Keeping Secrets Is a Loser Strategy in Service Businesses

This clip is from a talk I gave in 2017, and the idea behind it has only become more relevant since.

Many service businesses still believe their advantage comes from keeping things hidden—how they train, how they sell, how they operate. In practice, that mindset usually creates friction, inconsistency, and confusion, not protection.

In this clip, I explain why owning your process publicly, removing unnecessary friction, and making it easy for teams and customers to understand how you operate is a stronger long-term strategy than guarding information.

Secrecy isn’t a moat. Execution is.

This clip is from a talk I gave in 2017 and at the time, the idea that service businesses should openly share how they operate felt uncomfortable to a lot of people.

The assumption was that information needed to be protected.

That if competitors saw how you trained, sold, or ran your business, they could copy it.

I didn’t believe that then.

I believe it even less now.

Why I stopped looking for the “right” information

Back then, I went looking for information I needed to run a better business.

I couldn’t find it.

So instead of continuing to search for it, I built it.

That experience shaped how I think about secrecy in service businesses.

If the information you need to operate well doesn’t exist publicly, that doesn’t mean it should stay hidden. It usually means someone needs to create it and own it.

The outdated idea that information is the moat

A lot of service business owners still believe their advantage comes from keeping things hidden.

How they train.
How they sell.
How they handle quality.
How they operate day to day.

The logic is simple.
If no one knows how you do it, no one can copy it.

That logic feels safe.

It just isn’t true anymore.

Why secrecy feels protective but isn’t

Secrecy creates the illusion of control.

If nothing is documented or shared, nothing can be scrutinized.
If standards aren’t visible, they don’t have to be defended.

But that protection comes at a cost.

Teams struggle to onboard.
Customers struggle to trust.
Execution becomes inconsistent.

And here’s the part most people avoid.

If someone can copy your business just by seeing how you operate, you never had a moat to begin with.

Owning what you do is the real advantage

There’s a difference between giving information away and owning your process.

Owning it means being able to say clearly:

This is how we train.
This is how we handle quality.
This is what we fix and what we do not tolerate.
This is what customers can expect.

When that information is easy to access and easy to understand, everything else gets simpler.

New hires ramp faster.
Customers trust sooner.
Decisions get easier.

Most competitors still won’t execute it, even if they see it.

Friction kills execution

One of the biggest issues in service businesses isn’t effort.
It’s friction.

Extra steps.
Hidden knowledge.
Systems designed around the owner instead of the team.

If you want something to be used, it has to be easy.

That applies to training.
It applies to process.
It applies to communication.

People don’t fail because they don’t care.
They fail because the system is harder than it needs to be.

Transparency is a filter, not a giveaway

When you share how you operate, a few important things happen.

The right customers lean in.
The wrong customers self-select out.
Your standards become visible.
Your team knows what matters.

That’s not weakness.

That’s clarity.

And clarity is what allows a service business to grow without becoming chaotic.

Why this still matters now

This clip is from 2017, but the idea behind it is even more relevant today.

Information is everywhere.
Execution is still rare.

The businesses that win long term aren’t the ones guarding secrets.
They’re the ones willing to put their standards out in the open and then live up to them every day.

That takes confidence.
It also takes real operations.

Secrecy is not a moat.

Execution is.

Owning what you do, removing friction for your team, and letting customers see that you care about how the work is done creates durable advantage.

That was true when I said it then.

It’s even more true now.