How to Stop Wasting Money on Tools You Don’t Use

If you’re like most business owners, you’re paying for software every month that you barely touch or don’t really need. In this eye-opening episode, we unpack the real reason so many businesses overspend on technology… and how to fix it.

This isn’t just about shaving off a few dollars. It’s about understanding what your business actually needs to function well, and how to stop letting underused tools quietly eat away at your bottom line.

You’ll learn:

• How to evaluate which tools are truly essential to your workflow
• What “total cost of ownership” means and why price isn’t the full picture
• How mismatched software creates silent productivity drains
• The right way to audit your tech stack (and how often to do it)
• When to consolidate, renegotiate, or cut completely

Whether you’re a solopreneur or leading a team, this conversation will shift how you think about your tech and help you make leaner, smarter decisions moving forward.

Need help with evaluating your software stack? Apply for Thrive360 Business Solutions here, and we’ll help you streamline and scale your business.

Transcript for “Are you overpaying for software you don’t use?”

The transcript below was automatically generated. Please ignore any errors or inconsistencies in the text.

Anna Angelova   0:05
Happy Thursday. This is More Than Just Task Management, your favorite daily podcast where we help you build a thriving business with me, Anna Angelova, business coach and consultant, and Joris Minosvant, my co-host and business consultant. Hey, Joris.

Jores Minasvand   0:23
Hi Anna, happy Thursday.
What is the topic for today?

Anna Angelova   0:28
So.
Yes, today we are diving into a topic that as I mentioned yesterday, it’s something we All struggle with, whether it’s small business, mid-sized and corporations, I would say probably especially corporations, but even as small mid-sized businesses, we we tend to get into.
This thing where we overpay for software, we overpay for technology and I know we have mentioned this before, but one thing that we had conversations around the topic before where it’s like we have.
A certain tool and then these two we know that it we’re using it for like one function or one feature it has. It has 10 more features, but we’re not using it. We go and get another tool that has kind of overlaps with the first one and and we’re using a feature that overlaps.
And it’s like even with small businesses, we we tend to overpay, we tend to get more tools than we need. And like even thinking about it, I’ll give an example with us as well. So when you think about it with scheduling software.
Scheduling we have, so we do have our own system with scheduling and this one I think it’s based on.
Oh.
Calendly, yeah, I think ours is based on Calendly for scheduling. So part of the things that we’re we’ve already paid for some of these things like it’s with Calendly’s functionality and for for scheduling where people can come and schedule, I think they can see our availability and schedule.
Now Microsoft that you know that we are using, if you are a regular reasoner, you know that we use Microsoft Stack and the Microsoft Stack also has booking functionality. Is it at the level of Canon Lin? No.
Could we use the the build in booking from Microsoft? Absolutely. It has All the necessary features for simple bookings that that that we do. So it’s really.
This is again, as I said, even something that we do, we paid for that system we have that includes Calendly and we’re also paying for Microsoft subscriptions and things like this. So even we are overpaying for some of these things.
And the The thing is that when you from one perspective, yes, we’ll probably always overpay for something because the the different tools they they overlap and the feature that let’s say the booking on on for for teams might not be.
As nice as the one for Calendly, so I could prefer to use Calendly, but then there are opportunities for a lot of us to once in a while sit down and see like what software are we using? What are we paying for? How much are we paying for these things?
Are there overlaps where we can actually decide to get rid of one thing and keep the other? And this is actually where I open the floor for you, Joris, to share a little bit about the whole journey of and process of looking into.
Ultimately your tech stack and figuring out are you overpaying for teams and what the next steps would be.

