5 roles
The small business stack
The point at which work is handed between people, so the tools stop being personal and start being shared. What changes from the lean starter is not capability but visibility: two people need to see the same file and know who has it.
For: One to five people, at least one of them support staff, writing consistently.
The roles this stage has to fill
One tool per role, no overlap. We have not named the tools, because naming them is a recommendation five deep and no product has been tested yet — what follows is the shape, and the whole field for each part of it.
Now with roles and permissions, because more than one person writes to it.
12 products we track →
A pipeline with stages, so "where is that deal" has an answer nobody has to ask for.
21 products we track →
Chasing is the largest single time cost in a small brokerage, and it is the most delegable.
33 products we track →
Unchanged, and used earlier in the conversation than it was.
12 products we track →
A fact-find a client fills in themselves. It is what makes the first meeting about the plan.
20 products we track →
What this stage leaves out
A stack is defined as much by what is not in it. Every one of these is a real category a broker could buy from today, and at this stage it does not earn the money.
- A separate marketing platform — the CRM covers it at this size
- Commission reconciliation software — a spreadsheet still wins under about 100 loans a year
Before this names a single product
Every tool in each role has to have been run in a real account for a working week and scored against the published criteria, and its list price confirmed in AUD rather than converted. Until then this gives you the shape and the field, which is worth more than a stack naming three products nobody has used.