It’s tough starting your own business, and money is always tight when you first get your little startup off the ground. The last thing you want to do is spend more money than necessary, but you need to balance your preference for low costs with investing in the things your business needs to stay afloat. While you’re focusing on increasing sales, don’t forget the importance of reducing your expenses. Here are a few suggestions for you to consider.
Keep your bills low
If you’ve set up shop in an office, the first thing you can do to trim expenses is keep your bills low. The easiest way to do this is consider your office green. Unplugging all your unused electrical devices, or switching to LED lightbulbs can reduce your energy consumption, saving you money on your bills. Get your bills sent to your email inbox so you can save a few more pennies here and there.
Save money on air conditioning by opening your windows, or using a smart thermostat to customize your facility’s climate control schedule: at a 9-to-5 office, that probably means increasing the heat or AC in the morning and dialing it back (or turning it off completely) in the evening and overnight.
Use an open source
As a small business, you might be looking at buying software for things like bookkeeping, word processing, and presentation. However, it’s free to use Google Drive for most of the things you need to do.
Additionally, cutting down on paper saves you from having to buy the stuff in bulk over and over again. If you can successfully do most of your business online, not only will you save money that can be better used elsewhere, you’ll be helping the environment, which is also good for your company’s bottom line.
Advertise cheaply
Marketing doesn’t have to eat into the bulk of your business expenses. In fact, there are many sneaky ways to advertise your startup on the cheap. Setting up a professional website doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg, and most of your advertising can be done by sending emails directly to customers on your mailing list. Of course, reviews and testimonials are the best advertising you could hope for, and they don’t cost you, or your customers, a penny. Be sure to feature this as soon as you can.
If you’d like to start spending a little money on your advertising, there are still ways you could reduce the cost. Make the most of your point-of-purchase opportunities by tucking coupons, newsletters or other promotional fliers in the bag with customers’ purchases. If you’re on good terms with a neighboring company, ask them to split the costs of advertising and promotion. You could even promote your businesses together, by sharing mailing lists and distribution channels. Alliances can help you take your startup further.
Buy at a discount
Office supplies are easily overlooked until you have to start paying for them yourself. Suddenly those paperclip chains don’t seem so harmless. Most people advice buying in bulk so that you don’t have to worry about getting money for more supplies for a long time, but it still feels like a lot of money to spend in one place. However, buying in bulk gets a lot cheaper when you use Office Depot coupon code.
You can save even more money on your basic office expenses by investing in the generic brands instead of the name brands. Ink cartridges are one of the biggest office expenses, so cut the cost by buying recycled printer cartridges. Check Google or your Yellow Pages for a local recycled printer cartridge supplier.
Finally, you could reduce your expenses by 60 percent if you buy used computer equipment, copiers and office furniture. You probably don’t need to buy computers at all if you and your employees are comfortable working on your laptops.
Encourage telecommuting
So far, telecommuting is a widely untapped cost-cutting potential. Once you’re earning enough money to expand your business, telecommuting will save you from having to search for an office building that is big enough to accommodate all your new employees, and filling the space with new furniture. As a result, it keeps your utility costs low.
Additionally, studies suggest that telecommuting allowances and other types of flexible work arrangements have positive implications for employee morale and job satisfaction, both of which are positively correlated with productivity. There is also less time lost to commuting and travel for employees, so they also save a little money every month.
If you need some face to face time with your employees, it’s easy to schedule a monthly meeting, and they won’t mind traveling to see you every once in a while.
Telecommuting could also benefit your business by increasing your talent pool; there are probably hundreds of people who would be happy to work for you, but they live too far away for commuting to be practical. If they have the option of working from home, they are more likely to apply for a job with your company, providing you with more talent to drive your business forward.
Hire people with little work experience
The world is full of graduates and young people who are eagerly looking for work, yet they are turned away due to lack of experience. All they need is a foot in the door, and they will work hard for the person who hires them. The best part for you is, they’ll only be expecting entry level positions and salaries, so you can keep your employment costs low. Additionally, you’ll be the one coaching them in your industry, so you could have efficient and enthusiastic workers for a long time to come.
Even if they eventually move on, they will never forget that you gave them a chance. You could have loyal business partners for life by taking a chance on an inexperienced worker.
Stay on top of your accounting
Nothing racks up more expense like an unpaid bill.