How To - run a business for cheap

paulieG · 17-12-11

Hi everyone, I’m new and I just thought I’d make a list of services that benefit businesses that I know of. If anyone knows of any other services please add them, it would be great to have a list of services in one spot, and I’d love to know more services if anyone knows of any cheap and effective ways of doing things, particularly in the area of advertising. I’ll get the ball rolling. Please note I am not affiliated with any of these services, these are just services I have used or heard of people using. Also since I'm new, I can't add links so you'll have to google these names.

Products:

Clickbank

If you don’t have anything to sell, Clickbank is a good site for finding and selling other peoples products. It is also great if you have a good product and would like other people to sell it for you, which saves you time.

Alibaba

Buy bulk lots of just about anything from around the world. This is a great wholesale resource.

Advertising:

Daily deal sites are fantastic for getting your product or service out there. They advertise your product/service to potentially tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of buyers and it doesn’t cost you anything upfront. Daily deal type sites are hugely popular for buyers because these are sites that people can buy products/services for very cheap.

Your role is to make your service extremely cheap for a limited number of people. The daily deal site will then advertise it for you for free, and then for every sale made, they take a commission. The amount of commission varies from site to site so it’s worth asking around.

The idea of advertising through Daily deal type sites is to drastically reduce your profit margin, but gain heaps of new customers.

Scoopon
Spreets
Deal2Day
Deals
Catch of the Day
Groupon
Jigo City
1-day

Website / Web Design:

Everyone needs a website, so since the demand is high, they can be very expensive. However there are DIY services around which are far less expensive.

WordPress

WordPress is great if you want something really cheap. There are also heaps of free plug-ins which can turn your WordPress installation into just about any type of site and you don’t need a web designer. However there can also be a big learning curve and can be a really big pain at times. Certain versions of WordPress have trouble with some web hosting services, errors arise, it can often be a pain to set up if you’re doing something a bit different and even though there are thousands of templates out there good luck getting it to look good unless you are a proficient web or graphic designer already. However you can sign up to WordPress on the WordPress site and get a custom sub domain site and have a play with it and see if you like it.

Creative Site

Creative Site is really easy to use. No installation required. Way easier to use than WordPress. Way better looking than WordPress. They have about 200 designs to choose from, all of which are beautiful and would probably cost you a few thousand dollars each if you got a web designer to design the site for you. You can update the site by yourself without having to pay a designer. They have video tutorials available, email support and live chat support. You can also sign up for free to see if you like it. Really affordable and professional service. It’s cheap, not as cheap as WordPress, but I’ve saved hours of frustration using it.

Phone Line:

Skype

Skype is really handy. If you have an office computer connected to the internet (which most people do), just buy a cheap set of headphones with a microphone and you’re set. Skype has really cheap calling available including a plan which gives you unlimited national and international landline calls for $7.99/month and $15.99/month respectively. You can even purchase an internet phone number from Skype.

Amaysim

I haven’t used Amaysim but people I know have and they absolutely LOVE it for it’s cheap mobile rates. Especially their unlimited plan which is really cheap and worth checking out. They use the Optus network so they get good coverage.

Virtual Office:

This is especially great for online businesses. Instead of hiring out real office space which gets costly, you can hire out virtual office space which is much cheaper. If you run a home or internet business, instead of putting your home address on your website, you can hire an office space somewhere within your area and put that address on your website. You can also hire assistants, so now you have an office and phone number where mail can be sent to and assistants will answer the phone for you. Since these virtual offices look after many businesses, they can make this service much cheaper than if you hired the people yourself.
A quick Google of ‘virtual office’ will bring up heaps.

So that’s my list. Please feel free to add more, I’m particularly interested in advertising. I will add more if I find more too!

elitebag · 19-12-11

Good .These are common.

jenifer1 · 19-12-11

If you want to run your business for cheap then firstly Success of any business is depend upon it's financial status.If the financial status of a business is good then the growth of the company is better.
In a small scale company financial status play most important role.To mange your account you can hire a Bookkeeper.
Now days a lot of organization that is offering Online Bookkeeping Services.