The biggest hurdle in making a company from an eager start-up to a rock-steady brand is Savings. We have listed 5 things that SMEs are wasting their money on — and what they can do to change that.
1. Buying office space before it’s needed
Ambition is great for any business. Having a clear vision of where you want to move to and how you want to grow often gives you the resolve to push through the trials and achieve that aim.
Too much ambition, though, can become a problem. For SMEs, that comes in the form of premature scaling: buying space in anticipation of growth that isn’t guaranteed.
2. Making wrong hires
A wrong hire is one of the costliest mistakes you can make, especially in the early days of your business.
Rushing to recruit the wrong person might mean they take longer to come up to speed or they leave quite quickly, so you have to start the whole process again.
Here’s how to cut down hiring costs for your business:
- If there's expert work to be done in the short term — like setting up a website — outsource it to a third-party vendor.
- Hire part-time staff for a role that isn’t big enough to justify taking someone on full-time for.
- When hiring full-time staff, strike a balance between excellence and efficiency.
- Incentivise referrals from staff with a finder’s fee. Not only is it cheaper, but your team will put forward people they know are good from experience because it reflects well on them. Use recruiters as a last resort.
3. Branding
Advertising and branding agencies often try to sell you a dream, especially if you’re new to running a company. Do not try to focus on branding and advertising too early. It will only mean a waste of vital resources.
Brand image is important, but don’t let yourself be blinded by big names and promises for long-term success. For SMEs, the bottom line at the end of the month (not the year!) is what you should be looking at and tightly controlling.
Instead of branding, focus on making the quality of your work — whether that’s a service or a product — as good as possible first. Recommendations from happy customers are far more likely to grow your business.
4. Wrong advertising
Advertising and digital marketing are both very critical if you want to create a brand that people flock to, but it can be a mistake for businesses to jump in too early. Not only can advertising be really expensive, but it’s also unlikely to drive concrete returns if you do it wrong.
Many business owners adopt a 'set up and leave it' approach, which can cost them dearly if they are not monitoring the search terms and aren't checking ROI on ad groups and keywords. However, advertising can be powerful in the right hands.
Stop wasting, start saving!
The spending habits of a company often come to define whether it’s one that sinks or swims. Those that take on the advice of business leaders that have experienced bad spending first-hand, set themselves up to succeed by getting in control of their finances and supporting their future.
Paying more for Mobile and Landline individually
It can be far more cost and time efficient to keep your broadband, mobile and telecoms billing together. In choosing a company with a wide product portfolio and ability to offer integrated solutions, small business can benefit from multiple discounts in one place, including cost savings on mobile, broadband and calling charges. As this service is cloud-based, there’s very little, if any up-front capital investment. Less hardware means lower maintenance cost. Through such services you can save more through FREE calls between your staff, whether they’re in office on site, working remotely or on road and FREE calls between your sites if you have more than one office.
Working with an intermediary telecommunications company like Savincom is your answer to this. To know more please visit our website on www.savincom.co.uk.
