8 Sure-Fire Ways to Reduce Expenses in Your Small Business

By Deborah Ager

Due to a desire for work-life balance, those with an entrepreneurial bent have often left the corporate world and accompanying cubicle to start their own ventures. In order to start a business, it’s necessary to have an economic plan whether you’ll take out a loan or start a business with savings. Consider the seven steps I took to save money as I moved into the role of entrepreneur.

1. Keep Rent Low
   As a former employee of a small business, I learned that rent could turn into one of the biggest expenses. Assess your need for a workspace outside your home. One business owner I know started a company in his home, added employees and only moved when he ran out of space and had the client base to support it. If you’re a home-based business owner and work virtually with clients, an office may not be worth the cost.
2. Use WordPress or Joomla as Your Content Management System
   WordPress is a free blogging platform that also works as a website’s content management system. Joomla is another free content management solution. Both of these allow someone with limited to no HTML knowledge to edit a website, which can save your company money. An added benefit to using one of the above is that each has an active supportive community if you have questions and both are free.

   WordPress software does the heavy lifting for search engine optimization (SEO). As a result, you may spend less making SEO modifications to your site if you use WordPress than if you used straight HTML pages.

3. Use a Simple Business Card to Start
   Too many business owners don’t get started because they need a logo. Before the logo, they need the perfect designer. Before the designer, they need the perfect tagline. If you’re not certain about your logo design and need cards to give out when networking, visit VistaPrint and pick one of the existing designs to use. If you have design skills, you can upload your design to VistaPrint and have cards within a few days.

   I found it was important to have a basic card printed and to figure out the logo later. My current design is simple, elegant and will do fine until I work with my designer on the final creation.

4. Start with an Excellent Web Host
   Picking the wrong web host can be an expensive mistake. One web host I used did not allow a one-click installation of WordPress. That meant I spent more time uploading the software the long way. The host also did not let customers install WordPress at www.domain.com. I had to install the software at blog.domain.com and had to use time-consuming HTML pages to update www.domain.com. To be fair, I was a customer long before the widespread use of WordPress. That means, I could not have known this web host would not allow WordPress installation at www.domain.com. However, now it’s easy to check if a web host has “one-click installation.”

   The hosts below offer outstanding support, one-click WordPress installation, and you can install WordPress on www.yourdomain.com or another variation that suits you. I recommend the following web hosts to my clients:

   Dreamhost (offers one-click WordPress installation);
   HostGator (offers one-click WordPress installation).

5. Save Your Receipts
   When I started my business, I calculated what needed to be bought and what could wait. I saved all of my receipts. If you’re not an organized person, try to be organized about this one part of your business. You can save a lot at the end of the year from tax deductions, yet you need those receipts to do so.
6. Network Online
   Ideally, you should budget for networking events if it applies to your kind of business. You may want to join Business Networking International (BNI), a local group related to your industry, or a networking group via meetup.com. Some of the groups I find useful cost anywhere from nothing on up to $350 per year.

   Be sure to track where you get your best clients. If you pay $0 for an organization that leads you to your best clients, then maybe that $350 is not worth it. Tracking where you find clients also helps you learn where to spend your time, and small business owners can rarely afford to waste time.

   In addition to networking, it’s a good idea to set up a referral marketing plan. Referrals offer a way to gain introductions to your ideal client. When I started my business, I immediately worked on my referral marketing plan and clients now seem to come “out of the blue.”

7. Keep Income and Tax Records
   QuickBooks will save you money on tax preparation and keeping your books accurate. If I could go back and do things over, I would have bought this software on day one. I had to input four months worth of invoices and expenses, because I did not buy this sooner. The work was worth it, though, when I had clean and organized reports to give my accountant.

   If QuickBooks software is not in your budget now, then I recommend keeping track of your income and expenses in an Excel spreadsheet. For only $30, you can buy an Excel spreadsheet package that will help you track this important business data.

8. Find an Intern
   A fellow entrepreneur helped me learn an important lesson. She said she hired a virtual assistant (VA). At the time, she was nervous at contracting to spend $X amount per month. With the help of the virtual VA, this fellow entrepreneur was able to increase her productivity and her business grew. If a VA is not in your budget right now, write up a job description and send it to the career placement office at your local college. If you want a student with a particular major – such as biology or marketing – contact the chair or secretary of that department at the college. You’ll help a student gain experience while you get the assistance you need.

Deborah Ager is founder of ClickWisdom and an online marketing strategist. While she specializes in search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click marketing, she offers her clients comprehensive marketing plans that include e-newsletter creation and management, lead generation and social marketing strategies. She provides SEO copywriting and web content services. Follow her on Twitter.

Tagged as: economy, save money