Running a business is difficult at the best of times; but during a time where we have seen a pandemic sweep the world it seems almost impossible for smaller enterprises to stay afloat and successful.

If you are worried about the direction of your business and you are hoping for some advice to improve it – we are here to help. These simple tips will go a small way to helping your business live to fight another day and triumph long after the pandemic is over.

Outsource

The first thing you can consider as a small business owner is outsourcing. Outsourcing is the act of hiring third party agencies to take on work that a full time employee would otherwise complete. This can be anything from your marketing to finance or even IT management services. Outsourcing can be a helpful way to keep your costs down as a business owner and ultimately help you to increase your profits and allow you to either invest in the growth of your business or pay higher wages to yourself and the staff you do have working for you.

Cut Down on Paper

Paper usage is one of those small niggling things that often goes unnoticed in an office. However, paper is expensive and if there are members of your team printing off documents every single day the cost can be huge to your business expenses. Consider limiting the amount of documents people are allowed to print or even try to stop printing at all and take these operations online. You’ll be surprised how much you’ll save on paper and ink throughout the year.

Ditch the Office

One of the things that many businesses learnt in 2020 is that working from home is not necessarily inferior to the office. With many countries around the world forced into lockdown; a lot of business owners had no choice but to trust their employees to work efficiently. Many once cynical owners were able to see the merits of letting their employees work from home and many won’t go back to office life. Should you?

Office space is expensive to rent or buy and the bills can be astronomical. Consider instead of renting out an office, hiring your staff remotely and working from home full time. It will give you more scope when it comes to hiring the right people for the business as you won’t be relying on local talent and your business will do better as a result.

Build an SEO Friendly Website

SEO can be a complex subject and confusing for those not familiar with marketing. Search Engine Optimisation is an important part of marketing and allows content to rank higher on search engine results of relevant keywords. Think for a moment about your business function and google it. Can you see your website? If not, you need help from the best local SEO company you can find. SEO increases visibility and can improve your sales no end.

Take on these tips to help you improve your business this year.