When you’re just starting out, it can be difficult to balance all the requirements of your business and still come out on top. This is especially true in some fields like finances, where you’re going to have significant fluctuations in many of your assets in the beginning.It’s important to learn how to prioritize and identify the situations where it makes sense to invest more. On the other hand, you should also be able to spot opportunities for cutting down on your expenses. This won’t be very easy at first, but it’s a skill that you can develop naturally over time.
The Challenge of Working with Limited Resources
Many companies face this kind of problem in their early stages – you may see many opportunities as a leader, but you will likely have a fraction of the resources necessary to realize them. You have to identify the points that are most relevant to your current operations, and also figure out where you might be lacking in a general business sense.
For example, customer support is something that small businesses tend to neglect in their early stages, only to find themselves in a challenging uphill battle later on when they have to set up proper service centers. You may not have the resources and manpower to do everything you want right now, but you should at least make a list of the top aspects that have to be addressed when your situation changes.
Hitting Hard Where it Matters the Most
Some investments will pay off more than others in the beginning, and it’s a good idea to learn what they are. Some of those will be individual and specific to your business, location, and other factors. But there are some things that any business can benefit from, too. A good CRM for small business operations can completely transform the way you’re handling your customer interactions, and it can allow you to identify some valuable opportunities that can bring you good benefits early on. Sendinblue’s solution is one of the most popular ones on the market, so if you’re looking for something with an established reputation and a large community, it’s a great start.
As we mentioned above, support is another area where you should definitely not cut any corners. Even in the beginning, providing a good service on this front can really separate you from other companies on the market.
Identifying Cost-saving Opportunities
n the other hand, there are also some things that you can do without at those early stages. Once again, each industry has its own specific points to address here. But in a more general sense, think about issues like renting something for a few months instead of buying it, doing your taxes yourself if your business is small enough to allow for that, and purchasing supplies and materials in bulk when you know you’re going to need them in the near future – American Express has a useful article on the subject. There are often many things you could do to bring down your expenses at the end of the month, and some of them will not impact your business in any negative ways.
The point about accountants is actually a bit of a controversial one because, in some circumstances, a good accountant can potentially shave off a nice chunk of your expenses in terms of taxes and deductions. But it’s not always worth spending the money on one in the first place, and it’s something you’re going to have to find out for yourself.
Preparing for Future Growth
According to this article from Entrepreneur.com, growth is, surprisingly, one of the factors that tend to kill companies more than anything else. It’s often surprising to hear this, considering that growth is the thing that pretty much every company strives for in the beginning. But if you’re not prepared adequately for it, it can quickly sweep you away. The most common example is a store that sees an explosion in popularity overnight – nowadays, a random internet meme is sometimes enough to do that.
And when that store doesn’t have the infrastructure to handle exponential growth in orders, support requests, returns, disputes, and everything else that comes with the territory, this leads to disappointed customers, bad ratings, and an overstressed entrepreneur who often decides that the effort is not worth it anymore. Which is unfortunate, because avoiding this comes down to being prepared and anticipating this growth in advance. Know which of your facilities will be in critical need of an upgrade in this situation – regularly scout the market for new suppliers that can handle heavier demands. There’s a lot you can do to put yourself in a better position for this sort of development.
Avoiding trouble in a situation with limited resources – like the initial growth of your business – comes down to a combination of thinking two steps ahead, knowing which corners you can cut, and focusing hard on the other areas. You will have to constantly study your corresponding market if you want to make the most of your experience in the early stages of your company.