How to Keep Business Costs Low: 4 Ideas to Reduce Expenses

Cutting expenses to save during an economic downturn? Here are four ways to keep business costs low without negatively affecting your operations.
keep business costs low

Many businesses are struggling right now during the pandemic and they need to be smart in order to weather the storm. One intelligent step to take is to keep business costs low at least temporarily to improve the bottom line, but you need to be careful with this approach as some cuts could do more damage than good. Here are four ways to reduce expenses without negatively affecting your operations.

Bulk-Buying Items

If your business relies on products in order to provide a service, you might want to look into bulk-buying from your suppliers. While this might be more expensive upfront, you can often make big savings in the long run as well as ensure that you don’t have to worry about running out.

For a hairdresser, as an example, you could look to buy hairdressing scissor sets in bulk as a way to save money for your business. By using bulk purchases, you can be sure to keep business costs low and be on your way to creating pivotal savings.

Free Online/In-House Training

Training is obviously important for businesses as you need your staff to be able to excel in their role, but it can also be a major expense. Instead of paying for training, you can often find free online resources and programs or potentially get more senior members to run training sessions (this could work out well if you are quieter than normal at the moment).

Upskilling your team as much as possible will help keep business costs low and operations running as effectively as possible and will keep employees engaged, but it does not mean that it needs to cost the earth either.

In-House Marketing

Marketing can be a major cost, but it is not an area that you can completely stop as it is vital for attracting new customers, improving your brand reputation and competing. A good solution in the short-term is to perform your own in-house marketing or perhaps look for alternative ways to get your name out there and attract people to the business.

You might like to download our Free Marketing Plan Example

Social media can be a great tool to use in times like this and there is lots of helpful information on how to use this tool online. Savvy marketing will keep your name out there and the business naturally coming in and looking at cheap or cost-free options to do this are plentiful. You may also be able to gain access to trials or discounted packages which would be a good solution also whilst keeping costs low.

Interns/Trainees/Outsourcing

Staffing can also be an issue, particularly if you need additional staff for your business. It can cost a huge amount to hire a new employee, so instead you could look into interns and trainees as a low-cost way to bolster your workforce. Additionally, outsourcing can be another good option as you can get the work completed by a specialist, you do not have to pay salary and other costs and the freelance workforce is growing.

Outsourcing can also help your team feel more supported, as they are aware of additional employees being there to assist with the workload and thus will keep them happy as well as keep business costs low from a profit point of view.

Hopefully, this will give you a few ideas for ways in which you can lower your costs during the pandemic and improve your bottom line. You must always be careful when making cuts and try to avoid any that could end up damaging the company, but the above could all be sensible savings that make it much easier to manage during this challenging period and come out the other side.

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