Jores Minasvand   4:18
Thanks, Anna. I think we talked about this about a month, month and a half ago in one of our episodes. I don’t remember. I think it was the tech, how to pick a tech or or for your business or one of those episodes where the reason behind everything that you mentioned and everything you mentioned is true.
Is because we jump to technology right away. We don’t start with the business process. We don’t start. We don’t look at what we’re actually automating or or digitizing or digitalizing and we jump to a technology because I googled it and Google said this is the the top CRM for law firms or.
I was at a pool party and I read two of the people there said they’re using this or so it’s OK to to get to take other people’s opinions and Google ratings.
Into consideration. However, when you talk about the features and maximizing the the return on investment ROI on a on a technology that you put money into, you need to start with your business process, map it out to that technology.
Go literally make a list of your all the features that you need for that process. Compare it to the every single software, legitimate software on the Internet has all the list of features. Compare those two tables, put them into a an Excel and see how much of A tool.
Are you going to use? Yes, there is a tool that’s used for all lawyers, CRM, but you’re not the same as other lawyers. Your values are different, your processes are different, your business is different. So map it out to see how much of the features are actually map out to your processes.
And if you don’t end up using 80% of any technology, don’t buy it. Minimum 80%. And today, again, software developers, platform developers, they understand businesses much far, far better than they did in the 1990s when and the 2000 when I started.
They were mostly single function and they were all delivering a technology function like e-mail, a communication function. But now when you if you look at some of the CRM systems that that even the one we’re using, it has invoicing, it has notification, it has customer journey, it allows you to set up.
Salespeople so they understand the entire business before they build a platform. So it’s on you to understand how that platform applies to your business, fits within your business to make 80%.
That’s for the adoption. And then when it comes to the usage, always also understand the usage of are you using it the right way? Are you using it in the right time? And I think you’d like this example that I have many, many moons back I used to.
Consult for a company called Direct Energy. They don’t exist anymore, so I can name them. They left Canada. There was a division that did all the consumer reporting for for US and I I was in IT and I was flipping from IT to business and I saw an order.
For them to purchase 4 new servers, year end money leftover and I actually went to the IT manager and I asked server manager team and I asked them Adrian and I said stop the order, they don’t need more servers.
So 2-3 days later went by and the VP saw the the order stopped and they I asked them and they said that I had stopped it. So he actually called the director for our division, asked them to fire me because I had stopped one of these orders. So it turned into a very big like it exploded so.
Our CTO, everybody got on a call with their president and I showed them a report of usage, a report on their report usage. So what had happened was every day their VP by 11:30 AM needed all the reports on his desk.
Consolidated. So everybody came in to work at 7:30. They pounded the system.
One server to its Max where it would completely run out of CPU and memory to give the reports to the VP at 11:30 after 11:30 by 12 from 12:00 PM, which is noon until 7:30 the next morning, which is almost 19 hours, the servers were dead.
I’m talking like less than 5% usage and they were going to buy four more servers to do the same thing.
When I showed them the actual picture of how they use the system, the president was just sitting there, like looking at the screen like, huh? They had no idea how they’re using it, and they were about to spend $250,000 in in 2006.
Or more servers with and the results would have been the same. They would have zero improvement. So she asked, he said. So what do we do? What is the solution? I worked with her team. Actually 90% of the reports could have been automated, which we did. That ran from midnight to 7:00 AM, so actually.
A lot of the work before when they came at 7:30, they didn’t need to scramble until 11:30. All the work was done by the machines. So we took that one server and we utilized it to almost 90% and after almost a week, two weeks when we implemented all the new systems.
The server utilization, the ROI on the server that they had went up to 85%.
Not only they didn’t spend $250,000 on throw away money, they actually got more return on investment on their system that they had so.
This is just an example. Apply this logic to everything that you do. Understand the underlying reason, the process that you’re using and what is the bottleneck before you jump and buy the next technology. Oh, we need to go to the cloud. Oh, we need to do this. No. Understand the root cause of your problem. Understand the root cause of your system and your process.
That you’re putting digitalizing, then you will have the same a good platform that you can use and get your maximum, maximize your ROI and then you. Yeah, there’s 20% that that tool does not cover. Yes, you may need.
Other platform, but that platform will not be as costly as a as a platform that you’re using 80% of it. So it’s important to analyze your tech stack from a business perspective before you jump to tech.

