32 Powerful Ways To Cut Costs In Business

1. Go Green (Smartly)

Cost Cutting Tip: Most companies think that going green will cost them money, but it’s important to remember that greening is first and foremost about conservation – doing more with less. Though you may spend a little more on eco-friendly products, like paper with recycled content, you’ll reduce operational costs by reductions in paper use and other areas, like energy, water and travel, saving money overall.

Thanks To: Cassie Walker of The Sustainable Office

2. Virtual Support

Cost Cutting Tip: Go with virtual contractors for your administrative staff (and other staff if possible).  With virtual assistants you don’t have to pay for extra space, buy or upkeep equipment or software, you can skip payroll expenses and benefits, and you pay for only what you need – so you’re never paying for somebody to MySpace it for 20 hours on a slow week.

Thanks To: Ragen Chastain of Cloud Nine Virtual Staffing

3. Spending Wisely On Advertising

Cost Cutting Tip: When you do advertise in publications, include a coupon to test the responses to your ad.

Thanks To: Eugenia Francis of TeaCHildMath

4. Free Conference Calls

Cost Cutting Tip: Try using FreeConfrenceCall.com or one of he many other free tele-conference services.  Not only are these services free (they make their money through rebates issued by the phone company) they are great for more than just business.  For example, Free Conferencing Corporation has case studies of families using this free conference call service for reunions, wedding planning, religious services, and planning friends weekend.

Thanks To: Chris Powell of Frank Groff Inc.

5. Really Cheap Office Space

Cost Cutting Tip: Can’t afford to rent much needed office space?  Try reaching out to tenants of existing space. Ask for a few desks in their space, in exchange for taking over the office cleaning responsibilities.  A lot of people have extra space that they are committed to.  So a simple barter exchange like this can be a huge win-win.

6. Join A Trade Exchange

Cost Cutting Tip: One of the best methods of preserving cash and generating revenue (better than cutting costs) is for a small business to become a member of a trade exchange.  My company is a charter member of James River Trade Exchange.  JRTE handles all the reporting to IRS and they have many businesses that provide products and services my business needs, which we can buy with trade dollars earned by providing our services to JRTE customers, the vast majority of whom we would not otherwise have had the opportunity to do business with.  Barter is a no-brainer for most small businesses.

Thanks To: Chuck McCabe of Peoples Income Tax, Inc.

7. Downsize Your Office Space

Cost Cutting Tip: Move files and storage offsite so you can fit in a smaller office space. Storage costs are much less in a giant warehouse than they are in your office. We did this and got rid of 15 file cabinets worth of files that we rarely access (but can’t ditch!).  But don’t stop there!  Consider having employees tele-commute to save space for you and gas dollars for them.  And how about that big lobby – do you really need all that space for your few walk in customers?

Thanks To: Kirsti Scott of Scott Design

8. Go VOIP

Cost Cutting Tip: Switch to VOIP for your phone system. We got rid of our expensive phone service base costs, costs per long-distance phone call, and system maintenance fees associated with your phone system and switched to a VOIP system. The upfront costs were minimal (set up of service and purchase of hard phones and soft phone software) and we now have a low monthly cost and free calling. The system paid for itself in 9 months– and after that it’s been just cheap calling forever!

Thanks Again To: Kristi Scott of Scott Design

9. Interns

Cost Cutting Tip: I find people looking to build their portfolio, resume or just to get their foot in the door and barter services. I always have an intern from the local high school that comes in and helps us out and my labels were all designed by a recent grad from art school.

Thanks To: Andrea R Frayser of ANDE

10. Print Your Own Business Cards

Cost Cutting Tip: I think one of the best ways to cut costs is by printing your own business cards.  The card stock can be bought for less than $20 in any office supply store. You can get 200 to 300 cards per box depending on how proficient you are when it comes to printing.  Generally there is a template you can experiment with inside the box with the card stock or make your own template. Since your business card is a piece of literature you’ll probably be handing out more than any other, a small business owner can save substantially by printing their own cards. Don’t forget to use both sides of the card to tell even more about your company.

Thanks To: Joyce Boncal of Advertise You

11. Make Good Decisions

Cost Cutting Tip: How many decisions do you and your employees make each day? Each one represents an opportunity to be unproductive and/or ineffective depending on how easily and how well you make those decisions. For major improvement, focus on the decisions. Eliminate the unnecessary decisions and get good at the necessary decisions.

Thanks To: Ann Latham of Uncommon Clarity

12. Simply Do It Faster

Cost Cutting Tip: The cost I cut was my time. Instead of providing 40 minutes per coaching call, I reduced it to 30 minutes.  With less time we both focus better and now I can add another client to my daily calendar. Same results, less time, more money.

Thanks To: Marian Banker of Prime Strategies

13. Cut The Advertising & Get Social

Cost Cutting Tip: I’m a financial planner in Canada and I’ve decided to cut all of my newspaper advertising and consumer shows ($3,500) in favour of social networking sites, viral marketing and workshops.  It’s already producing a higher return on investment.

Thanks To: Judith Cane of Antara Financial Group

14. Cheap Website (But Not Cheap Looking)

Cost Cutting Tip: Have your web designer build the site with WordPress. It will look great and you can keep it up to date yourself.

Thanks To: Barbara Zaccone of BZA LLC

15. Smart Marketing Strategy

Cost Cutting Tip: Track the results of your marketing efforts by including a specific offer they can’t refuse and a clear call to action telling how to take advantage of the offer, along with a coupon, download, subscription, special code, or other low-cost device you can track to discover what works best.  Then change or ditch anything that doesn’t generate enough leads or sales.

