Make Your Business More Efficient with These Ten Simple Tips (BLOG)

It is good business practice especially during an economic downturn to trim away
the excess from your small business so that you can maximize your productivity
and help increase its chance for success and survival. Here are 10 tips on how you can cut costs and improve your cost-effectiveness, economic efficiency and productivity.

Reduce Waste and Rejects

Aim for top quality first time, every time so that you cut back on waste and
rejects. Where possible recycle your waste and rejects.

Economize on Electricity

Many individuals still do things like leave their computers on overnight. They use artificial lighting when a room is flooded with natural light. Lights are also left on in areas which are not in constant use. Air conditioning units are left on in
empty rooms. Look to see how you can use electricity and other energy more
economically. You'll not only reduce your energy bill, you'll be doing the environment
a favor as well.

Get Everyone Involved

Ask your employees and colleagues for their ideas on cutting costs. Ask others to
consider how they could be more economical in their own specific operations.
Staff members are more likely to be more enthusiastic in their involvement if
all the suggestions are not coming from the top down.

Insurance

Examine the level of your insurance coverage. Is it appropriate for your needs? Are you getting value for your money? Is it possible to reduce the level of coverage and still be adequately insured?

Premises

Review your location and premises. Is downsizing feasible? Can you sublet surplus space? Is it possible to share equipment such as photocopiers to reduce costs?

Promotional Expenditures

Chances are that you may be promoting your business the same way as you always have. If it is working then keep it up. If the returns on your investment are dwindling, try doing things differently and reducing costs at the same time. Take advantage of the many online opportunities to promote your business. Many of these opportunities are inexpensive and many are even free. If this is not an
area of your expertise it may be worth calling us to at least give you an
overview of different online promotional strategies that you could use.

Travel

Eliminate excessive or unnecessary travel. Aim to plan trips well in advance to take advantage of lower fares. Use resources such as teleconferencing and teleseminars where possible to replace unnecessary travel to meetings.

Post

Use second class postage where appropriate. Again, with advance planning you can often get away with not sending postal items first class. Naturally, you'll
still want to use services like Recorded Delivery or Special Delivery for
urgent and confidential items of mail. Where appropriate, send items electronically.

Printing and Stationery

This is an area where expenses can easily creep up. Keep printing down to a minimum. Review your stationery suppliers to see if you can get your stationery
elsewhere at a cheaper price. Use recycled materials such as paper and ink
cartridges if you can do so without compromising quality.

Telephone Calls

Be efficient with your calls. Be very clear about the outcome of each call and
keep calls concise. Aim to group telephone calls together so that you don't
allow telephone calls to repeatedly interrupt your working schedule. Turn cell
phones off while work is being done. Do the same with emails. Open your email
and answer email no more than twice daily. Compare telecommunication service
providers to see if you can get a better deal elsewhere. Investigate using
online text messaging services to reduce calls to mobile/cell phones. Ideally,
you want a SMS service that will not add their own promo message to the end of
your text messages.