Most operations are overhead to minimize or outsource. But when operational work directly increases client value or creates a multiplier effect, it becomes part of shipping and should be counted as revenue-generating, not cost.
What about operations? Some of the people who I talk to in Automate who are, you know, doing professional services are themselves doing ops, right? Ops for other companies. And a question becomes, well, what about ops on our own book? How does that fit into the study, sell, and ship framework in terms of how one allocates time? Because none of those actually seem like doing operations or administrative work. Like, where does that go? And the answer is generally it doesn't go anywhere. You want to drive that to zero. This is where getting external help comes into play because The thing about operations is that most of the time it's not making you money. It's not creating knowledge, it's not creating reputation, it's not creating cash flow. And so you're looking to shrink that. It's like, it's a G&A type expense. But I will say that like, there are many situations in which when you have identified initiatives where significant effort is going to make you more money, that's usually what we mean by ops. Well, then you book it to the part where it makes you money, which is say shipping. That shipping things will actually create a multiplier for your clients. That is worth doing. That is shipping.
