Why Most Brisbane Business Owners are Overpaying for Tech
I’ve sat down with a lot of business owners across South East Queensland—from electricians in Coorparoo to boutique law firms in the CBD. There is one thing almost all of them have in common: they are paying for way too much software they don't actually use.
It usually starts small. You get an app to help with your emails. Then you get a different one for your quotes. Then another for your social media. Before you know it, you’re spending $1,500 a month on 'subscriptions' and you’re still spending your Sunday nights manually entering data into a spreadsheet.
If you feel like you're working for your software instead of it working for you, you’re not alone. But here’s the blunt truth: having ten different tools doesn't make you a 'modern' business. It makes you a disorganized one.
In this guide, I’m going to show you how to trim the fat, get your systems talking, and ultimately stop juggling apps so you can get back to what actually makes you money—serving your customers.
The Real Cost of 'App Bloat'
When I talk about 'app bloat,' I’m not just talking about the monthly credit card bill (though that’s a big part of it). I’m talking about the hidden costs that are killing your profit margins.
1. The 'Double Entry' Tax
If your staff has to take a name and number from a website enquiry and manually type it into your job management software, you are losing money. Every minute spent re-typing information is a minute not spent on a billable job.2. The Leaky Bucket
When your tools don't talk to each other, customers fall through the cracks. I’ve seen businesses lose $10,000 jobs because a lead came in through a Facebook message, but the person who handles the quotes only looks at the email inbox.3. The Digital Headache
Every new tool you add is another password to remember, another interface to learn, and another thing that can break. It creates 'mental clutter' for you and your team.How to Audit Your Tech (The 'Keep, Cut, or Combine' Method)
You don't need a degree in IT to fix this. You just need a piece of paper and thirty minutes. List every single software subscription you pay for. Then, ask these three questions:
Does this directly help me get more customers? Does this save me at least 5 hours of work a week? Does this talk to my other tools?
If the answer to all three is 'no,' cancel it today. You won't miss it. Most of what you read online about 'must-have' tools is rubbish pushed by people who get a commission for selling them to you.
Predicting the Future: Where Business Tech is Going in 2024 and Beyond
The 'trend' for the last ten years was 'there's an app for that.' The trend for the next five years is 'one platform for everything.'
Smart business owners in Brisbane are moving away from having a separate tool for email, a separate tool for SMS, and a separate tool for their CRM. They are moving toward 'All-in-One' systems. Why? Because when everything is in one place, you can finally see exactly where sales come from without needing to be a data scientist.
Prediction 1: The Death of the 'Niche' App
Small businesses are tired of 'integration hell.' We are seeing a massive shift toward platforms that handle the entire 'Customer Journey'—from the first time they see your ad on Google to the moment they pay their final invoice.Prediction 2: Speed Wins
Google likes websites that load fast, and customers like businesses that respond fast. If your tech stack is a mess of 20 different plugins, your website will be slow. If you consolidate, your site speeds up, and you show up higher in search results. It's that simple.Practical Steps: What Should You Do First?
If you want to grow your business without losing your mind, here is the order I recommend for most local businesses:
1. Get One Source of Truth: Pick one place where all your customer info lives. This is your CRM (Customer Relationship Manager). If a customer isn't in there, they don't exist. 2. Automate the Boring Stuff: Make sure your website contact form automatically puts the person's info into your CRM. You should never have to copy-paste a phone number. 3. Connect Your Comms: Try to get your email and SMS coming out of the same system. This way, when you look at a customer's file, you see every conversation you've ever had with them in one timeline.
I’ve seen this work for dozens of Brisbane businesses. We worked with a landscaper in The Gap who was using three different apps to manage leads. Once we moved them into one unified system, they stopped losing quotes and increased their bookings by 30% in two months because they actually followed up on every lead.
What is a Waste of Money?
Don't let a salesperson convince you that you need 'Custom Built' software. Unless you are running a global logistics firm, you don't need it. It’s expensive, it breaks, and you’ll be married to the developer forever.
Instead, look for 'Off-the-shelf' tools that are flexible. You want to make your software talk to each other using simple connections rather than paying someone $50,000 to build something from scratch.
The Bottom Line
Marketing isn't about having the fanciest tools; it's about making it easy for people to buy from you. If your current 'tech stack' is making it harder for you to talk to customers, it's failing you.
Consolidating your tools will: Save you money on monthly fees. Save you hours of admin time. Make your business look more professional to your customers.
Ready to stop the tech headache and start growing?
At Local Marketing Group, we help Brisbane business owners cut through the noise. We don't care about 'algorithms'—we care about your phone ringing. If you want a hand simplifying your systems so you can focus on running your business, let's have a chat.