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One of the best reasons to start a business from home instead of setting up a commercial space is because of how much easier it is to get a return on your investment. Without those added property costs, you get to see a lot more of the money you make. But when you have plans to reinvest and goals you want to meet, you can always work a little harder to trim the fat. Here are a few ways to go about that.
When you’re just setting up your home office, you might find you have need of more than you might have anticipated. If you don’t have a proper office desk and an ergonomic chair, for instance, you will find it hard to focus at work. A scanner, webcam, printer and external hard drives might be some other necessary purchases, too. You need to be careful with sourcing used goods, but restored furniture and (gently) pre-owned tech can help you reduce the start-up costs of the company even more than usual.
You need to set up a presence online, but you might not always have to start up from scratch. For instance, if you’re in the business of buying-and-selling, then there are plenty of sites to do that from and tools like eBay templates that can help you set up a professional online brand without the need to hire your own designer. If you’re selling your services, then building leads through freelancing portal sites can be a great place to start from, as well. However, don’t get caught in the trap of spending all your time on those sites. It can be hard to get a fair price for your services.
Whatever kind of supply you have, now is the time to start negotiating with them. For instance, when buying office supplies, it’s a good idea to go with local, small stores instead of big chain places. Setting up a business account can give you some availability to long-term deals. They’ll be glad to secure a regular customer, after all. But don’t ignore the utilities, either. You can use sites to find a range of prices on your gas, your internet, even your mobile packages. With that data, you can negotiate with your current provider much better.
Marketing the business is going to become a big priority at some point. But when you don’t want your budget getting inflated too much, you should think about organic market instead of interruptive. Interruptive marketing is things like pay-per-click, placing advertisements on websites and the like. It provides the most responses in the shortest amount of time. But learning and applying search engine optimization, creating and promoting content to build legitimacy for the brand and grow leads, and getting more active on social media can help you build a more solid base over the long-term. A mix is obviously the best, but when you can spend time instead of money to get the same effect, you should.
Going lean with your business might take work, but it’s going to make it easier to reach those profit goals that help you reinvest. Go light now so you have much more to put into the business later.