Thanks To: Stacy Karacostas of SuccessStream

16. Get In Their Face

Cost Cutting Tip: Referrals are the best source of strong clients…visit every networking organization in your area (Chambers of Commerce, BNI groups, Rotary, etc.) and introduce yourself, your business, and your quality.   Most organizations allow you to visit at least a couple of times before expecting you to join.  Some never do.  Nothing will sell your business more than a highly engaged owner out discussing business.  Make sure to return the referral favors as much as possible – put good karma out there.

Thanks To: Patricia Fragen of Strategic Office Solutions

17. Source With Disabled Organizations

Cost Cutting Tip: We work with a local non profit disabled organization to assemble and package our jewelry. We get excellent quality low cost work, and the positive feedback has been tremendous which matches our mission to help locally.

Thanks To: Gerhard Kramer of Psalm 23 Jewelry

18. Jump Start The Accounting

Cost Cutting Tip: Through the years I have saved thousands of dollars in accounting fees by having a specific date by which I get my accounting data to my accountant. The accountant has changed, but the procedure works.  Most accounting firms have a slower time in the very beginning of the month. By agreeing to get my work to them by (for example) the third of each month, I get reduced rates in my accounting maintenance fees. I have more information in a timely basis and they fill in the weaker hours of their practice.

Thanks To: Dawn Renee Mallory of Autograf Specialty Haircare Solutions

19. Recycle

Cost Cutting Tip: We work with our suppliers to recycle packing materials. Our raw materials used to come packaged with foam separators which the supplier would not take back and which we had no use for, so they were just thrown away.  Now we cut cardboard separators for them which we remove during production and return to our supplier for re-use.  This resulted in cost savings for our supplier which was returned to us in reduced material costs.

Thanks To: Jack Briere of Crown Advertising

20. No Paper = No Cost

Cost Cutting Tip: Go paperless!  Don’t print it. You can get an eFax number to send and receive everything electronically.  Don’t print it out – file it electronically.  Share drafts of documents, designs, etc. electronically.  Use e-mail or an online project management tool like Google Docs or Base Camp to share and comment on documents.  If you don’t have to buy paper, envelopes, postage, file folders, ink or maintain your printer/fax – you can save hundreds of dollars per year – even in a small office.  Plus – you’re going GREEN!

Thanks To: Tea Silvestre of Planet Good Group

21. It’s All About Your Temperature

Cost Cutting Tip: Install a programmable thermostat, and set at reasonable temperatures. We program the thermostat to 50 degrees at night and over the weekends and 70 degrees during the day in winter. The thermostat moves to its daytime temperature 2 hours before we arrive at work to make sure that it is comfortable when we get here. We almost cut our energy costs in half this winter doing this.

Thanks To: Sheryl Woodhouse-Keese of Twisted Limb Paperworks

22. Talk About Smart, Simple & Easy

Cost Cutting Tip: Brown bag it.  I bring my lunch everyday.

Thanks To: Ralph of Ralph’s Vacuum & Sewing Center

23. They Are Smarter Than You

Cost Cutting Tip: To figure out the less obvious expenses, be sure to involve your employees. Because they are on the front lines every day, they may have a better idea of what can be cut. For example, maybe they’ve noticed that you have an incoming paper supply that could be reduced.

Thanks To: Ed Hess of So, You Want To Start a Business

24. Make It In 4D

Cost Cutting Tip: Use the 4D method to manage your email (Ditch, Deal, Delegate, Decide). Then run your daily work plan through Outlook Calendar and TaskPad side by side. This will significantly improve your productivity (6%).

Thanks To: Stephen D Barnes of Orla Australia Pty Ltd

25. The Interns Are Social Mavens

Cost Cutting Tip: We hired interns who were experts at Social Networking (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) to help with our website launch marketing and had employees telecommute/work-at-home instead of renting large office suites.
Thanks To: Camille Landau of Referquest

26. This One Rings True

Cost Cutting Tip: Let a bell or buzzer at the front door be your receptionist.

Thanks To: Shirley Barr of Shirley Barr PR

27. Free Admission

Cost Cutting Tip: If you want to attend a business/networking event, there is a way to save on admission fee, ask organizers if they are looking for volunteering  help: set up tables before the event, greet people at the door, bind handouts etc. That way you will get free admission.

Thanks To: Marina Mironov of DreamGYM Inc.

28. Look At That Mug

Cost Cutting Tip: Have employees bring in a favorite mug to have their coffee in, instead of purchasing disposable cups.

Thanks To: Alex Eaves of STAY VOCAL

29. Let Them Eat

Cost Cutting Tip: Seems contradictory, but it’s effective.  Buy your employees free food for lunch and dinner.  They stay a few hours later and save a trip out of the office for lunch.  Even more effective – by food from Costco like us!  For less than $15 worth of food we got more than $300 more of production.

Thanks To: Brian Ma of Eggsprout

30. Smarts 101

Cost Cutting Tip: Before attending ANY event on behalf of YOUR business, ask yourself “As the person responsible for this company would I authorize it as a justifiable business expense that I would approve.”

Thanks To: Maria Marsala, Strategic Coach

31. Bottom Line Productivity

Cost Cutting Tip: Cutting cost in business without cutting capabilities and performance is achieved by optimizing each employee’s time.  Is every employee spending the majority of his or her day “on the revenue line” – work that generates revenue for the firm?  How to do this: I have employees of my clients keep a time log then we analyze how much time is spent on non-revenue producing activities.  We replace those activities with revenue generating activities.

Thanks To: Carson Tate of Working Simply

32. Sharpen The Pencil

Cost Cutting Tip: Negotiate. In tough economic times, vendors are often willing to work with long term, loyal customers. If you can pay early, ask for a discount. If you can’t pay on time, ask for an extension to stretch out cash flow. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by asking.

Thanks To: Deb Osgood of Your Business Buzgate