--- title: "The operating model" description: "The old flywheel put a database in the middle and arranged marketing, sales and service around it. The new shape puts something that has read every conversation there, and each of the four motions reads the middle before it moves and hands back everything it hears." canonical: https://kesey.agency/notes/operating-model author: John Serrantino publisher: Kesey date: 2026-09-19 modified: 2026-11-04 --- > Markdown twin of https://kesey.agency/notes/operating-model. The page is the version with the drawings; this is the same words for a reader that wants text. Part of [Notes from the highway](https://kesey.agency/notes/). The operating model **/ after the flywheel** # The middle changed jobs. By [John Serrantino](https://kesey.agency/about-john), founder of Kesey For ten years the picture of a business was three departments around a database, and the database held what somebody typed into it. **That is not what sits in the middle any more.** Change the middle and every motion around it changes too. You used to write to the middle. *Now you read from it.* **Prospect **Market **Sell **Serve Before ## The old middle was a filing cabinet *Marketing hands to sales, sales hands to service, and the middle holds whatever somebody remembered to type in. Every version of this picture shipped with an adoption project attached.* The three boxes came off an org chart, not off anything a customer goes through. Nothing a support rep heard on Tuesday reached the seller on the same account on Thursday unless one of them wrote it down and the other went looking. After ## The new middle is a witness **Out.** What the brain tells the motion. A name, a reason, a draft. **In.** What the motion tells the brain. Every conversation, with nobody filing a report. *Every motion reads from the middle and feeds it. What one of them learns reaches the other three in the same week, not the same year.* The brain EMAIL, CALENDAR, CALLS, KEPT WHOLE Someone decides Prospect who is worth calling this week Out: a name and a reason  /  In: every call it makes Market what buyers are saying back Out: the objection to answer  /  In: what landed Sell what this deal is missing Out: the gap in the room  /  In: the whole call Serve which account is quietly leaving Out: the account to look at  /  In: what they said *Every motion reads from the middle and feeds it. What one of them learns reaches the other three in the same week, not the same year.* Nobody fills this in. It knows because the meeting happened, the thread got answered and somebody picked up the phone. The proof ## Four motions, and what each one hears ### Prospect **It hears** A competitor named on a call three weeks ago. A champion who moved. A small account behaving like a customer before it buys. **So** The list is built from what you have already been told, and every name arrives with its reason. **It was** A bought list, sorted by headcount and title. ### Market **It hears** The same objection in four discovery calls this month, in the buyer's own words. **So** This month's writing answers what people keep saying, and the middle counted how often. **It was** Segments built on clicks and form fills. ### Sell **It hears** Every conversation on the deal, whole, the next morning. Who was there, what was promised, what was dodged. **So** What a deal is missing becomes arithmetic instead of recollection. **It was** A notes field, a stage, and what the rep could reconstruct on a Friday. ### Serve **It hears** A consult cancelled with nothing booked after it. A renewal coming while usage falls and questions rise. **So** The account raises its own hand while it is still cheap to fix. **It was** A ticket queue, and an account that leaves quietly never files a ticket. Why it compounds ## It still turns. It just never comes back to the same place. *Three laps, the same four stations, and the middle is wider every time round.* On the old picture the loop closed once per customer: a happy one eventually referred somebody. Through the middle it closes in a week. **And every lap leaves something behind.** The stations do not move. The business turning up at them knows more each time. The honest part ## A brain nobody reads is a tidier database The dashed ring in that picture is the part most versions of this argument leave out, and the part that decides whether any of it is worth money. It knows Surfaces what happened and what looks worth a second glance. Gets cheaper every quarter. Someone decides A person reads it and says what is worth doing. Does not get cheaper. It acts Sends, books, writes, calls. Never before a person has said so. Take the middle one out and you have an expensive search box. The stack ## Four layers, and only three of them are software - Reach **BrandJet.** Starts the conversations that would not start on their own. - The brain **Day.ai.** Builds the record from the email, the calendar and the calls, so nobody is the keyboard. An existing HubSpot stays the record and the brain sits beside it. - The motions The four above. Each reads the middle before it moves and hands back what it hears. - The judgment **The part that is a person.** Deciding what is worth acting on this week, and answering for it when it was the wrong call. [The stack](https://kesey.agency/stack) names every tool in the first two rows and says why it is there. Every vendor is selling you the first three. The fourth one is the job. ## Most of this is already sitting in your email. Thirty minutes. You describe how work reaches you and where it gets dropped, and we tell you which motion is worth wiring first. If the answer is none of them yet, we say so on the call. [Book a call](https://kesey.agency/book)