Part 2 walked you through one plugin. A construction client’s tender process, packaged so the whole team runs it the same way. How? We created their own internal “marketplace” for their business. A list of AI workflows that they could use.
One process. Four stages. Job done.
Now I want to zoom out.
Because one plugin is a productivity win. A menu of them is something else entirely.
I have a thesis on this too:
Every process in your business that lives in someone’s head is a liability.
Every process you package is an asset.
Do that ten times over, and you haven’t just saved hours. You’ve built a business that upholds your standards when you’re not in the room.
Let me show you what that looks like.
The App Store In Your Pocket
You already understand this concept. You use it every day.
Pick up your phone. You want to book a train, so you open the train app. Checking your bank, so you open the banking app. You don’t build the app; you don’t explain to your phone how trains work. You tap the icon and the thing does its job.
Now imagine that for your business.
Someone in the office needs to get a quote out.
They open the “quoting” one. It already knows your structure, your rate rules, your tone.
Someone on site needs to write up a job handover.
They open the “handover” one. It already knows what a proper handover looks like in your business, because you told it once.
Someone gets a complaint on a Friday afternoon.
They open the “complaints” one. It knows your process, your tone, and when to escalate to you.
That’s a company marketplace. Your own menu of plugins, one per process, available to whoever needs them.
And here’s what Anthropic has done with Claude. They’ve built exactly this.
Organisations can set up their own plugin marketplace, so the team browses and installs from an approved list. Like an app store, but the only apps on it are yours.
#1 – Organise It By Job, Not By Tool
First mistake people make: they think about the technology.
“We need an AI for email. We need an AI for documents.”
No, you don’t. You need your processes packaged. Organise by what people actually do.
Sales Side
Enquiry handling. Quote building. Follow-up. Proposal writing. Each one a plugin that knows how your business sells.
Office Side
Invoicing. Supplier enquiries. Booking and scheduling. The Monday report. Each one packaged so the person doing it today does it the same way as the person doing it next year.
Field Side
Job handovers. Site reports. Snagging lists. The stuff that gets done on a phone in a van, badly, at half five on a Friday.
You end up with a menu that mirrors your business.
New starter in the office? Point them at the office plugins. That’s their induction on how you do things, and they can use it on day one.
Twenty Years Of Watching This Go Wrong
I’ve spent a long time in corporate software teams. Big companies. Big budgets.
And the number one reason systems failed wasn’t the tech. It was that someone built the thing around the software instead of around the people using it.
I worked on a system once where the sales team had to fill in fourteen fields to log a call. Fourteen. Guess how many calls got logged.
Build the menu around the jobs your people do. Not around what the tool can do.
#2 – Turn Shadow AI Into Sanctioned AI
Cast your mind back to Part 1. The lad pasting client quotes into free ChatGPT on his personal account.
The reason he did it was simple. The company gave him nothing better.
A marketplace fixes that. Not with a policy document nobody reads. With something more useful than his workaround.
Approved Workflows
Everything on the menu is something you’ve signed off. The quote plugin builds quotes the way you want them built. Not the way the AI guesses, and not the way whoever’s using it thinks is best.
Approved Tools
The plugins connect to your systems. Your CRM, your accounts package, your file storage. On company accounts, with company permissions. Not a personal login you’ll never know about.
Your Data Rules
You decide what the plugins can see and what they can touch. And with Claude, you can see what got used. Which plugin, by whom, doing what. Try getting that from someone’s private chat history.
Now here’s the bit I want you to notice.
You haven’t banned anything. You haven’t policed anyone. You’ve just made the right way the easy way. Your team stops using the shadow version because the company version does a better job. Control without the fight.
I’ve watched businesses try the ban approach. It never works. Your best people just go quiet about it. Give them a better tool, and they’ll come to you.
#3 – The Asset Nobody Talks About
This is the principle that matters most. And it’s got nothing to do with saving time.
Go back to the estimator from Part 2. His spreadsheet. Years of rules in his head. Business in trouble if he leaves.
We packaged his rules. Now the process belongs to the company.
Do that across every process on your menu and something changes about your business.
You Stop Being The Bottleneck
Be honest. How many decisions a week land on your desk because you’re the only one who knows “how we do it here”?
The quote that needs your eyes. The complaint only you can answer. The proposal that has to sound like you.
Every one of those is a process that lives in your head. Package it, and it stops needing you. Your standard gets applied without you applying it.
A Business, Not A Job
Here’s the 2 am question I hear from every owner I work with.
“If I disappeared for a month, would this place survive?”
For most, the honest answer is not well.
A plugin marketplace is the closest thing I’ve found to a real answer. Because it forces you to write down how the business runs. And then it makes that the way the business runs, whether you’re there or not.
That’s the difference between owning a business and owning a job.
Worth More When You Sell
One more angle, because nobody thinks about it until it matters.
A buyer looks at a business that depends on the owner and knocks the price down. The same buyer looks at a business with every process documented and packaged, and pays for the system.
You’re building that system either way. Might as well build it as an asset.
#4 – What It Won’t Do (And What It Needs)
Same rule as the agents series. If someone tells you this runs your whole business, hold on to your wallet.
No Judgement, No Relationships
A plugin does the process. It doesn’t decide whether to take on the awkward client. It doesn’t have the coffee that turns into next year’s contract. That’s still you. Frankly, that’s the work you should be doing with the hours this gives back.
It Needs Looking After
This one I need to be straight with you about.
Plugins connect to your tools. Your tools change. Claude changes, and fast. Your business changes. A plugin nobody looks after drifts out of date, and it drifts quietly.
Think of it like a fleet of vans. Nobody buys a van and expects it to run for five years with no servicing. Same here. Every plugin on your menu needs someone keeping it current, testing it after changes, and updating it when your process moves on.
Not a reason to avoid it. Just a cost to plan for. I’ll cover what that looks like in Part 4.
Plugins And Agents Are Siblings
If you read my last series on AI agents, you might be wondering how this fits.
Simple. Agents are workflows that run themselves. Quote chasing, invoice nudging, the Monday report. No human needed.
Plugins are workflows your team runs. Someone picks it off the menu and drives it.
Most businesses want both. The agents handle the stuff that just needs doing. The plugins make sure that when a human does something, they do it your way. In the construction build from Part 2, both live side by side. The plugin runs the tender process. Agents on their own server handle the bits that fire automatically.
Conclusion: Your Own Marketplace For Your AI Workflows
One plugin packages one process. A marketplace packages the business.
Going back to my four principles:
- Organise it by job, not by tool
- Turn shadow AI into sanctioned AI
- Build it as the asset it is
- Know what it won’t do, and plan for looking after it
The technology bit isn’t the hard bit. Anthropic has built the marketplace. I build the plugins. That’s sorted.
The hard bit is deciding your business is worth writing down.
Most owners never do it, because there’s always a quote to get out. And so the business stays in their head, and the 2 am question stays unanswered.
Part 4 is the practical one. How to pick your first plugin, what the build looks like, how long it takes, what it costs, and how you get from one to a menu without losing your mind.
I hope this helps.
Oh, just one more thing. If you want a head start on Part 4, go and grab the AI & Automation Readiness Report. Five minutes. It shows you which of your processes are most stuck in people’s heads. That’s your shortlist for what goes on the menu first.
