5 Things You Can Do To Cut Costs for Your Small Business

Making money doesn't mean much if you overspend it! Here are some big ways to cut costs down on your SME business' expenses...

Say you're running the numbers for your new small business and you see that your losses seem to be more than your gains. What happened? Maybe your product or service isn't selling that well yet. Maybe it's a seasonal dip and these numbers are expected. Or maybe... you've been spending more on your business than you should. In that case, we've got some tips for you on how you can save up on your operational costs.

1. Explore Business Plans for Online Services

We’ve talked before about the kind of online tools and services that your business might need. These tools, like any online software, would have a minimally functional free version, a more fully-featured paid version, and often, a pricier business version. If you use these kinds of software often or you require a large number of machines to be using it, it might be worth checking out the business plans.

While they might seem pricier when you make a direct comparison to the other plans, you might end up saving more money by going for the business version. The increased capacity and features can speed up productivity which in turn, can positively affect your revenue. Of course, as with anything, be sure that you stand to gain a lot by going premium before making the jump. It might not be worth pursuing if the added features or capacity won’t be put to optimal use.

2. Sublet Your Extra Space

If your business currently operates out of a sizable office or building that you have free reign to use as you see fit, try subletting the extra space you have. This tip also makes sense if you’re just running a tiny business out of your house. Make your home office your primary place of work and sublet the other rooms in the house for some extra income. You’ll be surprised by how much the earnings you make here can offset your expenses.

Subletting isn’t the only thing you can do with extra space. You can also rent out storage spaces that you’re not yet using or offer it to other small businesses who need it seasonally.

3. Hire Interns and Freelancers

This is a much easier step to take if you haven’t already hired full-times to do some of the labour necessary for your business. Ideally, before you begin operations, consider whether or not the full-time positions you deem absolutely necessary can be outsourced to interns, freelancers, or part-timers instead.

Use resources like kaodim, upwork, or fiverr to look for short term contractors to do seasonal or one-off work. You can find cleaners, maintenance workers, and even people who can help with taxes. Paying them on a short-term basis like this cuts down on a lot of overhead. Check out 99designs or designhill also if you’re looking for people to do graphic design work like logos, cards, and the like.

4. Fix Inefficiencies

When you’re in the middle of running your SME operation, it can be tough to zoom out and see the bigger picture of how everything works. Schedule a time to really look into your product or service pipeline and see if there are any glaring inefficiencies in the process that you can save money on.

Maybe you don’t need a heavy marketing arm right now, or maybe you’re doing your restocking a little too often. Whatever move it may be, you won’t know what it is unless you take the time to honestly assess how your business functions and look at it with an eye to cut down on costs and maximise your capital.

5. Negotiate with Your Vendors

Just as with consumer services and utilities, you can actually call people up and ask for lower prices. As a consumer, the product or service has an interest in keeping you as a customer, so they will often try their best to come to a reasonable deal. This goes double for your vendors when you’re running a business. Try calling your vendors up and see if you can’t negotiate a lower price with them.

To ensure success with your negotiation, make sure you do your homework well. Study up on the price of the competition, the level of service being provided, and what kind of value your business can offer them. Doing this research beforehand might even prove to you that you’re better off switching vendors! But if that’s not the case, remember that your goal in negotiations is to receive the best price and payment terms, so make every offer with that in mind.

What Else?

Of course, these are not the only ways you can cut costs for your SME, but we thought this might be a good place to start. Starting a business can be a daunting task but if you are prepared with the right tools and information, there is little to worry about. 

How to Start a Business?

Starting a business includes planning, making key financial decisions and completing a series of legal exercises.

These 10 steps help to plan, prepare and manage one’s own business −

●      Step 1: Writing a business plan − Write all tools and resources required to create a business plan. This written guide will help in mapping out how to start and run a business successfully.

●      Step 2: Getting business assistance− There are numerous programs available to assist startups, micro businesses, and underserved or disadvantaged groups.

●      Step 3: Selecting a business location − Take suggestions on how to select a customer-friendly location and comply with the zoning laws.

●      Step 4: Financing our own business− Search for government-backed loans, venture capital and research grants to help getting started.

●      Step 5: Determining the legal structure of business − Decide which form of ownership is best - like sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability Company (LLC), corporation, S corporation, nonprofitor cooperative organization.

●      Step 6: Registering a Business Name like "Doing Business As" − Register the business name with the state government.

●      Step 7: Getting a Tax Identification Number − Learn which tax identification number is needed to obtain from the IRS and/or state revenue agency.

