Minimising those expenses is a great way to ensure that you’re making the right kinds of investments, even if you don’t see any immediate returns. In fact, you often won’t.
Prioritise training
Investing in training for yourself and your employees is probably one of the best things you could do to maximise your company’s long-term potential, especially if you’re working in a complicated area that requires a lot of expertise and has constantly evolving requirements in this regard. If you can set things up so that your company promotes cross-training – that is, having your employees train each other in dedicated sessions – this can improve your success even more. Of course, not every type of work is appropriate for this kind of training system, but it’s worth investigating for your own organisation.
Have the right equipment for recurring jobs
Equipment rental expenses can quickly stack up, especially if you are regularly in need of more specialised gear that’s not easy to find. Investing in a full set of gear can sometimes be a very strong move when you want to keep your potential for growth as good as possible, and even though it will cost you a bit initially, once you’ve earned back the initial investment you should be able to see a noticeable difference in your bottom line. Just make sure that whatever you’re buying is actually good enough to last a long time – only work with the top in each class of equipment, e.g. Harnessland for safety equipment, and their equivalents in other categories.
Marketing – a waste of resources or Not?
A big question that keeps bothering many entrepreneurs, especially those running smaller companies, is whether marketing is a good area worth spending money on if the goal is to secure a good long-term growth potential for the company. There is no universal answer, as your results may vary even within the same industry. Depending on how you handle your interactions with customers and partners, sometimes spending a little extra on marketing your company and putting its name out there can make a huge difference. In other cases, it will just be a waste of money. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to know what category you fall in without experimenting a little.
On that note, make sure that you occasionally spend some money on new ideas that don’t follow the exact same pattern you’ve been working with until now. It’s never a bad idea to explore some new opportunities for your company, and as long as you can control how much you’re spending on them and approach them responsibly, you should be able to see good results in at least a few of those cases. Take note of what works and focus your efforts in that direction in the future.
Further reading to help business growth
Here, Mark Garius, managing director of ASL Group, gives his first-hand tips on growing a business.
