Optimising Your Costs as a Small Business Owner: 4 Things to Reconsider
Running a small business can feel like a juggling act at times – trying to build your reputation as a reliable business, building an audience and client base, offering the best possible goods or services you can, all while trying to make a profit. Sometimes putting your best into your business can feel counterproductive – paying for quality materials, good marketing and making sure not to skimp on other important facets of your business can lead to a big bill at the end of the month. While it is important to invest in yourself and your business, there are almost always places where simple changes can make a big difference in the long run.
Delivery
Something a lot of people overlook is the type of shipping they implement for their business. Working with the big, well-known names isn’t always your best option – sometimes going local can be beneficial to both your business and your pocket. Choosing a local courier company like Sacramento Couriers can often offer you a whole lot more than what you might expect.
Space
If there’s anything the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, it’s that physically coming into work is not always necessary, and sometimes working remotely is better for everyone involved. Especially for a small, start-up business, spending money on office space is often an expense that isn’t necessary and can be avoided. Staff can work from home and there are plenty of tools for online team management that can aid in running the whole thing without an office space. There are even coworking office spaces that can be rented on an hour-to-hour basis for important face-to-face meetings and discussions.
Advertising
Marketing plays a huge role in any business, particularly one that’s still getting off the ground. You can’t possibly skimp out on this expense completely, but there are certainly ways to optimise it. Living in the digital age means that there are a lot of cheaper and even free marketing tools at our disposal. Leveraging social media marketing, running quality Facebook and Instagram pages, making use of ambassador and referral programmes and promoting your posts to the right audience can be a whole lot cheaper and more effective than your standard television advertisements.
Time
You know the saying ‘time is money’? Well, in most cases it’s true and important to consider. Managing your own and your team’s time efficiently to produce quality work in an allotted amount of time can save you (or make you) money in the long run. Ensure that all your processes and routines are effective and allow everyone to work efficiently. If your daily 8:00 AM ‘let’s touch-base’ meeting isn’t actually serving anyone, rather cut it out, let everyone get to work and call a meeting when there’s actually something going on that’s
worth discussing.
Honourable Mentions
Some other expenses you can look into addressing are simple things like energy saving, monitoring paper usage, phone bills and insurance. Keep your eyes open to make sure you’re being mindful about these expenses and always watch out for better deals on any expense in your budget.