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5 Ways To Save Money On Marketing And Promotion For Your Business

Whether you manage a small business or your large company has simply fallen on hard times during the ongoing recession, you might be looking for marketing and promotional strategies that will see you through to an economic turnaround. And you’re no doubt keen to save some money in the process. As it turns out, you’re not alone in this sentiment, and as such, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You can rely on the experience of others when it comes to penny-pinching marketing strategies that pay off big. Here are a few tips to help you get started.

Unified branding. Before you ever start down the path of marketing and promoting your business you need to come up with a branding strategy that aptly presents your image to the public. This could include a diverse array of elements, including a mission statement, logos, and even a patented color (think Coke red, T-Mobile pink, or the McDonald’s golden arches, for example). When you’ve developed a unified branding scheme ahead of time you’ll save yourself a lot of time, trouble, and money on updates later on.

March 24, 2013

Business

5 Money Mistakes To Avoid When Starting A New Business

Cash flow is the vital life force for any new business or start up. Industry specialists and financial advisors say that too many new businesses nowadays run out of money before they’ve even gotten started. Most of the time, these are simple, rooky mistakes that could have been prevented if the business owner were more prescient about the financial fragility of their new company. These missteps run the gamut, from being too overly ambitious, having too expensive of taste and not forgoing certain expenses in order to hold on to capital for a rainy day or a fiscal cliff. Well, that rainy day or fiscal cliff can come sooner than many small business owners think if they are not careful. Here are 5 money mistakes to avoid when starting a new business.

Buying expensive office furniture. Many new business owners feel the need to get the shiniest, newest and most expensive office equipment. Tables, chairs, computers and more, bought new, can cost a fortune if you are trying to fill a whole office space. Just because you are a brand new business doesn’t mean you need the top of the line office accessories. You are fresh, young business and clients will understand, or perhaps even respect, that you care more about the bottom line opposed to designer office furniture. The best thing you can do is to buy used, at auction, or at liquidation sales. You can also check out different office furniture suppliers to find the best deals.

March 21, 2013

Business

How To Start Cutting Costs For Your Home Based Business

Do you have a home-based business? If so, we think that’s great. Not only does it speak to your sense of ambition, but also your creativity and focus. Although there are some real benefits that come with working at home (like being able to enjoy the comforts of working in such familiar surroundings), it requires a lot of time, energy and effort (continually) to make it successful.

That’s a big part of what this article is about. We know that in order for your business to thrive, you need as many resources as possible and one of the main ones is money. And so, if you are looking for some ideas on how to start cutting costs as it relates to your home-based business, we have five great ones for you right here:

Focus on what you need (more than what you want). As long as your company is up and running, there will be things for sale that will catch your eye. However, just because you want something, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need it (or need it right now). Owning the latest Windows software or the newest computer is usually not going to affect your daily performance so, if it’s not a dire need, wait until it makes financial (and good business sense) to purchase it.

March 9, 2013

Business

The High Cost Of Employee Turnover For Your Business

When a company’s level of success is measured, one of the things that is definitely taken into high consideration is its employee turnover rate. Although it can’t be helped that there will be times when someone has to be released or leaves to go to another job, when there is a high amount of people who fit into this category, it can send a message that there are some internal challenges within a business that need to be thoroughly addressed.

Aside from the company structure issues that may come with employee turnover, it can also cause a bit of financial stress because there are many costs that incur whenever someone leaves. Here are a list of five main ways that turnover affects a business:

Work doesn’t get done as effectively. When you hire someone to do a certain job and they are no longer present to do it, this means that either someone else has to take up the slack or the work will not be done until another individual can be placed into the position. Either way this slows productivity down and as we all know, “time is money”. The less people there are who can work, the less work that gets done in a timely fashion.

February 24, 2013

Business

Poor Employee Performance – How Much Does It Cost Your Business?

In today’s recession economy it is important to stretch every dollar your business spends to its absolute limit. It’s fairly easy to do this when it comes to product manufacturing, shipping costs and utility bills, but what about when it comes to the cost of your employees? You can determine how much profit an employee brings into the company through the work they do, or how much they cost you to maintain with their benefits package and your tax burden. But how can you determine if a subpar employee is costing your business money? People will make mistakes, but what if they continue to occur? Or what if there are other, more subtle ways that employee is impacting your business. If you have more than ten people in your business, chances are at least one of them is a poor employee. So how much is poor employee performance costing your business?

There is one easy way to quantify this, by looking at the added time these employees require. And it’s not just the extra time they have to put in, but it’s the extra time your managers put in handling these hard cases. If you’re the direct manager, you know what this takes. You’d much rather be raising up your quality employees, helping them along their successful trajectory. Instead you’re stuck in the doldrums with the weak link. According to some recent surveys, there is a very real cost to this strategy. Managers are spending more than 15% of their time pushing and prodding poor employees. That’s almost one full day out of the week wasted on a poor performer. What could you be generating with that time?

February 24, 2013

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