Small Business Resource

Here’s some interesting useful tips for keeping your costs down. Courtesy of Karen Hall of Ryze.

Most small businesses experience ups and downs. Any reduction in expenses is always welcome and could result in increasing your profits.

Here are a few relative painless ways to cut cost and make your business more robust.

* Use Free Services

Why pay for something you don’t have to? There is a lot of free stuff on the internet. Web sites, e-mail addresses, fax numbers, and conference call services are all among the options business owners can use for little or no charge at all.

Just enter “free phone service” or “free fax service” in Google, you will be amazed at what comes up.

(editors note: Now that said … don’t go overboard. It’s OK to use “free” when it doesn’t affect your professional business image. if it does (me@hotmail.com for example) DO NOT USE IT.)

* Do It Yourself

How much do you pay your accountant each month? $200? With less than $100 easy-to-use payroll software like ezPaycheck (from halfpricesoft.com), you can handle the payroll job easily yourself. Most payroll software can be downloaded from the website and tried free for 30 days. Just pay for the software after you feel comfortable.

And do you hire a professional to create to e-letters or flyers? With software like Microsoft Office Publisher, you can select from pre-built templates to quickly and easily create professional-looking e-letters or print the flyers advertising a sale in house with a color printer.

* Outsourcing

Outsourcing does not always mean sending your business overseas. The idea is to find talented people not just limited to your local geography. From guru.com, elance.com, or other websites ….. you can find web masters, bookkeepers, and other people that can work for you on a subcontract basis.

* Marketing Efficiently

If you mail a printed newsletter or coupon to customers, would it be more cost-effective to send it out as an e-mail? You can save not only printing and paper cost, but also postage. I’d suggest using an autoresponder system though to make it more professional and automated (saves time). Something like AWeber or ConstantConnect for example.

Instead of buying advertisements from traditional newspapers, you can also market online. If you have money, you can use pay-per-click programs from Google, Yahoo, or other companies. But do not forget there are still a lot of free and effective ways to marketing your company online. Such as blogs, social netowrking communities, article marketing, directory marketing, press releases, email-marketing, and so on.

* Cut Transportation Cost

The gas is over $4 per gallon now. Here are some questions to ask:

- Do all your sales or services calls need to be in person? Can you help your customers with internet-based technologies such as web conferencing and tools?

- Can your company allow full-time employees to telecommute? It will cut your rent expense, travel and fuel costs. And some studies have shown that employees work from home have increased output and enthusiasm.

I’m sure you can think of other ways to cut costs … so feel free to add them as comments. Small Business Resources Cafe readers would very much appreciate it.