Anna Angelova   11:10
And this is something that you can do as an exercise, especially as your business grows. You can do this kind of exercise like annually, let’s say like once a year, sit down and see, OK, these are our processes like this is, this is a process we have, the business process we have.
Now these are the technologies like the software, the tech stacks that we have and I I love what you said, Joris, like map out. OK, these are the features that all these different tools have and how do they correspond to the.
Process we have right now for this process, this is the things that we use and this can allow you to see gaps, it can allow you to see overlaps and to reevaluate and see where you are. And then of course another part of the paying overpaying for software is.
What happens? Very rarely companies come and tell you, oh, by the way, your fees reduced very, very rarely. And unfortunately this is how things work, especially the bigger players for bigger services and products and things like this.
So another thing as you’re doing this process annually is looking for ways to renegotiate things with your suppliers, with the product, with the software companies.
Because again, unfortunately this is the truth. It’s and Joris, I think you mentioned it yesterday when I talked about onboarding, how a lot of companies like they do so much to get you, acquire you as a client and then after that they’re they throw you under the bus or they completely forget about you and.
This happens, this happens. So as you are doing this kind of annual review, whether you’re overpaying for something, it gives you an option to look at what’s available in the market, what what’s available in terms of.
How it matches your business, what the prices look like and and see whether there are opportunities. And sometimes companies grandfather you at a good price, but other times they grandfather you at the price where they have something way better that’s cheaper.
And you are grandfathered at the old price with the old product. So I’m thinking or I would say like with our expertise like especially for small mid sized business once a year going through this exercise once a year should be more than enough like you don’t need to do it more often.
It doesn’t make sense. It’s it’s important because when you think about it, all these things, they pile up like the two that we are using actually Freedom Kit, it is I I I believe we we do like we we got it before we actually started the business.
And it was something that was part of a promotional offer with a course attached to it. So that’s why I got it. But ultimately what they were saying about it, and I know this from my own experience as well, when you add all these different components, so being able to send emails.
Emails the functionality, booking functionality, scheduling functionality, website, all these different things. When you add them, it’s $100 here, $100 there, 100 to 20 a month for this 150 a month for this one and suddenly you have like.
22 Each of them is anywhere from $20 to $100 a month, and you’re paying for these kind of things. You’re paying anywhere from a few 100 to a few $1000 a month for all these different components, and this one actually consolidates.
All of them, but the price is 500 a month for for regular subscribers and people who use these things. So looking for what’s out there, looking for things that are available.
Once in a while and being able to reevaluate things, it adds up. It adds up even if you think about like a few dollars here and there, and especially as I said, for small businesses like us.
It makes a difference that being able to save $200 a month, for example, it’s a significant saving.

Jores Minasvand   15:54
Totally agree. Every dollar counts and and that’s the when we talk about ROI. Well, there are two things when it comes to technology and even running a business processes. One is the ROI, but the other one is the total cost of ownership. People talk about the cost of it’s $500 a month.
But what is the total cost of ownership? If it’s not the right software and it’s costing your people 100 hours a month, 100 hours multiplied by the median salary that you pay $80.00 an hour, that’s $8000 a month.
So your actual value of the the the cost of sorry not value, the total cost of ownership of the software that you have that’s not the right fit. It’s 8500 a month, not 500 that you actually see on as a line in the in the invoice. It’s hidden costs of of of not having the right tech stack or.
Are also really, really.
I don’t know, showstoppers, I want to say, or business killers. They’re the silent killers where you don’t see. We had a software that the CISO of the company told us it’s $20,000 just implemented and and we’ll use it. It’s an amazing software six months later.
I think we spent $800,000. The software was so bad when it went to Centrica, which was the head office in UK. Centrica security team actually shut it down and they said this is not a secure software. We will not at all use this software and when they shut it down, we shut it down here so.
Wrong choice. And again, I don’t. I don’t want to get political, but choose the right software for the right process and both your return on investment will be quick and your total cost of ownership would be low.
And like you said, every year, uh, make sure you revisit it every six months to a year.

