Most business owners don’t set up small businesses with a view to keeping them small – they want to build them up, growing and expanding them as they gain m,ore experience and a higher profile. This is pretty natural, but it can be difficult to achieve, not least because growing a business takes a lot of time and money. In this post, we’re going to look at a few things you can do to at least deal with the money situation and start growing your business on a shoestring budget.
Sell Stuff Then Create It
A pretty good way to start growing your small business without lots of extra funds is to sell your goods and services before you create them. Basically, this means taking orders with either a deposit to the full amount being payable at the time of placement. Then, you have the money you need to source the materials and start making the product. You might think this seems like a crazy way to do things, and it certainly won’t work for all businesses, but Bill Gates himself used to do something similar telling clients he could deliver code and taking payment for it before he had even written a single line!
Expand into Tent Structures
If the main thing holding you back from growing your business is the cost of vital workspace, renting temporary structures like warehouse tents until you can afford something more permanent is a great solution. If you’re office bases, shared workspaces and hot desking could be an alternative solution that would cost you less.
Hire Freelancers Instead of Employees
If expanding your operation is likely to mean that you need more people to answer the phones, do basic admin tasks, write copy or work on your websites, for example, it’s pretty easy to do it on a modest budget by hiring freelancers as and when you need them rather than hiring new employees who will demand salaries and benefits. They’ll do just as good a job if you vet them first, too.
Partner Up
Partnering up with another company who complements your own is an excellent way to grow your operation without a huge budget, An example of this would be partnering up with a content creation company to sell their services when you’re a web design company and vice versa. You each benefit from offering more services and building up a bigger client base with far fewer risks.
Pay Yourself a Smaller Salary
Okay, so this probably isn’t going to be palatable for a lot of you reading this, but if you are up for it, paying yourself the smallest salary you can manage will ensure that you have far more money to put into building your business. Obviously, you will need to pay yourself enough to live on, but if you can go without the little luxuries for a year or two, there’s a good chance that it will pay off in the end in terms of a stronger more profitable business.
Have you been able to grow your business without a huge budget? How did you do it? What would you recommend?