Are you feeling the squeeze? For many small businesses, this is a common situation. Expenses can quickly build up, and it only takes one lean month to push your company into financial trouble.
Because of this, it’s only natural to look for ways to reduce your expenses in some way. The good news: there are many methods available that can help to lower your company’s monthly bills.
Below are some of the main tactics you can utilize to reduce expenses for your small business.
Find the right office
Certain guides will advise you to abandon a physical office completely and opt for a remote approach. However, this isn’t a viable option for most businesses, and you will still need to rent an office.
The problem is that other than employees, an office tends to be the biggest expense for a company. Fortunately, you can take steps to lower how much you’re spending on rent.
One way is to find a more affordable office space. Yes, moving to a new office is a hassle, but it can have long-term benefits if it reduces your monthly bills. As theworkplacecompany.co.uk highlights, specialist agencies can negotiate on your behalf to secure the best possible lease terms, saving you money in the process.
Go down the freelancer route
As mentioned in the section above, employees are typically the single biggest expense for any company that isn’t operating as a sole trader.
While you won’t necessarily want to release those that work for your business, sometimes it is a necessary evil. This is particularly the case when more affordable – and effective – solutions are available.
This is the case when working with freelancers. Forget about having to pay an employee a regular wage and other benefits. You can simply hire a freelancer as and when they’re needed, which significantly lowers expenses. You can also find freelancers with specialist skills that local employees might not possess.
Get creative with your marketing
Marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, there are plenty of tactics available where you don’t have to spend any money at all. Okay, you have to commit your time to these tactics, but they can produce big results.
A strong social media plan can get a lot of eyes on your brand, for example, as can an SEO campaign. Although if you want to get truly creative, WordStream has put together a list of innovative guerilla marketing examples to consider.
Negotiate your bills
Wholesale changes are not necessarily required. You could simply try and negotiate your company’s current bills. It’s true: you might not get anywhere with this tactic. Yet, more often than not, a supplier will be willing to lower your bills to a certain extent.
Why? Because they’d rather keep you on their books than see you depart to a rival supplier. Even if they’re only earning $10 profit from you each month rather than $20 as before, this is better than getting $0.