The businesses that win are the ones that show up to serve, not just to fix.
Ben Jordan on why the trades will mint more millionaires than any industry, and the standard behind it.
Ben Jordan told his team something in training the day he sat down with me: are we showing up to fix something, or are we showing up to serve. It stuck with me because it is not a slogan, it is a filter he runs every call through, and it explains why his crew found carbon monoxide that two other companies had missed.
What got me most was the video story. He hates shooting content, compares it to running ten miles at four hundred pounds, and was mid argument about being too busy when he shot it anyway. Forty five minutes later a stranger told him he'd lost sixty pounds watching. That is the whole case for showing up before you feel ready.
Naming the root cause instead of the symptom builds lifetime customers.
He filmed the video he was arguing against, and a stranger's message proved why.
A flat feeling in business means you are already sliding backward.
- 01The standard
Fix the cause, not just the call
Jordan trains his technicians to identify what actually caused the problem, not just patch the symptom in front of them, and to catch failing equipment in April before it fails at a hundred and twenty degrees in August. His own line for it: the more you see me, the less I'm doing my job.
- 02The excuse
Do the uncomfortable thing before you feel ready
Jordan hates shooting content and compares it to running at four hundred pounds, but he shot three videos after his team asked if he was going to make excuses or change a life. Forty five minutes later a plumbing owner messaged him to say he'd lost sixty pounds from watching, proof the discomfort was never the point.
- 03The plateau
There is no such thing as a plateau
Jordan rejects the idea that a business can level off, arguing there is only up and down, and a business owner who feels flat is already losing ground. His mechanism for staying in the upward cycle is the same one hunting teaches: set the goal, do the harder work after the win, then raise the standard and go again.
From the conversationThe more you see me, the less I'm doing my job.”
Run the fix versus serve test
Audit one recurring customer interaction in your business and commit to a root cause fix this week, a task of about twenty minutes.
- 1
Diagnose one recurring customer complaint or repeat service call from the last month and identify whether your team addressed the symptom or the root cause.
- 2
Choose one specific root cause fix, such as a maintenance check, a proactive follow up call, or a diagnostic step your team currently skips.
- 3
Document the new step in writing and assign it to one team member to start on the next applicable job this week.