Free Resources to Help Cut Business Running Costs
Image courtesy of AGoK
It’s the three of the series about starting a home business to earn extra money. Today I’ve put together a list of resources that can you used to cut back on the day the cost of for your business. I’ve put together a list of about 20 products and services that drastically reduce the burden of running costs.
As time goes by, I’ll be adding more resources to this list. If you have any of tips then email me or leave your suggestions in the suggestion.
Free Messaging
Keeping contact with your customers is key but you want to do it as cheaply as possible. Here are a few free applications to help.
Skype
If you have a computer and you haven’t heard of Skype that you really have been missing out. This software allows you to all that kind of our phone us extremely cheap rates. It also allows you to have conference calls for face to face meetings online to clients for free.
Microsoft Messenger
For simple chat sessions you can freely download Microsoft’s Live Messenger application. It’s also available for the Mac so you don’t have any excuses.
Yahoo! Messenger
Yahoo! Also have a messenger application that you can download and use for free. Don’t worry if any of your clients don’t have Yahoo as you can use to talk to Live Messenger.
Free e-mail services
Ideally, for the professional look, you want a premium email address associated with your business. In the early days, it’s fine for you to use all of the three offerings out there. These include:
Gmail
This offering from Google is one of the best free services currently available. Not only do you get email services but Google can also display Office Automation documents (Microsoft Office, Libre Office, etc)
Hotmail
This must be one of the grant daddy’s for free e-mail services. This free e-mail service as part of Microsoft’s software offering. Recently the service has had an upgrade that allows you to create and open office documents online.
Yahoo email
This is another old timer in the world for free E mail services. Admittedly, yahoo email doesn’t have as many features as Gmail and hotmail but and it gives you a more portal-like look and feel.
Free advertising Services
To get your business off the ground you’re going to need to advertise your services. When he first set off on your trip to financial freedom you knew what he says as much money as possible. Here are a few places you can use to freely advertise your new business.
Face book
Build a Facebook fan page and let your customers know about it. Facebook is one the most heavily used sites on the internet. Keep the page updated with your latest offerings and news.
Craigslist
Originally launched in the United States, Craigslist allows you advertise just about anything for free. The local advertising options are a bit limited for UK users as the site only covers major areas such as London, Manchester, Birmingham, etc. Don’t let that put you off as it’s a great source….
Gumtree
A UK version of Craigslist, Gumtree is a great, free resource for advertising your services. As it’s designed for the UK there are more options for digging deep into your local areas.
Payment systems
Another question you have to ask yourself is are you cash in the business or will you accept what I pay is? Ideally, you the providing your customers with a service that allows them to book ahead. This means you’re going to need some form of cocaine racketeers them.
Paypal
Paypal is a secure payment tool for online transactions. There are no upfront costs; you simply pay a small fee for every payment made to your company.
Moneybookers
Like Paypal, Moneybookers.com lets you make and receive online payments. A transaction fee (currently about 2.2%) is applied to every payment made but this is paid by your the payee rather than you.
Small business Budgeting
To avoid any bother with the taxman you need to balance the books. This means you either pay for an accountant, creating your own budgeting spreadsheets or using a piece of finance tracking software. All the options below were originally designed for personal finance but can be easily adapted to fit your business needs.
mint.com
Mint is probably one of the best pieces of personal finance software available and it’s totally free. You can enter all your financial data manually or import it direct from your bank account. Once done, you’re all set.
gnucash
If you’re concerned about keeping financial data online you’ll be needing a desktop application. GNUCash is, for me, the greatest piece of budgeting software known to man. It’s part of Open Source suite of software which means it’s totally free to use. The developers has done an amazing job of build an application with features normally only seen in expensive premium products.
Setting Up Web Hosting
The internet is just about everywhere. You don’t need to have a website to own a business but it certainly helps. A website lets your customer see first-hand what you have to offer. It also allows you to swiftly communicate new products and services.
Ideally, you want to keep costs down. Normally, I’d recommend that you use paid hosting (some providers charge as little as £1.50 per month) but if you really can’t afford it you’re going to need free hosting.
Friends
Before you rush out to put up your website, do any of your friends have a website? If so, ask them if they have multi-domain hosting package and, if they do, ask them if they’d let you put your website on their package.
Free Templates
If you need a free html template for you business then you really need to check this site. There’s a huge selection of designs and ides for just about type of website or business imaginable.
Free Themes and Skins
If you’re using something like WordPress or Joomla (which we’ll talk about in a minute) head on over to wordpress.org/extend/themes and www.joomla24.com. Between them, the sites have over 6,000 themes and skins available to download.
Website Software
If you’ve decided you need a presence on the web it’s time to look at the software options available to you. Web design work can get pretty expensive. When you are first starting out to yourself a favour keep it simple. There are plenty of free html templates available and, with a little study, you should be able to make modifications to the code. Alternatively, you could try using software such as:
WordPress
Originally designed to be a blogging platform, WordPress has come on in leaps and bounds. The are plenty of themes available that you can use to tailor WordPress to your own needs. Installation is incredibly easy. In fact, many hosting companies now include WordPress as part of their ‘one click installation’ offerings.
Joomla
Joomla started life as a Content Management System. Like WordPress, Joomla has morphed from a relatively simple, one trick pony into an online jack-of-all-trades. There are plenty of free themes available for you to prettify your website.
That’s a wrap! I hope you’ve found this list of resources helpful. I’ll be back tomorrow with the final instalment of this weeks guide on how to start a home business.