Investing is a word that many entrepreneurs and business owners are used to hearing and seeing. When you think about investing, you often think of something like stocks and shares, where you put money on the line and hope to see it grow within a few days, weeks or even months. However, investing is just a word used to describe the action of devoting your energy, time or resources into something and expecting a result.
Note the keywords here: energy, time and resources. The typical use of the word “investing” is to describe putting money into a financial venture, but we rarely think about the other two words; time and energy. When you create an online business, you have to consider what you’re investing in it to make it a successful company, and here are just a few considerations you need to make.
Learn more about your industry
School may have been a waste of time for you, but if you’re starting up a business, you need to understand the importance of knowledge and how it can positively affect your business’s success, and this means studying. For instance, you need to learn plenty about how your business is affected by industry trends. You need to research how to manage employees, you need to learn how your product works and how it’s manufactured and so on.
If you don’t dedicate time to studying, then you’re going to fall behind when your competitors get the upper hand based on their knowledge. If you want to study about business subjects, check out websites such as lynda.com where they have thousands of videos and courses for you to sink your teeth into.
Know what services are worth your time
Let’s imagine you want a website. Your first instinct would be to contact freelancers, right? You look at their portfolios, send them information regarding your orders, wait a few days or weeks for a response, then finally you can start talking about specifics such as delivery time and cost. Before you know it, you’ve spent a week’s worth of time speaking to various freelancers and possibly using up a lot of money just to get a website designed. Instead of asking a freelancer, you could’ve just used a template or a simple website builder. It would be less hassle, you’ll get your business started, and they look absolutely fine.
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Another great service to get is a virtual address, such as from physicaladdress.com. A virtual address allows you to give a great first impression when dealing with new clients. Instead of using your residential address as a business address, you could get a prestigious location such as Wall Street, New York on your contact details.
Everyone talks about freelancing and outsourcing, but few people talk about the expenses involved and what it actually means for your online business. Let’s face it, hiring people to do jobs here and there is going to be expensive. If you really want to make the most of your money when growing an online business, then you have to invest your resources wisely. And yes, resources—it’s not just money you need for outsourcing.