Spend a Little…
- Professional photos and head shots. Time out for these headshots that you took on your cell phone. They are not professional and they make folks not take you seriously. This is an area to spend a bit and you can usually find reasonable photographers on Craigslist or with a quick Google search. Spend a little here as you will use these photos constantly in your marketing.
- A virtual assistant. This is definitely an area to spend. Removing some of these administrative to do’s off your desk and onto someone else’s for $5 dollars an hour is well worth you letting go of your latte habit. Also, learning to focus on high dollar tasks is one of the BEST ways to stop surviving and start thriving in your business. Check out Elance to find a virtual assistant who fits your budget and has experience with the tasks you need done.
- Building your dream team, for example, hiring an accountant, small business attorney and a proven business consultant. Building a dream team from day one is absolutely priceless. You will count of them often and gain their advice regularly. They will save you, fight for you, organize your financials and help you grow your business. Learn exactly who should be on your dream team here.
- Business cards. You will use these business cards ALL THE TIME, especially if you are working your new business like you should. You are networking, you are having private meetings, you are headed to the airport and you are in line at the grocery store. You can meet a potential contact or client anytime and you must be prepared with a professional looking business card ALWAYS.
- Training and Courses with lessons that can add directly to the bottom line. Don’t just aim for the free stuff. Those courses and webinars are strategically built to give you great info but won’t necessarily take you to the finish line. Learn to pay for quality and for lessons that are proven to grow your business IF, IF, IF you also plan to implement the advice and tools.
- Pitching and Key Meetings. This is not the place to save. This is the place to be cognizant on where you do spend, for example, on a designer to layout your proposal, another eye ( editor) to spellcheck your work and make sure the layout is right or an attorney to look over your proposal to make sure your interests are protected. When pitching bigger business, which I discuss in colorful detail in the ReThink Strategy Book, you want to put your best foot forward. This is your chance of scoring prime dollars for your business and you cannot do it if you’re toting small ball thinking. Small ball thinking does just that, keeps you playing small ball.
- Creating Income Sources. This is another area where you want to spend. Let’s say you have $100 in your business, you have the option to save it and use it to pay a bill, put it back into your pocket or you could use it build something that brings in say, $500 a month ( an ebook, a webinar a DVD). Which do you feel is the best way to spend that $100? Understanding how to leverage what you do have to grow your business or to create more income streams is pretty dang powerful and is a strategy you should develop as soon as possible.
Save A Lot….
- Word processing or document software. Pretty much, Google runs the world and has made it uber easy for you to run your business for free using a slew of their office apps which you can learn about in detail here and here. Save your money on calendars, word processing and cloud backup and invest a little time into learning how to implement these tools into your business today.
- Hiring employees. There is no need to take on an employee in the early days. With platforms like Fiverr and Elance, you can get the help you need for almost any task and pay per project or per hour. Right now is the time to hire out for design, for editing, ebook covers, and social media marketing. It’s quite inexpensive, yet very effective.
- Your first website may actually be free. This is an item that holds a lot of folks up because they are constantly trying to make it perfect. Do you realize that you will change that website soooooo many times and that you really and truly just need to get something decent out there? Now if you are a web or graphic designer and that is your business, then yes, from day one, yours needs to be pretty dang spectacular. But think like this, your website needs to do 1 job very, very well, and that is collect email addresses ( subscribers) for you. You also want to make sure it clearly states what your business offers and has a blog feature that you regularly and consistently add useful information to for your audience. Go to wordpress, buy a template if you need to and roll with it.
- Marketing your business. In the beginning and all throughout your business, this is where strategic content marketing, leveraging social media and pure hustle will come into play. It’s imperative that you learn as much as you can about marketing as it is something you will do from day one up until the day you sell your business. Also, understanding the power of marketing will help you to grow your business faster, help you to build your brand and get your services and products out there. Check out this detailed article on 52 Ways to Market Yourself by Creating.
- An office. Almost no one needs an office starting out. If Steve Jobs can start in his garage, why are you stressing over getting an office? This is not a startup must. Clean out a corner of your home, set up a computer and get to work. With the overhead of an office being the #1 reason most small businesses go under…. I suggest you wait on the office until you truly need one.
- Visual Conferencing or Webinar Software. Again, innovation has launched a plethora of options for you to go global, host meetings, teach webinars and hold conference calls for free all while sitting at your desk with your computer and an internet connection. Use software like UberConference, Google Hangouts, AnyMeeting or FreeConferenceCall.com to get started.
- Hiring a public relations representative. Whenever I hear a new business owner say they need a PR rep, I’m floored. Really, 99% of the people who think they need a rep, don’t quite have anything newsworthy to publicly relate about. You opening a new business isn’t news. While you’re still figuring out what your business’ focus is and what your story is going to be, I suggest you rethink needing a PR rep and read Julie Griffith’s article, 9 Things You Need to Ask Your PR Firm here.
Drop me a comment below CEOs and tell me where are you going to save?
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