J'accuse: the real secrets of a retiring chief marketing officer's success.

• Author: Bond, Paul
• Position: Letter to the Strategies Editors ... - Letter to the editor

In its June issue, Strategies journal published Thomas R. Bond, Esq.'s "Thoughts and Musings of a Retired Chief Marketing Officer." As Tom Bond's son and fellow attorney, I feel an obligation to the readers of Strategies journal to respond to this article, at best a carefully woven tissue of half-truths.

First, headline aside, Tom Bond is not yet "retired," and will not be until 2011. Bond fosters the misimpression that he is already retired in the vain hope that the Firm will forget to terminate his building access at year end. If his plan succeeds, Bond can continue to abuse long-distance calling privileges at the Firm's expense for years to come.

More importantly, Bond pere attributes his success to working hard, listening to clients, getting maximum use and reuse of practice materials, and developing visible expertise. That may be the truth, but it is hardly the whole truth.

In both his personal and professional life, Bond has leaned heavily the value of being an ungodly pest. My father won my mother's hand in marriage the same way he won so many new clients over the years: pleading his case on the merits; asking over and over again, in the nicest possible way; and generally being there all the time, such that in the end it is easier to say "yes" to him then sit through yet another wooing lunch. Indeed, many of my father's potential clients have been so confused by his continual contact and unasked-for advice as to think they must have already hired him at some point. Then they started to send him work, leading to fruitful relations that have lasted for years or decades.

Bond's success also derived from his strategic choice of...