4 Unexpected Things Businesses Can Do To Save Money

A great business doesn’t just know how to make money, it knows how to save money. Nobody has got very far in the business world with a mindset of “spend spend spend!” The best business owners and entrepreneurs know where they can cut costs and where they can’t. We all know some of the more obvious methods, but what are some unexpected ways your business can make sure it’s saving effectively for a rainy day?

Share Office Space

Office space is expensive. It’s one of the biggest investments a business will make year on year, and rising rents are making it harder for companies to enjoy extended stays in the same space. This, in turn, incurs additional moving fees. If you can start to make savings when it comes to where you do business, it will make a huge difference to your bottom line.

Co-inhabiting a workspace has emerged as one of the best ways for a small business to get around this issue. Startups and SME alike have embraced the idea of office shares. Splitting the cost of rent each month lifts a heavy financial burden of the shoulders of businesses that may be struggling to get by month to month. This doesn’t have to be a case of two equal sized businesses working together. It’s just as beneficial for a small business to rent out a desk to a freelancer looking to work out of their home. Any saving your business can make on rent is money you can invest elsewhere.

Not only are the financial incentives of this method great, but it opens the room for collaboration with new businesses and freelancers you may not have otherwise met. Likewise, you’re not just splitting the cost of rent. Office supplies, coffee and utility bills can all be split across the inhabitants of the office equally to save everyone a little extra.

Save Time With Software

Time is money. If you’re saving time, you’re saving money. One of the best ways a modern company can buy itself more time is by transitioning to cloud software.

If you’re still operating with physical files you’re doing your business a huge disservice. Cloud software such as DropBox or Google Drive is excellent for saving businesses time on the little things. If your staff are wasting hours of their day looking for files, walking around the building to speak to the right colleague in person or holding physical meetings, it’s time to move online. Chat services and cloud storage make working individually and collaborating on projects easier than ever before.

Your business saves money when it works more efficiently. Invest in software that improves team communication, allows for remote working and cuts out the useless paperwork.

Use Free Advertising

Advertising can be very costly, especially when you don’t know how to use it properly. There’s no need to heavily invest in advertising you don’t fully understand in the early years of your business. Paid social media and Google advertising can be incredibly costly if you’re not fully prepared or experienced, meaning your budget could dry up pretty quickly. While you’re still learning how to market your business it’s best to make use of free alternatives as frequently as possible.

By far the most accessible and worthwhile of these is free social media. You may not be able to achieve the same reach using free social strategies and you will need to dedicate more time to it, but in the long term, you’ll learn a lot more about your core audience, developing a content strategy and target market in the process.

Saving money is often about pushing what you already have to its absolute limits. We’re not saying cut out all paid forms of advertising, but learn as much as you can about free alternatives and invest your time and creativity into them.

Keep Your Best Staff

There are so many benefits to keeping your best staff on board, it boosts the finances, morale and development of your business. But let’s focus on the finances for now.

If you are able to retain your staff you don’t need to hire and train new people to take their place. A huge amount is spent on hiring by businesses across the world every year. If you don’t need to hire as frequently that’s money that could be much better spent. It’s not even a case of once the employee is hired they’re in the position to start making you profit, as it’s estimated it takes 8 to 26 weeks for an employee to reach full productivity.

It’s much more economically efficient to try and hang onto your experienced team members with internal knowledge of the business and its practices for as long as possible. If that requires re-working your benefit plan or structure, that is a much more worthwhile investment. Having these key members of staff around will improve your training programs.

Getting through a difficult patch with your finances in the black and your team intact is cause for celebration. It’s often said that boosting morale amongst your team is one of the best ways to get them to perform to the optimal level, so now you’ve got some extra cash, treat them! For example, you can take the whole team away for the weekend, make this year’s Christmas party extra special, or treat them out for an event of glitz and glam at the casino

(if you’re looking for a list of London casinos there’s no better than OnlineCasinos’ list of London Casinos). Don’t forget to celebrate your successes, there’s no point in always worrying about problems that may be lurking around the corner.

Hiring is just one of many tasks business owners are forced to do that don’t generate income. So much of our time is taken up by this sort of task, and that’s before hidden costs come in. Follow these unexpected methods to save yourself a little extra.