There is so much to learn about starting a small business, it can seem overwhelming at times. I think we can all agree that starting your own business is the best way to financial independence (or the worst, if you don’t do it right). To start a new business you need some money – creating a company costs, plus you need raw materials, you need to create an office, and you have to advertise your products and services in order to start doing business. These tips might help you save some money at the beginning of your career.
1. Office equipment
To run a business, you usually need at least some basic equipment – a desk, a phone, a computer, a printer and a chair (plus a phone line and Internet, these are things no business can do without nowadays). This is one thing you can save on when starting a new business – instead of buying new, you can go with used furniture and refurbished hardware, that costs a fraction of a new one.
When choosing computers and office equipment, always go for factory refurbished ones – these products are usually used ones that were repaired by the producer itself, and come with warranty. A refurbished computer and a refurbished printer can do the job just fine, and save you important $$$ at the beginning of your business.
2. Go open source
When choosing the software to use at your office, go for open source solutions. A Windows 8.1 Professional license costs $199.99, while a Microsoft Office Small Business Premium license costs $150 – that’s a total of almost $350. You can substitute them with Linux – that is absolutely free in case of most distributions – and free office suites like LibreOffice or OpenOffice.org, reducing your software costs to $0.
Many people are afraid of using Linux, still considering it an OS for geeks, but it is as user friendly and feature rich as Windows, and quite easy to use. Linux and an open source Office suite will do the job right in the first few months, or even years, of your business activity – and you can always replace them with paid ones if you miss certain features. (On a personal note, I worked six years in IT using open source software only, and I didn’t regret one moment).
3. Cut your advertising costs
Advertising is the life of trade – this quote by Calvin Coolidge (the 30th President of the United States) is true today more than ever. Without advertising your potential customers will not even notice your product or service – and this leads to disaster in most cases.
At the beginning of your business career you can focus on effective advertising strategies with minimal costs. For example, you can offer expert advice to your potential customers free of charge, making you appear a reliable source of the matter, and improving your chances of getting noticed by paying customers. Besides, you can offer quality service to your customers, thus encouraging them to recommend you to their friends and relatives (word of mouth marketing). These are two very effective tools that cost you nothing at all. Combined with more traditional strategies – like an ad in a magazine or on a local radio station – these can build your reputation, and customer base, efficiently with no additional costs.
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It is getting easier now with high quality SaaS it available. THis makes the upfront costs so much lower than only a few years ago.
Business Management Software also results to optimization of processes through the removal of any redundant tasks and implementing automation to reduce the possibility of rework and errors.
Going open source is a great way to save a few bucks. Open source software can often do everything the big name programs can!
It’s all very well to compile lists of important data points or use spreadsheets to organize and make sense of data. But executives, salespeople and business users demand instant insight, and that is being provided more and more by visualization tools. Increasingly, these offer a wide range of ways to view information.
Business software applications makes information readily accessible that would ordinarily take hours or weeks to track down and organize, for example, using business intelligence dashboards and real-time data to easily organize important information. This makes for a great deal of time savings.
Open source is quoit good and you can save many.
Small business owners can save a huge amount of money if they perform proper research while selecting the right management software for their business.
Thanks for sharing, Pauline. Straight to the point. Glad somebody mentioned Linux as a business OS, ha-ha 😉
I find it interesting that you recommended getting factory refurbished computers or printers in order to save money at the beginning of the business. Another way to do that is to buy a month’s worth of toner and ink cartridges in bulk from a local supplier. Doing this will help reduce transportation and delivery fees, thus have more money to restock inventory or put up promotion posters.
Reducing expenses is the only way a small business can save money. Thank you for your informative post that will be of great help to many starters who are wondering on the best methods to save a few bucks as they grow their small business.
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A complete guideline to start my small business. this blog reduce my sorrow and bring a perfect guideline. A fixed budget can fullfill a well business?
I love to read the blog. And I get every time different & helpful blogs. I have read the article. It has very important information for your impress client.
I did some research on how to make my office look good. Found some tips, products, etc.
your article is very useful for startups. because startups are fails because they don’t know to save money
or invest.
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