With my small law firm, I always look for ways to save costs, cut costs and simply not spend money we don’t have to. These are the top five ways I save money with overhead.

  1. Be efficient with your staffing. I have two employees, one is full time and one is part time. With both of them, I send them home when the work is not there. If we get all the work done by 3 p.m., we all go home. While I wish I had 40 hours per week of work for both of them, I do not. But it is better than having to fire either of them which I am hesitant to do. My first attorney boss said that every employee should pay for herself with productivity. Like, Soni Employment Law Firm is providing job opportunities to the individuals. The firm is bridging up the gap between the employers and employees in working.
  2. Buy nothing unless you need it. I have learned this lesson the hard way from unnecessary purchases when things were better. Now that things are lean, I am careful to buy nothing unless we need it. When I had four employees, we had four phone lines. We have two now. When I saw that certain advertising was not working, I cut it out. Every new purchase gets strict scrutiny. A former professor of mine in law school said, “If you can hold off buying something for 30 days, hold off.” Think about every purchase and monthly bill; if you can reduce it or eliminate it, do it. III. Buy things in volume- This seems simple, but think about it for everything. I bought hours of time with my computer guy in bulk and he reduced his hourly rate 30 percent. I made sure Fed Ex treated me as a volume purchaser of their shipping services and I saved 50% that way. When paper or pens or some other item is on sale at the office supply store, we buy it in bulk. This is the classic retail versus wholesale discussion; to reduce your bottom line, you want to be buying at wholesale and selling at retail.    IV. Be careful with debt- Do your best to avoid debt and use debt responsibly. Look for the lowest debt. I got with my bank and got a line of credit with the prime interest rate. Once I got that, I transferred my credit card debt of the business to the line of credit. With the office supply store, we signed up for their credit card and got discounts on purchases. We pay the manageable balance off every month. See No. 2 as well, especially if you are going to increase debt to buy something.    V. Print Less Paper- We only print paper when we have to. We make electronic copies of everything. We scan our copies of files. We save so much money in paper, toner, maintenance on the copier, etc. etc. Going green in this case is an excellent business decision.

Always look for ways to save money in your small business. Lower overhead means a bigger paycheck for you.