Small Business Leadership: Who gets paid?

As a Corporate Training Specialist for the Dale Carnegie Courses in the early '80's, I had the honor to meet a man named Morris Starnes. Morris was one of our students in our Baton Rouge Dale Carnegie Course.

This is his true story. I was there in attendance.

When Morris would get paid, he would put all of his bills in his hat.

He would pull each bill out 1 by 1 and would write the check for that particular bill. small business leadership

When he was out of money, he would not pay the remaining bills. His viewpoint was that he did all he could do, until next time. Back to work he would go.

So as fate would have it, an angry bill collector calls Morris one night demanding he pay the bill owed.

Morris, an honorable hard working man, explained to the collector that he knew that he owed the bill, but that the bill collector has just been unlucky for 2-3 months in a row. At this point, the confused bill collector asked Morris to explain himself.

So Morris, in his slow, country drawl patiently explains to the caller his bill paying system.

Step 1
All bills go in his hat.
Step 2
Lucky bills get pulled out of hat and paid.

Morris ends his call by asking the collector, now lets understand something, you do realize if you all me again and bug me about that bill, I will take your bill out of the hat? So, don't call me and pray for good luck. If you do that, you might just get paid next month.

When Morris shared his story with us, he was stone cold serious. At the end of him telling us what he told the collector, our group howled and roared with laughter.

This soft spoken, hard working, blue collar tree cutter never knew how powerful of a communicator he really was. But he knows now.

Morris grew immensely in our course and we were all the better for having to meet Morris Starnes.

This is the system Morris used to stop worrying about his bills. Perhaps it will work for you.

Do you have a topic or a question you would like to have covered in our blog? If so please email Marvin@marvinleblanc.com with your small business challenge or question.