Savings Month - Tips and advice for SMEs

Savings Month: Five Easy Savings Tips for Small Businesses

National Savings Month provides a valuable reminder of things we can all do to save where we can. This approach to responsible money management is valid for small businesses too.

“There are a lot of easy to set up measures that can help SMEs better look after their hard-earned cash. Implementing these will help businesses build up a protective buffer to use on a rainy day, or even future finance expansion dreams.

“Whatever your long-term dreams or goals might be, we hope that these tips can make managing your business just that little bit easier,” says Tom Stuart, Chief Marketing Officer for SME business funding provider Lulalend.

These tips include:

· Know thy neighbour. You can save a lot of money by sharing advertising or promotional costs with other small business owners who are not competitors but do target the same audience.

· Offer advice. Have you considered appearing as an expert speaker at a local community meeting, or writing an advice piece for a local newspaper? You gain from the credibility of appearing or being seen as someone who knows the sector they work in, which is valuable – and free – marketing exposure.

· Never accept the first offer. When you are negotiating with suppliers, always try and get a better price. They want your business, and there is most likely a compromise price that will be financially viable for both parties.

· No plan? Financial goal setting is an intricate part of any savings plan, and this is as true for SMEs as it is for ordinary people. If you don’t have a goal in mind of how much you want to save, you are unlikely to succeed. ‘Failing to plan is planning to fail’ as the saying goes. Hand-in-hand with putting a plan or a goal in place is the need for regular reviews to see if you are on track.

· Turn to tech. There are many easy-to-access and effective tech solutions that can make your day-to-day operations easy to manage. Most of these are also very affordable and mean you can put the money to use on other things you need.

“Perhaps one of the best things any small business owner can do is to share tips and advice with others who are in the same position. Share the best money-saving tips you implemented with someone else, and use this month to pay it forward,” says Stuart.