Starting a new business? On a limited budget? You don’t have to necessarily cut corners to save money. Here’s 10 tips that show you how to get it right and do it better than the rest, without running the bank balance dry.
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Name your business
Make it snappy and make it easy to remember. If possible, think of a name that is to the point and describes the pure essence of your business.
For example, names like “Ted’s American Diner” and “Land of Pizza” need no introduction or additional clarification on what kind of businesses they are. The cost of thinking up a name for your business? Nothing. It just takes some great ideas and creative imagination.
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Trading Address
Don’t make the mistake of using your home address as the trading address for your business. You’ll be giving up your privacy. Often the address can be picked up by third party advertisers and directories and before you know it your residential address has spread like wildfire across the web. Quite often the results are irreversible. Customers and suppliers can also look up your address on Google Streep Maps. It doesn’t always go down well when people realise you are trading from home. Get a virtual address for your business instead. Prices can start from as little as £0.99 per week and most virtual office providers include mail handling.
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Form a Company
Forming a company can cost as little as £43.99. Not only does it give your business an established and professional look, trading via a Limited company also has some great tax benefits. Register your company to a Virtual Address and you get the added benefit of personal privacy and professional address for your business.
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Create a Logo
Your logo represents your business and gives your business an altogether professional look. It should be fresh, snazzy and attractive. But designing a logo is not as difficult and expensive as you think. There are a number of freelancer platforms where logo designers offer their services for as little as £15 to design a logo. There are also a number of websites that let you design your own logo if you believe you have the creativity and skills to do it yourself.
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Create a website
One of the biggest business sins is to start a business without creating a website. A website represents the professional mark of an established business. It also acts as a central point of reference for your customers, suppliers and business associates when deciding on whether to enter into a business relationship with you. There are a number of online companies that let you have a go at designing your own website. Alternatively, again you can hire a freelancer. A 6 page information only website, designed by a freelancer should cost you no more than £150 with a website consisting of fewer pages costing you even less.
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Professional Email Address
Don’t ever make the mistake of conducting business via a web-based email address like a Gmail account or a Hotmail account. Nothing could be more unprofessional. If you have a website then a domain-based email address is free. Just speak to your hosting provider in order to set it up. If you don’t have a website then purchase a domain and activate inbound and outbound email. It should cost no more than £3 or £4 a month.
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Get a phone number
Try not to operate your business via a mobile phone. It does not come across as very professional and it shouts out “one man band” to the person placing the call. Get a Voip number. This is a UK landline number which transfers calls to you mobile (or any other number or device of your choice). Calls can be transferred via good old fashioned call divert, or you can make / receive calls via an App. Voip numbers are available for as little as £5 per month. There are of course exceptions to this rule where operating via a mobile is seen as acceptable. A good example is a business that requires you to be outdoors for most the time like a gardener, ice cream man, car valeting etc. A mobile number reflects that you are popular and busy and don’t have time to sit besides a landline phone all day.
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Call Answering Service
Missing that all important business call can be frustrating and costly. It can also leave customers and suppliers deflated and in some cases it can lead to a drop in confidence. A call answering service enables your calls to be answered by a professional call centre when you are not available. You simply divert your calls to the call answering service provider when you want them to answer your calls for you. Prices can be as low as £1 per answered call.
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Serviced Offices
One of the most costly expenses for a new business is rent. Serviced Offices provide a good budgeting solution for this unwelcome and costly overhead. Most serviced office providers will offer a flexible contract term with a range of office accommodation ranging from shared offices going up to small offices and studios. Shared offices are available from as little as £60 per person per month.
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Advertising
The importance of advertising needs no justification. But it need not be as expensive as people may have you believe. There are a number of online business directories that allow you to advertise for free and give you good exposure in return. Yell.com is one of them. Also consider hiring someone for SEO (search engine optimization). They can help you climb the ranks of Google search results and optimize your website to appear on page 1 for certain keyword searches. A good experienced SEO specialist can be hired for approximately £100 per month.
Author Bio:
Matt Price is a blogger and speaker who enjoy enlightening others about unknown and little-known facts. Matt is the owner of Icon offices and we provide luxury serviced offices, virtual offices, meeting rooms and shared rooms in a cheap rate in East London Essex. Icon offices also offer cheap business VoIP Lines service in UK.