2010 Is the Year For You to Profit Again

Although the economy has been difficult over the past several months, there is much potential for entrepreneurial businesses as larger companies struggle to survive.  It’s important for the entrepreneur to be primed for success, and a good control of business expenses, both fixed expenses and variable expenses, is a great place to start. 

The tightening of bank credit over the past year has caused debt service to increase for many small businesses as they have found their revolving lines converted to term loans.  And other expenses, such as advertising and personnel can only be cut so far without sacrificing precious leads and sales.  With these things in mind, it is critical for the small business owner to always be on the lookout for creative ways to control other expenses. 

Pool Resources Where You Can

Many business owners are working with non-competitive business associates in a collaborative method in order to cut expenses.  One example is that many business owners have combined resources to share office space rather than each having to foot the large fixed expense alone. 

Others have created co-op marketing campaigns and shared the expense. 

Strategically combining resources is a great way to immediately improve what could otherwise be costly fixed expenses, an almost instant improvement to the small business owner’s bottom line.  As an added perk, you often receive referrals from your participating associates that you would have never otherwise received. 

Replace Expensive Staff Overhead Where You Can

A number of small business owners have decided to forgo costly employee overhead and are instead using non-traditional staffing techniques to meet their needs.  Is it possible to outsource, or to use contract or part time labor so that you are only paying for work that actually needs to be done?  A shift from a fixed to a variable expense can many times result in an immediate improvement to your bottom line by decreasing your overhead substantially. 

Although sales staff is often considered indispensible to the success of a business, there are some innovative ways to reduce this expense as well.  Why not engage satisfied customers and business associates as your sales staff by offering a finder’s fee every time a lead they bring your way becomes a sale?  By using this strategy, you only have to pay your sales staff when you actually get a sale.  Cool! 

Rebid Necessary Expenses

Reality is that there will always be expenses you just can’t avoid, such as telephone, insurance, and bankcard processing.  But, as the economy becomes more competitive, so do many of these businesses, and it is important to be always on the lookout for the best deal.  Have your vendors bid out these expenses periodically and you could see a significant decrease in your overall expenses.  Even contract labor can be bid and improved, particularly as layoffs and lackluster economy provides more talented resources available. 

The small business owner who is able to adjust and make fast changes could be very successful in the coming year.  Analyzing expenses and making changes where you can is a great way to add to that success. 

To get more small business success strategies, and to claim your free white paper:  “7 Ways Your Stone-Age Accounting System is Stealing Money From You Every Day … And, How to Get it Back This Year”   visit www.WebAccountingOnline.com.