Partner Article

Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after you!

Once a business has started to become successful its important to not get too carried away, you never know when an unexpected bill is just around the corner and as we all know – for any business cash flow is the key to prosperity. Keeping an eye on costs is vital for sustaining success and making a profit. With that in mind, Aisling Brennan, Marketing Manager, eFax and Rory Whelan, Marketing Manager, eReceptionist, provide their top business money saving tips.

Don’t rely on bricks and mortar – Its no secret that property prices are sky high across the country, with rents becoming unaffordable for some business owners. Don’t believe that to have a successful business means you need to be working from an office. Consider turning your home into a virtual office – technologies now exist to allow you to have instant phone and fax lines which use your existing handsets but keep your home phone number private. And with a network of homeworkers and the money you save in office rent will be invaluable for the ongoing growth of your company.

And these with these numbers it’s actually pretty easy to have a central number that connects multiple locations. But you’ll need to be disciplined if you’re going to balance your home and work live properly.

Keeping up appearances – Even if the money’s rolling in, hiring new people is an expensive business and you might not be able to afford to hire as many staff as you’d like. So while you’re work force is out and about, sealing deals and delivering a first class service to existing customers, an effective telephone answering service needs to be put in place across all parts of your business. With solutions such as these calls go to the right people and department every time and with call routing plans in place you’ll ensure that your business never misses a business opportunity – even if someone is away from their desk, on holiday or in transit the customer’s call can always be answered.

Make your business social by being social – As an established business starts to gain momentum, you may start to see the money roll in but marketing is a crucial component of growth. With free platforms like social media, this is easily accessible to do yourself. There is an abundance of advice out there for utilising social media properly to market your company, so get reading now!

Go Green – Aside from the positive effect it has on the environment, going green can also save your business money. For example, less paper usage, means less money spent on paper supplies. With the type of technology available today, there is no need to rely so heavily on office staples such as the trusted A4! Go electronic with your fax by sending and receiving scanned documents as a pdf. Even if documents need signing, electronic signage solutions mean this can still be done without reaching for the printer.

Look up to the clouds – The right technology is crucial for keeping costs low and here is where the cloud comes in. Cloud technology can be deployed easily and with automatic software updates, nothing has to be spent investing in maintenance. It also enables the access to important documents and services wherever you may be in the world, so you won’t have to be carrying around computer servers as you travel to important meetings and your business continues to grow.

By digitising documents and putting what might have traditionally lived in a dusty old filing cabinet up in the cloud, you’re also protecting one of company’s biggest assets, its data. Yes, computers crash from time to time, but by backing them up in a remote location, no flood, fire, or other act of God is going to stop you from getting the business back on its feet as quickly as possible.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Rory Whelan .