Many businesses during the Great Recession had no choice but to cut expenses and save money. But with the recession abating and business getting a bit better, is it time to let loose? Anna Miller in this guest blog post suggests 3 ways to still save money:
1. By going green: “Use energy wisely by turning off appliances and gadgets when not needed, don’t print documents unless you really need to, use email and paperless fax as much as possible, invest in green ink cartridges, and recycle and reuse whenever you can.
2. Track recurring expenses like employee expense accounts. If you’ve just started out, it’s best to insist that your employees pay their own phone bills and also keep a close check on how the company phones are being used. If your employees travel for business reasons, set a ceiling on their personal expenses when the company is picking up the tab.
3. Introduce incentives for your employees to reduce expenses: Even if you try your best to reduce expenses, your efforts are not going to bear much fruit if your employees decide they do not care much for the process. To ensure that your employees are on board and eager to save as well, provide them with some form of incentive to join your initiative. It need not be in the form of cash; you can allow them holidays and other work-based incentives as well if they save the company money. Once they have a personal stake in reducing overall expenditure, they are more enthusiastic about putting it into practice.
At the end of the day however, you need to remember that you are running a business; so if you attempt to scrimp and save at every turn, it’s going to be difficult to grow as an organization. So you need to draw the line between cutting down on unnecessary expenditures and spending on the things that are essential to help grow your business.
This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of degrees online .
