Table of contents

• Xe: The programmer
• 21: Products & services
• 22: Suppliers & vendors
• 23: Equipment & machines
• 24: Processes & procedures
• 25: Inventory & stock
• 31: Marketing, PR, & communications
• 32: Sales channels
• 33: Customers & clients
• 34: Orders & jobs
• 35: Shipping & fulfillment

Xe

The programmer

Xe has an excellent reputation. But they prefer minimal interaction with clients and tightly control how they work. They require a detailed brief, do the work, and deliver a finished product.

There’s no ongoing support component to Xe’s software. They won’t come and show you how to use it. That’s why we’re not talking about service delivery here.

Xe produces an intangible thing. So they’re at the very bottom left of our quadrant chart.

This is how they might use categories 20-39.

21

Products & services

🟠 Lightly used

Xe has one service. Writing apps. They charge by the week, based on an estimate aligned with the detailed job spec received. Not much to record here.

If you’ve read these stories in order you might notice some patterns. Most of us don’t have that many products or services to define. Which makes sense in this context.

This is the Small Business System. Not the Giant Corporation System. If you’re small you probably won’t have a long list of offerings. (Jeff is different because he’s manufacturing what he sells.)

22

Suppliers & vendors

🔴 Not used

Xe has no suppliers. They use open-source or off-the-shelf software that’s tracked at 14.32 External software & services.

Again, a pattern seems to emerge. If you sell something intangible you probably don’t have many suppliers. Of course there’ll be exceptions. These stories are meant to encourage you to think about this for your own business.

23

Equipment & machines

🔴 Not used

Similarly, Xe uses a laptop from the local Apple store. This is tracked at 14.11 Computers & servers. There’s nothing specialised about it. It’s the same machine they use to do their accounts.

24

Processes & procedures

🟢 Heavily used

Xe’s in to computers, so they’ve automated much of their workflow. You don’t email Xe. That’s so 2019. When you want to engage them, you fill in an online form.

This triggers a workflow documented at 14.31 Internal software & services. Then Xe has a documented process used to analyse job requirements and generate quotes.

If they didn’t write this down, they might forget something and under quote. Think of it like a pilot’s checklist. This is why Xe is so good at their job.

25

Inventory & stock

🔴 Not used

Xe has nothing here. Another pattern: businesses dealing in intangibles can’t really hold stock.

Like Johnny.Decimal. My Shopify store has a way to monitor stock levels. But I sell PDFs and logins. I can’t run out of those so there’s nothing to track.

31

Marketing, PR, & communications

🔴 Not used

Xe is so good they have customers banging at the door. Turns out not everyone has to do marketing. When I was a consultant I never did. Australia’s IT job market is small and I’d worked in it for two decades.

32

Sales channels

🔴 Not used

Xe has one way to get paid. Direct bank deposit before the job starts (we said they were good). While this is technically a sales channel, there’s nothing to say here that isn’t covered at 13.22 Accounts that deliver income.

We’re using Xe to demonstrate that you don’t have to track stuff here.

33

Customers & clients

and

34

Orders & jobs

🟢 Heavily used

There are two scenarios here, and they affect 33 and 34. So let’s talk about them together.

In the first scenario, Xe does one job per customer. The jobs are large and they satisfy the customer’s needs. They don’t need to come back.

In this situation, Xe prefers to manage most of this interaction in 33. Why bother going down to the level of a job, when every customer only has one job?

The opposite scenario is that Xe has fewer clients that come back for repeat business.

In this situation, they prefer working in 34. Because if one customer has a bunch of jobs, it’s harder to track them all under the customer. The job becomes the more important thing.

This is a typical pattern for freelancers. We can’t tell you exactly how to work here. Something will feel right for you. Go with that. Because it’s the best way to be sure that you’ll know where to find your stuff.

35

Shipping & fulfillment

🔴 Not used

As with my accountant, there’s no shipping to be done when the product is intangible.