Set it and Regret it: the Power and Pitfalls of Subscriptions
My wife and I had a disagreement the other night, and it was caused by Amazon, faith in the concept of “set it and forget it”, and several giant barrels of Utz pretzels.
You see, I am what might generously be called a “power user” of Amazon. I like buying stuff and Amazon likes selling stuff so we’re kind of a match made in heaven. Christine (aforesaid wife) refers to me as the procurement department of our family. I’ve chosen to think of that as a compliment.
One of my favorite things about Amazon is their “subscribe and save” feature, in which you can attempt to buy something (to wit: a barrel of pretzels) and get not just the single item you intended to buy, but an endless stream of that item delivered to your home monthly, forever, till death do you part.
Sounds awesome, right? Well, there is the minute possibility that you might get sick and tired of eating, like, all the pretzels. Causing you to end up with a closet full of giant barrels of pretzels you are hiding from your wife until she finds them when you move (NB: I just moved). I tried to explain that the extra pretzel barrels could be useful for all sorts of things, like building a fort, tying together into a raft in case of a flood (not to brag, but I was almost a Webelo) or just riding out a global pandemic in a carb-induced stupor.
(Christine, it should be noted here, is a more moderate person than me by virtually any measure, and thinks that snack foods should probably come in containers smaller than barrels. And that in the alternative, probably having one such barrel on hand at a time is sufficient for a non-commercial setting.)
Subscribe and save, you see, offers two benefits to the subscriber. First, it gives me a modest discount off of Amazon’s already pretty aggressive pricing, which is nice. Second, and more important, by automating a decision, it removes one item from my list of things to worry about; a list currently populated with global pandemics, looming recessions, and growing panic over a lack of new movies being released. Full plate, guys.
Subscribe and save also, as you might expect, offers some enticing benefits to the sellers, the first, second and third of which are that they make more money selling things as subscriptions than as individual items. Why? Because I am not a unique and beautiful snowflake when it comes to forgetting to cancel subscriptions and continuing to pay for things I don’t really want or use. Happens to all of us.
At this point, you may be justifiably asking yourself what any of this has to do with law practice management. Which brings us to the topic of the day: subscriptions.
Subscriptions have become the business model darling of the technology and legal tech world. That subscription models are so widely and enthusiastically embraced by tech companies should be enough to flash a big neon warning sign at you about whether they’re as good a deal for the consumer as they are for the seller. There can be real upsides to buying things like practice management software or a phone system on subscription pricing: they allow you to avoid up-front, capital expenditures like purchasing a server; they allow you to toggle up and down the number of seats to the exact amount you need, so that if your staff grows or shrinks you’re not stuck with too much or too little tech; and they generally reduce the cost of IT maintenance and the pain of upgrades. All good stuff.
Here’s the thing, though; you have to be careful with getting into a subscription. Some subscriptions end up being high value, mission-critical parts of the infrastructure of your law firm. And some end up being giant barrels of pretzels.
All of which is to say that subscriptions – or as my colleague, Catherine Sanders Reach might refer to them – automations are a powerful tool. They can reduce your cognitive load (and given the to-do list that most lawyers carry around in their brains, that is a substantial benefit). But if you don’t manage your subscriptions and automations closely, you can find yourself draining your cashflow and stocking up on goods, services and software that do not provide you enough bang for your buck.
So, go on and embrace subscriptions. Find the things that really matter to your practice and get them automated. But build in a regular (I’d suggest annually – July makes a handy time) review period to look at what you’re spending and what you’re getting in return, and make sure you’re getting the ROI you want in exchange.
Or just hope you really, really like pretzels.