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Do you have a hard time turning off at the end of the day when you run your own business? With everything you have to navigate, it’s not surprising that you think about your business all the time. Overhead costs probably plague you even while you sleep. If you want to get ahead and see your business grow, here are six underrated ways to cut your business costs.
1. Take Advantage of Credit Card Offers
When you’re looking for that extra bit of cash flow without having to inject a sizable chunk of capital, you should take advantage of credit card offers. Having a business credit card is essential, but you can make more out of your purchases and recurring expenses by exploring rewards programs and 0% APR offers. When you switch over to using a rewards-friendly American Express credit card for everyday business expenses, you’ll get cash back for your purchases.
2. Avoid Peak Season Travel
Business travel is often unavoidable, but you can save money by avoiding peak seasons and holidays. If you’re choosing industry conferences to attend or need to check on your investments in another state, choose midweek departures and arrivals to find lower ticket prices.
Holidays and summer months tend to see increases in air traffic, and that results in higher prices at hotels as well. Set up your calendar so that you do all of your most important and intense travel in off-peak times.
3. Improve Your Negotiating Skills
If you work with vendors and suppliers, you have to improve your negotiating skills to see savings. Other business owners aren’t keen to hand out discounts to just anyone. But if you’re a good customer and provide regular income to another business, you have every right to negotiate for a better deal. Of course, this maneuver depends on how long you’ve been in business with a vendor or supplier.
When you’re beginning a relationship with new suppliers, especially in a new industry or a product category, you have to do your research before settling on a pricing contract. Make sure you know the industry standards and shop around for the best deals possible. You can even negotiate with a preferred vendor to give you the discount that’s offered by a competitor. Without trying, you’ll never know.
4. Move Your Workforce Online
Remote work offers many benefits to business owners. When you move your workforce online, you don’t have to shell out hefty sums for renting an office space and paying for building utilities. If you’ve been paying employees a stipend to commute, that’s another area for instant savings when everyone works from home. In the long run, the overall health and productivity of your workforce should increase, giving you an upper hand as a business owner.
5. Simplify Your Software Strategy
There are thousands of digital solutions for practically every aspect of running a business, but simplifying your software strategy is a good way to streamline your overhead. Ensure you regularly audit your software portfolio to find out if the programs you run are even pulling their weight. Then, see if you can upgrade to a newer and sleeker data management system, ideally one that can centralize all of your processes.
Since technology is constantly moving forward, you have to put your business interests above everything else. If new software is available that bundles all of your needs into one product and saves you money, don’t hesitate to cut out your old programs and move to the more economical option.
6. Get Into the Freelance Economy
In today’s economy, freelance and contract workers are constantly picking up small to medium size projects to fill their free time. You can outsource things like design and SEO content to freelance or contract employees and save your business a substantial amount by not hiring full-time employees who need support and security in the form of benefits and stable pay.
When you opened your business, you dreamed about unlimited growth. Use these six tips to help you reach your full potential.
