I recently replaced my business phone system to accommodate an increase in the volume of calls I was receiving. I own a car rental franchise and needed to have new lines and new phones installed to go along with the new customer service representative I needed to hire. By taking care of my customers and keeping my vehicles clean and available, I was able to build my business and force the closure of one of my two nearby competitors. The resulting influx of customers meant I needed to act fast in order to capitalize on my good fortune. Like most people would, I gave little thought to my phone system and just decided to go with the cheapest solution I could find.
I purchased a new system that I was told would handle my volume. At first, I was more than satisfied as everything was working great and I had no problems. Shortly after I put the new phone system in place, I reduced our rental rates in order to try and get as many customers to switch over to my company from my now defunct competition instead of to my one remaining competitor. Even though I was operating at a loss for two months, my strategy was successful and my business increased yet again. The problem was that the phone system I purchased was designed to only handle a small amount of lines, and I was already at full capacity. While it was an improvement over my first system, it had limitations that I hadn't considered. I ended up having to replace it all over again, but this time I had the sense to go with a system that could grow with my business. Luckily, I was able to get some credit for returning the second phone system, which went toward the newest system.
Still, I lost money, and had I only been less concerned with the bottom line and more concerned with getting what I really needed, I would have been better off. When buying a phone system for your company, make sure you purchase one that you won't outgrow if business starts booming. I wish someone had told me that before I made the mistake of trying to save a few bucks.
Don't Go Cheap When Installing New Business Phones
A Cheap Way To Advertise Your Home Business
When you have your own home business, you can be there for your children and your family at any time, work in your pajamas, and set your own hours. Having a home business is great! You can take care of all kinds of things right from home and also vacation when you want. Making sure that you have clients that are going to pay you to do things for them is the key to having a home business that is successful. You can really enjoy it and it can be a great way of life.
Advertising is an absolute must. You need customers. You have to be sure that you are getting business. Also, you need traffic to the website you have for your business. No matter what type of home business you have it is very important. You might find that you don’t really have a budget for advertising, since a lot of people that start up home businesses are not wealthy to begin with. It is important to remember that you have to be able to budget a little bit of time and money towards advertising.
There are many inexpensive ways to advertise your business. There are things you can do with limited funds to make sure that you are getting the customers you need. Putting up advertising in the correct place is critical. Much of what determines your advertising methods will depend on the type of business you have. If you have a business that caters to your local area, such as a photography business or a hair salon, your advertising should be in print. That's because you don’t need the whole world to see it. Don’t bother spending your money on internet advertising if you are a local business. Just do print advertising with your website on it. This is the best way to advertise. Find an inexpensive place to have posters and business cards printed.
However, if you are running a home business that is on the internet, you need a wider area of customers to see it. You want the whole world to have access to it. Work on internet advertising. Don’t bother putting up flyers in your home town. There are many places that you can get your name out there inexpensively. You can find many free blogs that will let you post a link to your site. You have to spend several days surfing the web and getting your name out there in whatever way that you can. The fact remains that you just have to do it!
Business Process Outsourcing: A Cheap Alternative to Get the Job Done
Try to imagine that you need a business process to be finished. You hire a professional in your country that charges about a hundred dollars to get the job done. This can prove to be too expensive for your company. What if you can get the job done, with the same quality made by a person with the same qualifications as the person you hired before, to do the particular business process at half the price?
This can prove to be very attractive. However, how can you be able to find this person with the same qualification but charges half the price your professional charges? The answer to this question is to outsource your business process in developing countries full of talented professionals.
Since developing countries have lower minimum salary rates, outsourcing can prove to be a cheaper alternative to do a particular business process that you need. Not only that, if your company is burdened with heavy workloads, outsourcing can help your company ease the burden. This will mean more efficiency and productivity for your company while saving a lot of money in the process.
By outsourcing your business process, you can be sure that you will be able to get the job done at half the price. Developing countries, such as India, China, Philippines, and others can provide cheap labor compared to hiring professionals in the United States.
Outsourcing companies is considered as a major industry in developing countries. Governments of developing countries are welcoming outsourcing companies to provide top quality jobs for their professionals with high paying salary. Although the salary you will give to outsourcing companies in other countries may be considered high, in the United States it will be considered to be very low, the minimum wage in developing countries is far lower than you can imagine.
Outsourcing business processes in other countries will also mean saving a lot of money on company insurance, social security payments and other benefits that you will be required to pay for if you hire a regular employee in your company to do the job.
As you can see, outsourcing your business process' main advantage is providing your company with cheap labor and at the same time quality and professionally done jobs. The bottom line for outsourcing is saving a lot of money for your company.
So, if you are looking for a way to get cheap labor for your company, you can consider looking outside your country for outsourcing companies that can tailor your needs for your company.
However, before hiring a particular outsourcing company, you have to make sure that the quality of their work meets your company’s standards. Outsourcing companies are now providing ways for you to evaluate their work first before you hire them. Because of this, you can be sure that you will be getting the best outsourcing company to get your business process done.
Outsourcing doesn’t only provide cheap labor for your company, but it can also ease the burden of heavy workload because of the growing demand for your company’s services. Through outsourcing, you will be able to increase productivity and efficiency of your company.
However, you should always remember that outsourcing is not for everybody. You have to determine if your company should outsource your business process or not. If you think your company can handle it, you should keep the work in your company. But if it proves to be very burdensome, you should consider outsourcing. So, instead of hiring additional regular employees in your company, you can outsource your business process and save a lot of money.