Five Strategies to Cut Costs as a New Business
Did you know that 20% of new businesses fail within the first two years, 45% during the first five years, and 65% before their 10th anniversary? These worrying statistics demonstrate just how hard it is to keep a new business afloat in today’s competitive marketplace and challenging economy.
As a business owner, you need to be looking at ways to make your enterprise more cost-efficient. Here are five strategies to help you cut costs as a new business, which one will you try first?
1. Stick to Your Budget
Every business owner knows the importance of their annual budget, helping them to plan for the year and, hopefully, yield good profits. However, it can be hard to stick to your budget, especially as a small business owner who often has to deal with unexpected expenses.
To help you stick to your budget, you need to make sure you stay on top of your finances throughout the year and track all your profits and losses.
2. Embrace New Technologies
Many small business owners shy away from investing in new technologies, either because they don’t understand how they work or because they’re worried about the cost.
However, there are lots of new technologies that are perfect for small businesses, such as payment processing management software and cloud computing, both of which offer a great return on investment.
3. Outsource Effectively
Outsourcing is a key way to grow a business while keeping an eye on costs. Assess how much it costs your small business to carry out administrative tasks such as payroll, answering the telephone, and replying to customer emails. These are time-consuming jobs that use up a lot of your precious resources, and it can be much more efficient to outsource these tasks rather than carry them out in-house. Using services from a reputable company such as Best Reception means that you don’t need to pay holiday pay, sick pay, or insurance, and, often, their rates are cheaper, which can save your business even more money.
4. Motivate Your Employees
Would you say that your employees are highly motivated? If not, then this could be costing your small business quite a bit of money. As the face of your operation, your staff has a huge impact on not just your sales figures but also the public’s perception of your business.
This means that you need them to be happy, motivated, and eager to work hard for you. There are lots of techniques that you can use to motivate your employees, such as offering remote working, giving lots of praise, and providing training schemes.
5. Modernize Your Marketing
If you’re currently using traditional marketing techniques to promote your business, this is likely to be taking quite a large chunk of your budget. Instead, it’s a much better idea to turn your attention to digital marketing strategies such as social media marketing, content marketing, and email marketing, all of which are much more affordable.
If you’re new to digital marketing, there are lots of free guides and tutorials online to help you get started.