I help entrepreneurs leapfrog over the typical potholes that derail most small businesses with inspiration, motivation, education, and support across a wide range of business topics drawn from over a decade of running my own business, teaching entrepreneurship for the City of New York, and coaching and consulting privately with dozens of women and minority small business owners. Honestly, why go it alone when help is an email away?
Ignorance Isn't Bliss
Recently, we hired two different service providers to come to mom's house and fix the same problem. The sink in the basement into which the washing machine empties wasn't draining properly and threatened to overflow and cause a flood.
The first provider is a licensed plumber who comes with his assistant and the two spend several hours working on the repair.
They admit they're not 100% certain why the sink is stopped up, but they replace the trap (the U-shaped pipe beneath the sink) and the sink drains and appears to function without issue.
Problem solved.
It took both time and materials and the not-so-insubstantial fee reflects that.
A week later the same thing happens when mom does laundry. Plus, now water from the kitchen sink, which is directly above, is leaking into the basement sink, too.
Mom decides to call a service provider who is more of a handyman than a plumber, but who has fixed both plumbing and non-plumbing issues for her in the past.
She's used this guy for many years. He remembers when my dad was alive and talks fondly about jobs he did for my parents over the years. There's history here.
When he comes he does two things: He pours Drano down the sink and while waiting for it to do his work for him, he disparages the work of the licensed plumber. 🚩
The Drano does nothing.
He then arranges to return by 10AM two days later with the appropriate equipment and snake the main water line and replace an additional piece of pipe that he believes the licensed plumber should have replaced.
He can't promise this will solve the problem.
He doesn't know why the kitchen sink is draining into the basement sink, but it's an unrelated issue.
I ask if it's possible the plumber left a valve partially open, causing the kitchen sink issue. He dismisses me saying in slightly less insulting terms that I don't know what I'm talking about. 🚩
Fifteen minutes after he returns (an hour later than promised 🚩), he tells us it's all fixed.
He turns the water on in the kitchen and mom and I follow him to the basement to see an empty sink with the water running full blast down there as well.
He turns the faucet off and no water is leaking from the kitchen sink, which is still on upstairs.
Hurray, maybe it's actually fixed this time!
It's clear in fifteen minutes he neither snaked the main line nor replaced the pipe he planned to. So, I ask the guy what the problem was and what he did to fix it.
He tells me, "I can't explain it to you. It's just magic." 🚩
We go back and forth and I leave saying, "I understand you don't want to tell me because if it happens again we'll have to call you to come back, but that's a lousy business model. And, trust me, I do know what I'm talking about when it comes to business models."
Mom stays behind and continues to try and get him to tell her what happened and what he did.
It ends in a yelling match and my mom storms upstairs and says to me, "I'm never hiring this guy again."
When the guy is set to leave he proceeds to try and get me to agree with him that my mom is unreasonable in wanting to know the specifics of the job. 🚩
Of course, I don't agree with him.
I tell him, "Listen, I know you're trying to protect your business but this is not the way to do it. Your customers have a right to understand the work you performed in exchange for the fee you charge."
We agree to disagree just so he'll leave because both mom and I have had enough.
The whole incident underscores how important it is to find the right balance between full disclosure and protecting one's intellectual property.
While you never want to give away trade secrets, you also don't want to alienate your customers by keeping them in the dark about what goes into your particular brand of sausage (so to speak).
Some clients may only care that a problem gets fixed. Others may want to know every single paper clip and post-it note you used to fix it.
It can be a delicate dance to find the right combination of transparency and safeguarding your proprietary knowledge.
At no point, however, would I recommend keeping clients hostage to your business by withholding critical information. In the end, this breeds distrust and possibly even hostility as in the case above.
If you want a better strategy to keep clients happy and on the hook, then let's talk.
Until next time,
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PS – In case you missed it, last time I asked and answered the age-old question Does Size Really Matter?
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Easily Said & Done
I help entrepreneurs leapfrog over the typical potholes that derail most small businesses with inspiration, motivation, education, and support across a wide range of business topics drawn from over a decade of running my own business, teaching entrepreneurship for the City of New York, and coaching and consulting privately with dozens of women and minority small business owners. Honestly, why go it alone when help is an email away?
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