●      Step 8: Registering for State and local Taxes − Enroll with the State to obtain a tax identification number, workers' compensation, unemployment and disability insurance.

●      Step 9: Obtaining business licenses and permits − Enlist for federal, state and local licenses and permits required for the business.

●      Step 10: Understanding employee responsibilities − Learn the legal formalities that needs to be taken care of to hire employees

Creating an Effective Business Plan

This workshop will help you create a business plan. It includes a business plan template to guide your business through the start-up or growth phase, a search for capital, or any other endeavor your small business undertakes.

We've distilled the typical business plan template into seven key elements listed below. For each and every element you will find a description, instructions for creation, for many, tips for avoiding common pitfalls. But reading about something isn't always enough, so we have also provided "Toolboxes" full of samples, worksheets, and glossaries that will clarify and walk you through the process.

To make sure you are ready to create the best possible plan for your business you can experiment on someone else's business! In the Try It Yourself section you have an opportunity to test your skills on a fictional business plan and be rated on how prepared you are to create your own.

If at any time along the way you have questions about creating a business plan from the template, check the FAQs.

• Introductory Elements
• Business Description
• The Market
• Development & Production
• Sales & Marketing
• Management
• Financials

And you can always download the complete business plan template.

Copyright © 1995-2016, American Express Company. All Rights Reserved.

- See more at: http://www.smetoolkit.org/smetoolkit/en/content/en/793/Creating-an-Effective-Business-Plan#sthash.0DyDtPwu.dpuf

Is Your Business Idea Possible & Practicable?

It’s true that not all good ideas can be translated into a great business.

Even if you’ve thought of a fantastic product or service, you still need the right business model, pricing, funding, marketing and people to make it work. Most importantly, of course, there are enough customers who are willing to pay for it.

In this blog post, we’ve compiled a few guidelines to make sure that you’re on the winning side before diving straight in. Check them out!

#1 Is there a market for it?

Needless to mention, carrying out extensive market research is the first step to determine if your business idea is fundamentally lucrative. Not only one needs to ensure there is a market/demand for it, he or she also needs to assess whether the market/demand is big enough (or potentially big enough) to make the venture a success.

Next, based on the target market you have discovered, you now must determine the marketing, pricing and business model, and other strategies that will work for you.

Below are the few questions that you need to ask yourself to find out as much information as possible about your potential customers:

• What type of people are they? What are the demographic, behavior, education and so forth?
• How many are there?
• Where do they shop?
• What drives their purchasing decisions?
• How much do they typically earn and how much disposable income do they have?
• How often would they buy your products or services?

#2 Research strategies

There are ways to “carry out” some research at zero cost.

• Quantitative research – research based on numbers and statistics

Quantitative research can show you the size, number, percentage, and other measurable statistics. You can grab these data by simply searching for some online surveys. For example, the sales figures and economic trends of a country are published by trade and industry associations.

• Qualitative research – research based on opinions and point of views.

Qualitative research can gauge your prospective customers’ attitude towards your offering. Look at your rivals’ use of technology, customer service, prices, marketing and business model and try to find out what your potential customers think about them – this will help you to identify areas for improvement.

Notes:

1. You are strongly encouraged to get a mixture of all these data to have a reliable picture of the market.
2. The purpose of doing research is to grab as much information as possible about the state, size and needs of your market. Sufficient research can help you to ensure the results aren’t biased.
3. Be prepared to change your idea according to what your customers want, not what you prescribe as the best solution.

#3 SWOT Analysis

Are you wondering what SWOT analysis is? In fact, it is a powerful analysis for anyone wishes to start a business! It’s one way to evaluate the viability of your idea. So what does SWOT stands for?

S – Strengths. What are the strengths of your business idea that can stand out among your rivals?

W – Weaknesses. What are the disadvantages of your business idea?

O – Opportunities. What are the external chances to make greater conversions?

T – Threats. In which areas or context, your business idea could be at risk? For example, is it easy for someone to slightly ‘modify’ your business idea and call it their own?

Spend some time to write them down and find the strategies to secure your business idea. Basically, you can’t protect the idea itself. But what you can do is, safeguard your name (Including domain name), brand, designs and inventions.

In short, extra work should be done to make sure your idea can’t be easily copied by a rival.

#4 What’s the right Business Model?

To sustain a business, you need to have the ability to monetize your idea. In other words, your marketing, pricing, cost base etc must be in tune.

There are different revenue and cash flow models to consider. For instance, a beauty products business can charge the customer a monthly subscription fee, or based on the number of products sold. Make a plan for your cash flow based on the behavior of your potential customers.

