Cash or Good Checks Only

Jeffrey Caso

13 years ago

This past weekend I did something wonderful. I took my 87-year-old father to his summer home in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. This was something special to both him and my family because we have had so many great times there. He hasn't been able to get there in recent years due to his advancing age and his inability to drive. He expressed an interest to go a short while ago and I jumped at the chance.

This was not just a house to him; it was his place to escape a very stressful profession and relax. Nestled in the woods atop a mountain it was a refuge from the storm. I have never met someone who worked as much as he. Up at 5:00 am and many nights still working at 9:30pm. He loved his job as a physician and was available to his patients around the clock. Later in life, he just needed a place to escape once in a while and relax.

This was the place and it means so much to him to be able to see it again. That, however, is not the point of this blog. The house is in the hills above a very small, very rustic town. The one major attraction is the auction house that draws crowds the equivalent of the Christmas tree lighting in Rockefeller Center every Saturday night. High-end cars from Manhattan start arriving early in the day and people examine every piece of merchandise in the place.

Watching the auction is a great experience. The things you think will never sell fetch huge amounts and some cool items get put back on the shelf. My wife and I have an old joke. More than 20 years ago at that very auction house, we bid on and won a great hutch which is still in our dining room today. We placed a $100 limit on ourselves and bought it for a very close $95. I tell everyone who asks that we actually should have gotten it for $85 but my wife got so excited bidding that she bid against herself twice. Of course that's not true, but it alludes to the excitement that occurs at an auction.

So, once again, my point. For the past several decades whenever I have entered this auction house, so many things have remained unchanged: the unique smell, the 100 chairs with masking tape on them bearing the names of the auction's best customers and in essence saving their seats. But one thing has always caught my eye. It is an ancient handwritten sign by the register on yellow, cracking paper which says, "Cash or Good Checks Only." This time, after so many years, the timing was just right. A friendly-looking older woman was standing beside the register and I just had to know. I said, 'Does that really work?' gesturing toward the sign by the register. She smiled and said, "Not one returned check in more than 50 years.' I smiled and said, 'I thought so.'

Sometimes in business it's luck and sometimes it's simpler than that. Just tell people what to do; they need to be guided a bit. This business set the rules up years ago and now by virtue of that aging sign, they drew a line in the sand and nobody wants to be that terrible individual who will break a multi-decade streak. That's what I do in my office. My front desk staff tells people in no uncertain terms what is expected of them and what they need to do to keep up their end of the bargain. No guesswork. Here's what you do and here's how you do it.

Now, that's a good lesson in business, any business really. As far as my take on that aging sign that I have been looking at for so many years. It's not good business, it's luck. I just prefer to think of it differently. Why? Because it makes me feel good. Like the planets are aligned and the world can really be a good place.