Overhead costs are daunting for first-time business owners. In fact, the very thought of them may be enough to discourage budding entrepreneurs from their ideas completely! But all that overhead can actually be alleviated to a large degree.
Of course, you shouldn’t take this to mean that you can completely eliminate your overhead. This is impossible. (Although if you’ve managed to break the laws of logic, physics, and feasible finance and built a company without any costs, then please let us know how you did it.)
Get an accountant
You may wonder why there’s a suggestion to hire an accountant for your business in an article that’s supposed to be about slashing overhead costs. After all, accountants are hardly cheap. Isn’t that just adding an overhead cost? Accountants can actually help you save more money by keeping a close eye on all your expenses, knowing precisely when, where, and how to slash costs, and knowing how to get the most useful tax breaks available to your business. Unless you plan on doing all of that yourself (spoiler alert: you won’t have time to), you should hire an accountant.
Consider staying at home
Is your planned place of business somewhere that customers need to be able to access? If not, then you may want to consider conducting business from home, at least for the first year or so. Not getting an office can help you save a lot of time and money! Alternatively, if you need an office in order to work directly with your employees, then consider limiting the amount of employees you need in the office at any given time. By allowing your employees to work from home, you’ll save a lot of money on utilities such as water and electricity.
Be careful with the phones
Phone bills don’t seem like that much when it comes to overall costs – at least, that’s what a lot of business owners assume when they’re setting up shop. They have a tendency of assuming that, because they don’t pay exorbitant amounts in their personal life, the costs of businesses calls can’t accrete that high. But when business gets going and you’re making calls to customers and clients on a frequent basis, you’ll see just how expensive it can be. You need to look into business phone systems that work out cheaper for you and that take advantage of the Internet. This will cut costs tremendously.
Decrease staff turnover
One of the biggest costs in any business is the costs associated with employee turnover; losing an employee then recruiting and training a new one. Business owners often don’t pay enough attention to problems with turnover. If you’ve had a high number of employees leave your business, then you need to assess the problem with some urgency. Perhaps the best thing to do going forward to ensure that you hire the best possible employees for the pay you’re offering them. Once they’re hired, you need to ensure that they remain satisfied at work. Increased stress and a feeling of not being that important to the company are common reasons for employees leaving their jobs.