Personnel will not make up for a quality Product leads Jack to develop the "best" cup of coffee! It takes all 4!

If you liked "Fish!" - you will like "Beans."

You might like to buy extra copies and give them to your personnel!


Highly recommended   September 17, 2003
JANE SIMONDS-LEE (White Plains, New York)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful

I have never written a review on Amazon before, but I was so surprised and, frankly, taken aback by this book that I felt I had to share my feelings. First of all, I didn't buy it but saw it among the books my husband received thanks to his status as a book reviewer. He doesn't review books like this, so he was ready to take it to our son's school library. I picked it up because the cover looked appealing, and I was hooked the moment I started.

First of all, it's a refreshing story about a business that is succeeding almost in spite of itself, and certainly in the face of heavy competition from the chains. This little coffee shop can be seen as a David amid the Goliaths in Seattle. The story itself is pretty simple, but the way it's told is just very special. You really start to pull for the owner of this place, and, before you know it, you've started internalizing some of the principles the author (who I'm assuming is really the consultant in the story) talks about.

My own little company, an interior design/upholstery business in Westchester County New York, has had it's share of problems, primarily with employees who don't really want to pay the dues they say they will. I am going to give this to everyone I interview, ask them to read it and be prepared to discuss it at the final interview. If they can tell me how they will use the principles on the job, then I will probably hire them. They're so simple yet so often forgotten by employees who think they know it all when it comes to customers.

While it may be easy to dismiss this as a book just for small businesses, I think it has excellent, real-world advice even for the smug CEOs who have removed themselves so far from the customer that they don't even know what their own products cost. Get this book, read it, and see if it doesn't make a difference in the policies you make for your business. It may be a humbling experience, but I suspect you will be a better executive because of it.


5 Pillars for Success   July 18, 2003
Laura Kantor (New Brunswick, NJ)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful

Who can argue with the four P's: Passion (experience and sustained passion about work), People (enduring staff relationships), Personal (a community of regulars), and Product (product excellence)? It is obvious that the P's make a business successful.

I also recommend Optimal Thinking-How to Be Your Best Self by Rosalene Glickman Ph.D. to integrate the thinking necessary for every employee to become an optimizer -- doing their best, optimizing profits and making the most of every situation.


Timely and inspiring   August 25, 2003
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

I started reading this book over the shoulder of a woman sitting next to me on a plane. She began telling me about hearing the author at some event and how she was planning to use it with her staff. She said there was a message in it that really spoke to her.

I didn't think much more about it until I saw it sitting on my boss's desk the next week. I mentioned that I had been meaning to read it and he went off on this tirade about how everyone in our department should read it because they were concentrating too much on their own problems and not on the patients (I work in a managed-care facility.) I asked him if I could borrow it and he almost thrust it into my hand.

I read it and have now been talking throughout the office about the basic principles that are at the core of this book: be passionate about what you do, remember that it's about people, make every interaction personal, and serve a great product (which is health-care, in our case). A lot of people look at me like I'm nuts, but my boss is right - many people on the staff have forgotten that it's not about their problems but about serving our patients/customers. I think this was one of the best reminders ever about the power of getting back to basics. I am hoping we all get a chance to read it.