Anna Angelova   17:49
OK.
You mentioned something really key. So I know what I’ve been sharing has been a lot focused on pricing and how much you’re paying. You mentioned something really key with when it comes to overpaying their hidden costs.
And you said total cost of ownership and price alone absolutely is not a defining factor because let’s say like you said you you get something cheaper on the market, but this thing that’s cheaper on the market, it doesn’t actually talk with your other systems.
And which means that you need more manpower or you need turnarounds like you need to build something to to help it talk or you need people to do things manually extract from here to import there and like you said suddenly.
Instead of comparing or now I’m paying $20 where I was paying $50. You’re not paying $20.00 a month because your people spend 5 hours a month to actually connect things which like you said, if you take one person spending five hours a month, this is already can be already.
Even at a minimum salary, like someone who is, I don’t know, $20 or something like this, it’s still like $100. So you’re paying 120 where before the cost was.
50 So definitely, definitely thinking about the.
Cost the total cost of ownership, the total process, the complete process. And that’s why a lot of business owners and a lot of not just business owners, it’s your SUV worked with corporations where they need help, like people there need help to consolidate things to to make the right choices.
And now that we’re working with business owners, like a lot of small, mid-sized business owners, that’s why they come to us. They need help. They they need that outside perspective of someone with experience who comes in and and looks at the whole picture and is like.
This one might be cheaper on on paper, but this is how much it will actually cost you, so you’d better go with that one. And this is what we do with the drive 360 consulting solution, business solution like one of the things we do looking at the.
Systems you have, the tech systems you have, the software you have, how are you using it? Are you using it? Is this the right one for you or not? And the link is in the description so you can check it out. And we do work with only two to four clients a month. This is by application.
Because we want to keep the consulting very valuable and really make a difference for every client we work with. So if you need help with especially your software stack and like looking at at this part of your business.
Go and check the application and apply because like as I said, we do work with just a few clients every month and we can add you to a wait list depending on our workload.
But you can go check it out so we can get get back to you and let you know if if this is where you might need some help. Because yes, the conversations we have in the podcast, they are helpful and we do provide a lot of.
Experience and viewpoints where like when you talk about overpaying like how many people will will actually expand your view into it’s not just the price but the total cost of ownership and.
You can try it on your own, of course, but again, if you need help, we are here for you and we’ll be glad to jump on a Call and talk about this.
Yeah, absolutely.

Jores Minasvand   22:03
Yeah, absolutely. We can provide guidance before, during and after you acquire your tech on doing analysis at different levels. We have a lot of experience with this. So yeah, message us and we’ll definitely can help you out.
That was amazing, Anna. Thank you.

Anna Angelova   22:21
No, thank you. I always love the tech conversations. We know your experience and know late to the case. It’s always fantastic. It’s almost the end of the week, so tomorrow we are wrapping up our conversations with.

Jores Minasvand   22:28
Yes.

Anna Angelova   22:37
A conversation around hiring and outsourcing. So if you’re just starting or you’re looking for your next hire or or outsourcing things, tomorrow is for you and come back, listen to tomorrow’s conversation, which will be.
Another fantastic one. And you know, if you are a regular listener, you know that we always provide everything. Yes, we we try to do this in a matter of 1015 minutes. Sometimes we go overboard, but yeah.

Jores Minasvand   23:12
And and this will be a very good compliment to the conversation we have about delegation.

Anna Angelova   23:20
Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And if you miss the delegation, this was on Tuesday, I believe.
Yes, yeah, yeah, that’s correct. That’s correct. So absolutely come back tomorrow and enjoy today. Have a wonderful, wonderful day. You are doing amazing. Being a business owner is an adventure every single day and as fellow business owners, we are honored to be part of your journey and.
We’ll be back tomorrow. Bye.