Business Costs You Can Do Without Initially

Business Costs You Can Do Without Initially

Business Costs When Starting Your Own Small Business

The initial stage of starting a business is quite exciting.


During this phase, we are full of hope and think we are mere months away from being able to make a full time living by starting a business. As we go through the process of setting things up and signing up for apps, webinars and seminars being able to attract customers starts to come to the forefront of our minds.


You start asking yourself questions like the ones below.


  • Why would people buy from my business?
  • How would customers find me? 
  • Where do I get the funds to pay to attract customers?


The third question is a valid question as when setting up a lot of time and money is spent on things that doesn’t give a tangible return on investment.


So, if you are thinking of setting up an online business, or working for yourself for the first or even second time, there are a few things do not need to spend money on at the start. 

Business Costs To Avoid When Starting A Business

Here is a list of things you can put off doing in the initial stages of setting you that would help with your business costs.

Setting Up A Registered Company

As nice as it would sound to own your very own company, registering your business is not something you need to do in the initial phase. Main reason for this, is there are ongoing costs involved with owning a business that must be paid. In addition to this, you will need an accountant to help with the maintenance of a registered business by making sure it follows all the legal requirements.


If possible, wait till you start getting revenue before setting up a fully fledged business. Until then keep costs down by setting yourself up using some other form of business structure, such as a sole trader.


Your accountant would be able to guide you on what would work best for your situation.

Business cards

Some business sectors may require the use of business cards. For an online business, business cards are archaic.


A lot of business today is done virtually and the need for business cards is not as great as it used to be. It would be best to spend the money used to print business cards on other business costs. Examples of these business costs could be upgrading to a larger smartphone so you can store more data.


How many times have you gone to an event and been handed lots of business card? What do you do with them? Do you immediately store it on a rolodex or do take a picture of it and discard of the card as quickly as possible? 


Better yet, do you instead request to be connected to people via social media and social networking sites instead? Perhaps even virtually giving new business contacts your details.


Logo

Paying someone to create a logo for you is truly a waste of money these days. It is one of the business costs you can eliminate easily.


With tools like visme, canva and other graphic design tools, you can create your very own logo without having to spend any money whatsoever.


The other great things about tools like visme is with a single account, you can create stunning visuals for any project you have on the go both online and offline.


If you are unsure on how to use graphic design tools, you can take a short class on an online learning platform like Skillshare were you will learn how to create your own logo.

Fancy website

Having a visually stunning website is not needed.


Have you seen sites like Reddit and Craigslist. They look like sites did when the internet first started. They are not visually appealing, yet they are very successful sites.


Ensuring you have basic functionality for your site is most important. If you use wordpress, you can select free wordpress themes. You can also opt to purchase wordpress themes, which would allow you to use the theme on as many different sites as you own or build.


Once you have a theme, you can sign up to a hosting company to get your site up and running. Better yet, use a site builder like Simvoly or Kyvio that allow you to set up your online business without you having to spend time updating plugins.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) consultant 

Many think getting an SEO consultant is a sure fire way of increasing site traffic.


Firstly, any SEO work done on a site would take at least 90 days before any increase in traffic starts to show.


Also, be very clear on what type of SEO work you want done on your site, as some consultants are less than truthful with what they are able to do for you. Some overpromise and underdeliver.


Plus you do not want to be slapped with any type of Google penalty, which prevents your site from being discovered in search engines.


There is one thing they all have in common. They are expensive and because of how long it takes to start seeing results from any SEO activity, it is usual to commit to a 6 month contract with them.


Tools like SEMRush, SERanking and Ahrefs combined with Google Analytics will help you come to grip with your own sites keyword and site rankings.


You can also look to gain an understanding of how SEO works by watching a few classes on an online learning platform.

Auto Scheduling Subscriptions

Paying a monthly subscription to apps like PromoRepublic, that will automatically post to your social media accounts may seem like a sensible way to spend your startup funds. However, unless what you post is bringing in enough revenue to cover the cost of your subscription fee, ask yourself if you really need an auto-scheduling app subscription.


There are other ways you can schedule your posts, which once set up will work equally as well as any app on the market.

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising can be a money pit.


So, do your research into your market, your audience and know what you want to say before you delve into this area.


Also monitor not only what you spend, but also how much extra revenue you get during the promotional period.

Employees

There are 2 reasons we do things.


Pleasure and pain.


Before hiring an employee, ask yourself if you are doing it for pleasure or because you are in pain.


If you are not in pain, then hold off on employing anyone.


It may sound like a good idea to have someone you can offload tasks onto. Then again having an employee also means you’ll need to manage them, which can take up quite a bit of time. Taking you away from running your business.

Social Media Platforms

There is no need to be on social media platforms your audience are not on.


When trying to decide on which platforms to be on, look to see the ones your target audience use. There is no reason to be on all platforms.

Final Thoughts

It is very easy to spend money.

Making money takes a little longer than it takes to spend it.


So, when there is no revenue coming in, the best thing to do is spend wisely.


This will put your business in a good financial position in the future.

Links on this post may be affiliate links, which will provide me with a small commission if you make a purchase using my link.


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Images created using Visme.


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