We’ve got some tough times ahead of us, and we’re all already struggling to keep our heads above water. Companies find it difficult to continue as before. Inflation, an unhealthy business atmosphere and many other things are forcing business owners to close their company doors.
If you’re struggling to pull it off, you need to find a way to cut some expenses. When business is suffering and it seems like there are more expenses than income, you are bound to have to make some changes. Saving costs is of course the first thing that comes to mind.
In this article, we share five great ideas that will help you build a healthy business by taking the right steps. We talk about solutions and ways to make your site more profitable. Read on and see how it’s done.
1. Outsource what you can
Suppose you run a small business in Australia. You have a great customer base, but you’ve been struggling to make it lately. Paying your employees salaries and honoring contracts with others is mandatory. So you have to find a way to reduce all of these expenses that you pay to other people and businesses.
A great cost-cutting solution is to outsource instead of hiring people within the company – everything from lawyers, economists, IT and many others should be outsourced. For example, search for managed service providers in Sydney; then law firms and economists to work out tailor-made solutions for you.
2. Try remote work instead of office
During the Covid-19 crisis, many companies have been forced to let their employees work from home. The owners of these companies have found that this can be very beneficial for their businesses. People stayed at home, paid for their own electricity, groceries and everything else, and business went on as usual.
You can continue with the same exercise. Stop paying for expensive downtown offices where prices are skyrocketing, reduce electricity, bill and gas prices to zero and maximize employee profits. The good thing is that many employees will also love the initiative as they get a better life-work balance, no more wasting time and money commuting etc.
3. Stop printing everything
Do all documents really have to be printed? Many small and medium businesses spend thousands of dollars each month on paper, ink and printers just to print what they already have in a digital format.
Stop printing everything and keep the documents in digitized form. You can share them via email, through the company’s intranet system, or get one of those new and modern software solutions that create virtual offices where documents are shared seamlessly between the team.
4. Review your workforce and see if you can downsize
There’s no pretty way to put it, but it’s best to lay off some employees and stop paying huge sums of money for those people. Companies often have to pay a single employee over $100,000 after taxes, a staggering sum at the end of each year.
Eliminating five people from a team of 50 saves a whopping $500,000. That means half a million dollars stays in-house and available for whatever you need. You can easily pay the utility bills or what ails you.
5. Reduce marketing budget and do it yourself online
Businesses are typically recommended to spend 20% of their profits on marketing. You should spend $200,000 on marketing when you make a million. That might be a great idea in a perfect situation, but if you’re struggling to get to the end of the month, you might want to consider another solution.
Instead of spending that amount on marketing, you might want to do it yourself. The internet now allows anyone to do their own marketing. Spend an hour or two when you get home and scour social media to create dedicated pages featuring your company’s anime.
If you tailor your commercials perfectly, you may get far more than what these 200 grand will do for you. It’s not that complicated, and you’re on social media anyway. So why not save up and do the work yourself in your free time? It’s easier than it looks.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are several ways to cut expenses and save huge amounts of money. Trying all five ideas could save you millions. Of course, all of this depends on how big your business is and how much you spend each month.
With these ideas, larger companies save more and smaller companies less, but you might be happy with any cost reduction at this point. We are headed for an even greater recession and shortage and we all need to be prepared for it. Go through the points above and see where you can make changes.