August 18, 2023

Plumbing The Tub

For the past few weeks we’ve been doing a “down to the studs” DIY bathroom renovation.

It’s a lot of work but we both have some experience with such things so it seemed like a fun way to create lifelong family memories.

But there was one particular challenge that neither of us felt capable of tackling, which was plumbing the tub.

There just wasn’t much space between the bathroom floor and the kitchen ceiling below.

And when you’re working with plumbing, the smallest error can result in a catastrophic leak.

It would have seemed possible to DIY if we were willing to open up the kitchen ceiling and connect the pipes from underneath where we could see what we were doing, but we REALLY didn’t want to get the kitchen involved in the renovation.

So we called in a professional.

His name was Jim.

He came highly recommended from a local realtor friend of ours.

When he showed up, he oozed all of the credibility indicators you’d expect from a guy who had been doing plumbing professionally for thirty years.

After about five minutes surveying the situation, Jim said, “Yeah, that’s a tight spot... but we can do it without opening up the kitchen ceiling.”

That statement alone was worth about a thousand dollars to me.

He could have given me an invoice right then and there and I would have paid it.

But!

His business model was designed around selling hands work, not brains work.

The concept of charging me for his advice or opinions or recommendations, without actually “doing” anything, would have been completely alien to him.

Here’s the thing...

If you’re good at what you do, then there are probably plenty of people out there who would gladly pay you good money for access to your brains, not your hands.

Does that concept seem completely alien to you?

Yours,

—J