A new year, a new you, right? Well, that’s what many people think when they are about to go into a new year. If you have this mindset for 2018, then good for you!
But it doesn’t just have to stop with your personal life – you could bring this positive mentality with you to your company. A new year is a great chance to make some big changes and overhaul your company. For instance, it could be the ideal time to carry out that big redesign and new branding idea that you’ve been meaning to do for ages. You could also consider starting a big recruitment drive to get some new talent on your team. But what about your expenses and costs? Maybe now is the best time to try and get them into control.
There are plenty of expenses that you might want to try and cut down on during the upcoming year. Here are some ideas that you might want to consider.
Insurance
Hopefully, your company is fully covered by insurance. This is important as it can protect you financially if you ever face any emergencies. At the very minimum, you should have professional liability insurance and, if you are based from an office, property liability insurance. If you haven’t changed your insurance policy for a while, then it’s worth considering reviewing yours in 2018. Companies are often increasing their prices for their customers, however, they often have special deals and discounts for new customers. So, take a look at a price-comparison site to see if you could get a cheaper insurance premium from another company. You should try and review the price that you pay for insurance every year.
Phone Calls
Just a few years ago, the monthly phone bill was one of the biggest expenses for most companies. However, now that the Internet is here, phone bills are nowhere near as big as what they once were. That’s because companies can now use the likes of Skype and business phone systems that use WiFi to carry out their calls for free. If you are still paying a significant sum for your calls, you should think about switching to an Internet-based call provider. You’ll be surprised at just how much this could save you!
Paper
Paper is one expense that many businesses don’t realize is as high as what it actually is. You might think that you aren’t paying a lot for this, but if you check your bills throughout the year, you will be surprised at just how much it adds up! Rather than printing out copies of all your contracts and important documents, you should move onto a cloud-storage provider so that you only have digital copies of all your paperwork. You can print them out whenever you really need to. It’s also a good idea to go paperless with all your suppliers. Rather than send you a monthly invoice through the post, they will send you it via email. Many suppliers offer discounts for this paperless service.
Marketing
Marketing is often very expensive, especially if you hire a marketing agency to help you with all your campaigns and strategies. So, one of the easiest ways to bring down your marketing costs is to try and bring it all in-house. You’ll find that hiring your own full-time marketing team will be a lot cheaper than outsourcing this. Plus, there are now many free online tools you can use to further your marketing efforts.
Just take social media as an example. It’s completely free to sign up to the likes of Facebook and Twitter and create a profile for your business. Once you start to build up a significant number of followers and fans, you will find that many of these convert to sales. So, it’s really worth thinking about establishing an online presence for your company on social media.
Rent
These days, rent can be excessively high. That goes for both private accommodation and corporate offices. Is your office rent taking up a huge chunk of your expenses? If so, it’s probably time to think about moving. After all, a new year that brings a new start is the perfect chance to start a new life in a new office. So, why not take some time to look at office prices in your local area? You might be able to get a similar office to the one you are in now for a much more reasonable price. Even though the thought of moving your company might stress you out, it could definitely be worth it in the long run.
Recruitment
Companies that have a low staff retention will end up paying quite a lot in recruitment expenses. That’s because they will need to hire or outsource staff to take care of recruitment, and the whole process could take considerable time. Plus, recruiting often goes hand-in-hand with training, which is another expense. So, it’s important that you try to improve your staff retention next year. Once you hold on to your employees for longer, you can reduce your recruitment and training efforts, and you will find that you save a lot of cash in the long run.
Tech Costs
We all know that technology is incredibly expensive. However, if you want your company to be able to stay one step ahead of all of your competitors. Thankfully, though, there are ways you can keep this cost down as much as possible. First of all, you should consider buying refurbished equipment whenever you need to get upgraded computers, printers, etc. These are much cheaper than buying new ones. Not only that, though, but it’s much better for the environment! Try and keep your use of software down as well, as the subscriptions can end up very expensive.
So, do you think 2018 will be the year when you try and bring down all of your company’s expenses? Hopefully, all of the tips above have given you some useful ideas of how you can get started in January!
