When it comes to keeping costs down in your small business, you want to make sure you aren’t paying over the odds but still being able to provide the best service you can – especially in these uncertain times ahead.
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There is always the worry that you could lose everything you have worked so hard to build. But with careful planning and new strategies, you can help prepare yourself for the future in the best ways possible.
Remote Working
If you have the option to allow your workers to work remotely – work from home, then this can be a great way to cut back on expenses. It can mean that your employees are still able to do their job – did you know that remote employees can work up to 1.4 days extra per month than in-office employees? This will reduce sick days and cost you less in lost time and covering shifts.
It will also enable you to relocate to smaller offices or even close your office down completely. At a minimum, you can reduce your utility bills as you consume less energy at the workplace than before and also on your office supplies and equipment too.
Deliveries
If you are shipping physical products to customers, then are you using the most cost-effective method possible? There are many different shipping options available to small businesses. Looking into different methods of costs such as What does it cost to ship ltl freight? Could potentially save you money especially if you experience a downturn in the number of orders you are taking and fulfilling.
Marketing
Are you seeing a quantifiable return on your marketing investments? If not, now may be the time to scale back your efforts and look at other, less costly ways of marketing your small business.
SEO is a great area to invest in for a small business. It may require some extensive research and trial and error if you attempt to do this yourself. Or you could hire an SEO consultant to help you reach the top of the search engine results for queries you want to rank for in your sector. And let’s be honest, now most countries are self-isolating, more people will be online than ever before.
Free and less costly ways of marketing are using your social media channels effectively to reach the right people. Word of mouth – get your current customers to share about how they love your company to help you attract more customers.
Make The Most of Your Time
How valuable is your time? Are you using as efficiently as possible? If not, why not? Driving for an hour to pick up an order to save on postage fees might feel like you are saving some money. But you are using your time and fuel to do this.
Can you redistribute your time and do something more worthwhile in that hour? There are many things you can do with your time to benefit your business so it may be beneficial to pay the delivery costs and put your time to better use.