Once again, research is vital to test the viability of your model — what are your customers willing to pay for and how much would they pay.

#5 Have you got what it takes?

Last but not least, have you got the right attitude and skills to turn your idea into a success? Setting up a business is an endurance challenge. The success of your business depends heavily on your commitment to seeing it through, whether it’s the bad times or good times. In addition, your idea needs to be something you’re passionate about, and you need the skills, drive and belief to make it work.

We hope you find this post useful and come out with a great business idea!

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Teds Woodworking Review - What Exactly Is This Package?

Created by Ted McGrath, a professional woodworker, educator and AWI member, Teds Woodworking is a massive collection of more than 16,000 woodworking projects and blueprints which you can easily follow to build your own home furniture, garden chairs, dog houses, bird feeders, shed and many more. 

Ted McGrath spent the last 2 years putting together his woodworking package and according to him this package is the most comprehensive online today.

However, with so many woodworking packages out on the market and on the internet today, Is Teds Woodworking really worth the money?

To answer this question and to find if this package is really for you lets talk about some of the pros and cons of Ted McGrath's woodworking package. 

Teds Woodworking Review - The Pros And Cons

The Pros

Suitable For Different Levels

There is no doubt that many woodworkers can benefit from this package. Beginners will find these woodworking plans' clear and concise nature gives them a solid foundation to build their first projects as they build their confidence to move on to more complex carpentry projects and increase their skill level. Advanced and professional woodworkers will appreciate the huge variety of different projects and the time saving value of having a high quality set of plans waiting for virtually any challenge.

Very Useful Bonuses

When you order Teds woodworking package you will also receive these 3 bonuses:

1. Free drawing and CAD plan viewer

2. 150 premium woodworking videos

3. The Complete Woodworking Carpentry Guide

The complete woodworking carpentry guide (a 200 pages guide with carpentry tips and tricks) is very useful for beginners and the premium videos can help any woodworker to hone his carpentry skills.

Surprisingly Organized

With 16,000 plans, you'd expect Teds Woodworking to be pretty disorganized. However I found it pretty easy to find the exact project I wanted.

Money Back Guarantee

The product comes with 60 days money back guarantee and if you are not completely satisfied with what you get, you will receive your money back.

The Cons

It May Take Time To Download The Package

The size of this download package is not small and if you have slow internet connection it may take you a couple of hours to download all the blueprints. 

In this case it may be a good idea to upgrade to the DVD edition (you can do it at the members' area).

May Be A Little Overwhelming At First

Just because there are so many different woodworking projects and plans, the members' area can be a little overwhelming at first. However the plans are organized by category and once you get started, you will find it is not difficult to find what you are looking for.

Teds Woodworking Review - The Bottom Line

Overall, there is no doubt that Teds Woodworking is a very comprehensive and detailed woodworking package that comes with a great amount of solutions for any kind of woodworking project you might think of.

There are other great woodworking packages online and some of them are cheaper than this one, but I seriously doubt that you will find any package that is so comprehensive as this one with its thousands of detailed instructions for all kinds of projects, great bonuses and very good customer support.

I hope that you found this Teds Woodworking review to be helpful for you, all the best!

http://www.TedsWoodworking.com

What Is TedsWoodworking?

TedsWoodworking is a complete 16,000 plans package which offers step-by-step guides and blueprints.

It is a great resource for all woodworkers and shed builders. Visit TedsWoodworking.com now 

Download Your Plans Below:

To learn how you can download over 16,000 woodworking plans, click here

Exclusive Free Bonuses When You Order Now:

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Execution Trumps Strategy

The results are in.  Execution trumps strategy. Your business plan may have great strategies, but it will be a great  failure if executed poorly.  So just hire the right people, right?  Turns out the answer is not what you think. At least according to a a recent Harvard Business Review Article.

Here are their five myths about effective execution:

Myth 1: Execution Equals Alignment

The typical approach to execution is to translate strategies into specific objectives, assign them to employees, use tools such as management by objectives and balanced scorecards to measure results, then hand out rewards based on performance.  To fix implementation problems, adjust the processes that link strategy to action throughout the organization, leading to greater alignment and thus better results.

Unfortunately, in most companies, the problem isn’t alignment. It isn’t even having the right people on the bus.  The problem is silo thinking.  Their research found that 84% of managers say they can rely on their boss and their direct reports all or most of the time, while only 9% can rely on colleagues in other functions.  Two out of three times, those colleagues screw things up.

