It can often be hard to keep track of all the different expenses and outgoings that leave your business on a daily basis, but it is also one of the most important things that you should be paying attention to.
Your business's finances can either make or break you. If you’re not managing your finances correctly, you can quickly find yourself in a world of trouble and, in the worst-case scenario, put yourself out of business completely.
Saving money where you can is one thing that’s a great start to getting your business's finances looking good. By saving money in certain areas, including by using self-storage, you’ll have more money to invest in your operations and fuel future growth.
Here are some of our top tips on how you can save money in your business.
Every business has certain financial obligations they have to meet, regardless of how many products they sell or how much profit they make in a year.
These financial obligations include paying your taxes, ensuring your staff is getting paid, and that all of your invoices are settled in a timely manner.
If you’re aware of all the things you need to allocate for essential expenses throughout the month/year, you’ll be able to put a good budget in place where you can keep your money going as far as possible.
If you’re selling products, whether it’s nationally or overseas, if you don’t manage your shipping strategy properly, you could be spending a whole lot more than you need to.
Especially when you’re shipping across borders you have to consider lots of different taxes and duties, which can significantly increase the cost of each product you’re sending to customers.
Things like shipping in bulk, having overseas warehouses, and choosing the right shipping partner can all have a big impact on the end price you pay.
When you have to pack orders, hold inventory, and find a place to store all of your business’s belongings, you’ll quickly start to realise that you need a lot more space than you ever imagined.
The main issue with this is that many business owners vastly underestimate the cost of storage. Renting out warehouse space, especially somewhere like London can be very expensive if you choose the wrong partner.
If you want to cut down on your storage costs, while still getting a secure and safe location to store your belongings and products, you should consider self storage London.
Using a self storage provider, you can either pay by the box or by storage unit, depending on the number of items you need to store. Then you’ll be charged a weekly fee, with the flexibility to increase/decrease your space depending on your business needs.
If you are paying for storage space, one easy way to save some money is to be realistic about the amount of product you need to keep in inventory at any one time.
If you’re a new business and only shipping out a few products every week, there’s no need for you to have hundreds of items shut away in a storage unit – and pay for the additional space that they take up.
Using your sales data, you should be able to get a good idea of how much you’re selling every week, then you should plan to buy as much product as you need – with some extra pieces, just in case you receive an unexpected order.
This means that you won’t have to pay for unnecessary storage space, and you can cut down on the costs of buying new products.
No matter if you’re a small start-up or a fully-fledged business, financial planning is one of the most important tasks that you should be involved in.
Financial planning is your chance to go through all your finances, see what you’re spending all your money on, and identify areas that you could potentially save.
For example, when doing your financial planning you might see that you’re spending lots of money on email advertising, only to realise that this campaign is not generating any sales for your business. Instead, you may notice that you’re better off investing in social media marketing which has high organic growth already.
Our final tip is to make sure that every penny counts for your marketing campaigns. Marketing can be tricky, which is why it’s important to focus your money on the areas in which you are getting a significant return.
For example, social media is a great example of how you can grow traffic without spending a penny. So focus on these effective, yet affordable, marketing tactics, before you start paying for expensive advertising space.
Another way to save money in business is to learn how to negotiate with your suppliers. Whether you’re purchasing materials like Cut to size wood sheets or services such as web hosting and design work, haggling for a better price can be a great way to get more bang for your buck.
Be willing to walk away if you’re not getting a good deal, as there will always be another supplier available. Plus, don’t forget to ask for discounts or special offers if you purchase in bulk or are willing to commit to a long-term contract.
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