The more variable your expenses, the more predictable your profits. Predictable is good. Predictable means less stress. I love variable expenses.

Nearly every expense in a law firm can become variable. It’s not easy to achieve. Well, actually, it is easy to achieve. But it’s tough because it requires thinking very differently. Thinking differently is hard.

Are you ready for different thinking? Are you ready to let go of the “here’s why that won’t work” mind set? Are you ready to take a leap that will reduce your stress, increase your happiness, and help you grow a stronger, healthier business?

Here are five ideas for turning fixed expenses into variable expenses. Pick one (or all) and give it try. Before you know it, you’ll be worried about something other than money at the law firm.

1. Eliminate the Expense

Before you make it variable, consider whether it needs to be done.

Are you paying someone to file paper documents after they’ve been scanned? Why? Is there a good reason for saving the paper, or is it done because “that’s the way we do it”? Is the receptionist routing the calls to your assistant before the assistant routes the call to you? Why not streamline that process by eliminating the role of the receptionist and the assistant?

Don’t automatically turn fixed expenses into variable expenses. First, stop and consider whether that expense is warranted at this point in your evolution.

2. Outsource the Expense

Outsourcing typically results in paying for services as you use them. You eliminate the fixed overhead of having employees waiting for the next project. The outsourced vendor is often highly motivated to please the customer, so you get the benefit of an energetic business committed to keeping you happy.

We regularly outsource functions that are routine or complicated. We farm out janitorial services and coffee stocking at the low end. We farm out accounting, expert analysis, and computer support at the high end. Then we get bogged down when it comes to outsourcing much of the middle.

Why not outsource the phone answering? How about the bookkeeping? What about filing and indexing the scanned documents? Benefits administration? How about paralegal support? What about outsourcing legal research?

Can you outsource the legal work? How about outsourcing the non-client contact piece of the legal work? What about outsourcing the legal work entirely (too soon?). You get the idea. Let’s face it: someone outsourced the work to you, right? Anything is possible if you expand your mind set.

3. Pay More for It

We assume that we’re stuck with five-year (or more) office space leases and lengthy equipment leases for copiers, etc. We’re not.

We lock ourselves into longer-term arrangements because we want the best deal. But is it really the best deal when your business is slow or changes and you’re stuck with the lease or ownership of the building?

Analyze the long term and see whether you might not be better off getting what you need for a shorter term and paying a little more. Replace your optimism with realism and decide whether you’ll care about the increased expense if revenues are soaring anyway. Do you really mind paying for a little more space at a premium rate if it’s required to handle that unexpected gigantic fee?

The premium price may give you the flexibility to change as your needs change. We know the price per square foot on leased space. What if you go with a six-month lease at Regus? What if you go month to month? What if you go hour to hour? Don’t assume a good deal for the long-term is really a good deal over the long-term. Yep, shift your thinking.

4. Go Remote

Move your team out of the fixed space and into the cloud. You’ll cut your real estate expense and enable yourself the flexibility you need to make that commitment more flexible. By moving to the cloud, you’ll eliminate hardware expense and the physical space associated with servers. You’ll attract a team more interested in the work than hanging out in the office, and you’ll reinforce your thinking that all elements can be variable. Shifting to a remote team puts traditional employees on par with the outsourced team and the “us vs. them” thinking dissolves. Remote work isn’t an essential element of shifting toward variable expenses, but it’s oddly helpful.

5. Payroll Shift

The old way involved fixed salaries and benefit packages. That day is done.

The best lawyers in the world are all on variable pay. Do you really think the lawyers leading the industry are living on a fixed salary? Come on. Do the leaders of the world’s most successful firms participate financially in the success of the firm? Of course they do.

Only the mediocre players get stuck with a “guaranteed” income and maybe some small bonus. The winners are all rolling the dice—and winning.

Move your team to some form of commission system. Keep it simple. Ease it out and manage the change carefully with your people buying into the change as you go. Payroll is your biggest expense, and making it variable is the key to shifting the bulk of your expenses to a coupling with revenues and profits.

Variable expenses are a gigantic stress reducer. They’re better than some treatments for anxiety. You’ll never mind an increase in expenses during a good month. More importantly, you’ll be incredibly grateful for decreased expenses in a bad month.

Go variable, or go home. Start thinking differently and looking for ways to bring some peace, quiet, and tranquility to your profit and loss statement. With variable expenses, you’ll find the stress reduction you need.

[ While I have you here, I wanted to remind you that you can get the latest articles delivered to your inbox a week before they go up on the web. Just one email per week. Sign up here. ]