And even for companies that have systems in place to manage commitments across silos, only 20% of managers believe they do enough good.  Most want more structure to coordinate activities across units; more bridges across those silos.

Myth 2: Execution Means Sticking to the Plan

Many companies treat plans as sacred objects. That’s great if obedience is your strongest priority, but it doesn’t encourage agility.  Effective implementation requires managers that adapt to changing opportunities and threats quickly, but that’s not going to happen if adherence to the plan trumps all other considerations. And it’s also not going to happen if capital resources and staffing are tied up in less productive uses, rather than reallocated to support strategic priorities.  Most companies, for profit and nonprofit, tend to be very slow to discontinue declining activities, denying resources to growing areas.

Myth 3: Communication Equals Understanding

Communication is good, so more communication is better, right? Not necessarily. Many organizations push out so much internal communication that the important stuff gets lost in the shuffle.  Keep it simple and reinforce the central points.

Myth 4: A Performance Culture Drives Execution

What matters is what you do, not what you say.  While many organizations offer a compelling official culture, reflected often in core values listed on the web site, but in practice what tends to get rewarded is individual or team performance (certainly a good thing), while collaboration across units, ability to adapt, agility and risk-taking, those attributes are rarely rewarded.  Too much focus on a performance culture leads to an unwillingness to experiment, to be open about challenges, to take risks that might lead to set backs.  In other words, keep it safe, hit your numbers, that’s the real internal culture at most companies. And that doesn’t encourage the kind of openness and risk taking that’s essential for long term success.

Myth 5: Execution Should Be Driven from the Top

While leadership from the top is essential, an execution-driven organization needs to encourage middle managers to have the authority to make execution decisions on their own, taking initiative and ownership of the results rather than expecting all of that to come from the top. Get clarity on the objectives, then managers figure out the best ways to get there.

Thoughts?

Good luck!

By Rolfe Larson on June 18, 2015

Directors' Responsibilities - When Things Go Wrong

With the recent activity in high profile prosecutions of company directors by the Serious Fraud Office ("SFO"), McDonald Vague (Insolvency and Business Recovery Specialists) thought it opportune to revisit a case in which their firm was involved highlighting the point that it is not only the high profile directors that pay a heavy penalty when events do not go according to plan.

They pinpoint some useful tips for any person who may be considering taking on a governance role in a company for which they do not necessarily have all of the prerequisite skills or experience.

This case concerns a foreign exchange investment broker.  The elements of the case involved fraud, breaches of directors' duties and ultimately the need to define the role and responsibilities of non-executive directors.

The defendant was a non-executive director in the company (by profession he was a medical practitioner). The defendant absolved all responsibilities to the executive director.  He did however sign on behalf of the company, an employment contract, that required the executive director to report directly to him.

The defendant allowed the executive director to have sole charge of the running of the company, including being the only signatory to the cheque account.  Directors' meetings were never held, no accounting records were ever maintained, no budgets or plans existed and segregation of duties were non-existent.

As a consequence, the executive director committed fraud whilst in charge of investors' funds.  The defendant relied upon the executive director's "vast experience" which amounted to learning about Forex trading on a rugby trip.

No checks were made into the background of the executive director.  If checks had been carried out, even the most basic of enquiry would have revealed that he had been involved in suspected fraudulent activities in South Africa.

As a consequence, the executive director faced seven counts of theft brought by the Serious Fraud Office in relation to these matters. The court in its judgment, found against the non-executive director for $300,000.

The message is clear for any person who may be considering taking on directorships involving companies in which they have no experience-: 

• Be fully aware of the financial situation of the business at all times;
• Ensure basic controls are firmly in place
• Attend all board meetings;
• If they do not have experience, they must be prepared to find out;
• Seek advice where possible from experts in the industry;
• Understand the risks and rewards associated with the industry.

Unless you are prepared to take on these responsibilities and put in both the time and effort required you should either: 

• Decline the directorship;
• Take out expensive insurance protection;
• Be prepared to face the extremely punitive consequences if things go pear shaped.

In conclusion, we are left with the opening statement of Justice J Venning:

"This case highlights the risk of a director becoming involved in a company whose business is outside the director's expertise.  It also highlights the risk to investors who pursue high returns in speculative investments such as foreign exchange.  It has led to loss by all parties concerned."

As an addendum to this article it is also pertinent to note that this case ultimately resulted in a successful prosecution by the SFO against the executive director, concluding with a term of imprisonment.  This, however, was of little help to the non-executive director who ultimately paid the financial penalty.

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