Shoestringin’ Your Business in ‘09
Perhaps you’re wondering just how much more of a bite the economy can take out of your small business, but take heart: you can fight back and even be profitable. Whether your a bootstrapping startup or a long time business owner, with a couple of changes in how you do things now, you won’t even miss the old way, plus you’ll make your office just a little more “green.”
Do Your Best, Hire the Rest
It’s a common misconception that you’ll save money trying to do it all yourself. Take it from someone who’s “been there, done that”, you have to place a value on your time. If you’re whittling your time away with menial tasks or working on activities that are not bringing in money, well, you’re wasting more than just your time. Do what you are able to do quickly and effectively and where possible (and affordable) hire the rest out. Filing, organizing, labeling, whatever, these are things an eager high school student or intern can handle for you. For more complex work and professional needs, consider either a barter arrangement or hire a person from a source like Craig’s List for a short term project.
Ditch the Fax Machine
I can safely say I fax about 3-4 times a year, but even so, I stopped using a traditional fax machine over 5 years ago. I didn’t want the expense of the phone line tied to it, nor the cost of pricey toner cartridges when junk faxes showed up. If your printer has a scan feature, you’re in for a surprise - THAT is now your fax machine. Services like MaxEmail or Fax It Nice allow you to scan your document to your computer, then attach it to an email (as a .pdf) and send it through their service, which are Internet-based. It arrives to your recipient in better shape than an ordinary fax, plus, you can save a copy to your computer. Service ranges from approximately $35.00 a year and up, depending on your needs and use.
Tandem Orders: Buying in Bulk with Others
If you have a lot of volume and go through office supplies like crazy, you already know about Staples, Office Max and the other big box office supply companies. I find their pricing to be good when there’s a sale, but for my purposes, I use Quill. Not only are they really nice folks, they have a great selection and really competitive pricing and special deals. If you’re on the smaller side and can’t handle those bulk orders they have, consider going in on an order with another small business colleague - you can split the order and still save. A case of paper, for example, is way less expensive than buying a ream at a time. You might not need 100 file folders, but sharing it with another office, you’ll have a number you can manage, plus a great deal.
Ditching the Land Line
I’ve been using Comcast Voice Over IP (VOIP) for 4 years now and the call quality is better than my old land line. My phone bill is also about 40% less expensive, too. There are a lot of carriers offering this service, I just decided to tie in with my ISP so it would all be on one bill. The savings? No long distance charges or extra charges for extra features like call waiting, voicemail, etc., are all included, and finally, no extra charge for backup phone service.
An interesting sidenote: When we have a hearty storm, our land lines would sometimes cut out — not with VOIP. For whatever reason, the phone is up and running with storms, bad weather, so I’m never out of touch.
Meet Virtually
Face to face meetings are great, but not always the most cost or time effective way to do things. Once you add in travel time and any other related expenses, what could have taken an hour over a handy communication medium could easily have ballooned to 4 hours or more. When a few people just need to discuss some details about a project, a teleconference can be ideal. I use InstantConference and for free, you can’t beat it. They time the calls, give you the on/off time of participants on the call and a vicinity reading of your callers. If you need more instant conversation and file sharing, IM (instant messaging) really fits the bill; I’ve used GoogleTalk with pretty solid results. The granddaddy of all virtual meetings is really the interactive online variety and fortunately, that base is covered not only well, but rather exceptionally: Vyew offers a very nice, FREE interface. It operates cross-platform, allows desktop sharing and requires no third-party plugins.
There are countless other ways to save your business money, so why not run a contest and have your employees come up with ideas? It’s a good way to have your team be part of keeping your business profitable in 2009.
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Do you have ideas that you’re using to save money in your office in 2009? Leave a comment, email or catch me on Twitter, @bizcoachdeb.
