Operating a business on a minimal budget
For many decades, a lot of money was needed to start a business and potential business owners had to put business plans, cash flow forecasts and projected accounts together if they needed to raise any finance. They often had to find premises and think about employing staff to help them, as well as things such as phones, stationery and all the other overheads associated with running a business.
It was not unusual for them to be proud of the huge amounts they had needed to borrow or persuade people to invest. Now the tide has changed though and these days’ business owners are more likely to be proud of how little their empire needed to get off the ground.
Use free software for your website
There are several free software packages you can use to build your website, the most popular being WordPress. It has thousands of templates for you to customize your site with and plugins that will enable you to do many other things. Just make sure that your site is simple to navigate and responsive to all devices and then you will not have to spend a fortune on your website creation.
Accepting payments
You will need a way of accepting card payments and a smartphone card reader has to be one of the cheapest. It will perform the functions of a cash register or an electronic point of sale device, but you will be able to use it wherever you are. As cash is being used less often, being able to accept payments in this way is crucial to the success of your business.
Be creative
You could spend a lot of money having a logo and brand designed. You can do this yourself or use sites such as Upwork or Elance that let people bid for the chance to design your logo, your website and anything else to do with your brand.
Outsource
There are many tasks within a business that can be outsourced and this is much cheaper than employing people for the same jobs. For instance, to employ a graphic designer could easily cost you in the region of $50,000 a year. When you outsource to a graphic designer, you pay them for the work they do.
A price is usually agreed before the job is done, and a timescale set down for you both. It is then up to them to finish the work within that period and any problems they encounter are theirs, not yours.
You will also access expertise that might otherwise be out of your financial reach. Bookkeepers, accountants, writers, web designers and many others will work on a freelance basis. This is such a successful way of doing things that even larger companies stay with freelancers they have built relationships with and never employ someone for some of their jobs.
As an entrepreneur, you could look for friends and investors to fund your business. However, the best funding of all will come from paying customers and then you will not owe anyone anything and the success of the business will be down to you.
Jake Leonard, a broadcast media and journalism veteran, is the editor-in-chief of Heartland Newsfeed. Leonard is also GM and program director of Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network, wrestling editor and contributing writer for Ambush Sports, a contributing writer for My Sports Vote and Midwest Sports Network, and a former contributor to Bleacher Report and Overtime Heroics. He resides at home in Nokomis, Ill. with his dog Buster.
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