Business lessons found in Jerry Hodge's story | OPINION - Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

The story comes from Hodge's own book, "You're On, Cowboy!," and now anchors an opinion column in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal about lessons for business owners. Hodge and a rival buyer kept outbidding each other on the same piece of land, driving the price up with no end in sight. Rather than keep escalating, Hodge proposed a different kind of deal. High card wins the right to buy the ranch, low card takes ten grand and walks.

He drew the high card. The column doesn't suggest readers start settling contracts with a deck of cards, but it holds Hodge's move up as an example worth studying for anyone who negotiates deals in Lubbock, from ranch buyers out past the city limits to small business owners haggling over leases on 19th Street.

For local entrepreneurs, the point isn't the card trick. What matters is the instinct to recognize a bad pattern, a bidding war with no natural stopping point, and cut it off before it costs more than the prize is worth.

A coin flip would have worked too. Hodge just made sure his version made a better story.