Small business owners often focus on top-line growth, which is gross revenue. There’s something alluring about that number, contributing to our self-worth and sense of achievement.
However, there’s an equally important number, bottom-line growth, aka your company’s net income. Net income is your monthly gross revenue, minus your monthly expenses.
Whether you’re running a $100K or a $1M resume business, the amount you pocket at the end of the month is much more important.
Where to Start
Begin by printing your business bank statements for the past 3 months and criticizing every expenditure listed. Operating your business efficiently should be your goal.
You’re looking for two expenditure types:
The first is tools that you’re paying for, but not using.
The second is cost overruns that are slowly sucking your bank account dry.
Expenses for resume businesses generally include:
- Website hosting fees
- Monthly memberships (e.g., SaaS, CRM, analytics)
- Continued education
- Industry memberships (e.g., NRWA)
- Writing tools (e.g., Grammarly)
- Phone/utilities
- Contractors
- Office rent
To have the biggest impact on your net profit, focus on continuous monthly expenses for now.
Then, create an Excel spreadsheet, placing your biggest monthly financial commitments at the top and keep going down until your smaller expenses are at the bottom.
For expenses that you pay once a year, such as your NRWA enrollment, simply take the yearly amount and divide by 12 to get a monthly amount.
Creating a spreadsheet gives you a visual representation of what expenses are costing you the most.
Your account software (e.g., Quickbooks) may offer this function as well.
At this point, you’re asking yourself some hard questions.
What monthly fees am I paying for things I barely use?
If I canceled that, would I miss it? If I canceled, would I lose money or would there be some other negative that results, such as lost efficiency?
While you’re looking for expenses to cancel, also be on the lookout for expenses/services that you should be using more.
Your membership to ResumeBiz.com comes to mind. RBIZ offers so many goodies that you should be using to your advantage, from monthly business coaching and resume writing advice to usable client downloads and video training.
Phone Expense of Day’s Past vs. What’s New
A cost I identified as unnecessary a few years back was that of a landline. It’s not like I didn’t know it was redundant. It was more that I wanted my business to be like other brick-and-mortar businesses. And, I guess having that wired phone line made the business feel more legit.
All in, I used a landline to support my business for about 13 years. As businesses became more mobile with internet access, instant messaging, and video calls by an app, was increasingly a mistake.
So, I eliminated the landline in April 2012 and switched my business to a cell phone.
Now, answering calls from prospective buyers, no matter where I am gives me the opportunity to talk with and close prospects faster.
This is important since purchasing a resume is believed to be an impulse buy.
Many of you reading this are probably thinking that monthly cell phone plans can be expensive.
And, you’re correct.
They can be.
And, running your business using a cell phone can be expensive, because you likely have an unlimited plan to cover your project intake calls and coaching sessions.
What’s New #1
Yet, what if I was to tell you that there’s a cell phone plan that doesn’t cost much and you only pay for what you use.
I’m starting to feel like this is the start of an infomercial. 😉
I promise you it’s not. I’ve been using this cell phone service for years at a fraction of the cost – and love it!
The service I’m referring to is Ting.
I manage two very high-demand and profitable businesses through a cell phone plan that costs me $30 to $50 a month.
Now bad, right?
What’s New #2
Another option for reducing your financial phone commitments is to look into phone alternatives, such as Skype.
Skype is a VOIP solution that enables you to make internet calls using your phone, tablet, laptop, or computer, as long you have the app installed.
The cost? The investment for Skype service is $2.99/mth with another $30 annually for a dedicated phone number.
Here are some additional suggestions for cutting your company’s operating costs:
1. Criticize your web hosting service for cost — and the revenue it makes/saves you too!
For years, I used GoDaddy hosting to save money, however, my site was continuously down due to multiple brute force attacks.
These attacks were not the fault of GoDaddy; however, their support team was no help as the site was down for hours and sometimes days at a time.
My company probably lost tens of thousands of dollars in revenue.
In response, I switched to a work-horse website host, WPEngine, and the business website hasn’t been down for any length of time for years.
You can learn more about WP Engine and get 3 months free on their annual plans.
There aren’t what I would call inexpensive, however.
There are some services that need a larger investment because their value far supersedes the costs. For me, WPEngine is one of those.
2. Are you leasing office equipment that you rarely use? Should a person “lease” anything?
Instead, used equipment (e.g., printers, copiers) can be acquired through online sites such as Craigslist and eBay.
You can also make other non-equipment purchases on these sites to save money on USB cords, monitors, speakers, keywords, office chairs, and so on.
3. Are you paying for “turbo” internet access, when regular service may be all you need?
Chances are, you have the choice between one or two main internet providers.
Until Google Fiber expands into more areas, we’re all stuck paying price-gouging gangsters like TimeWarner (now Spectrum) for internet service.
Small vampire charges on our billing statements can be leeching money out of our bank accounts if we’re not careful.
Look at your internet billing statement to ensure you’re not being financially bled dry.
For example, turbo internet access may be more than you need.
If you’re “renting” a router from your ISP, consider a cheaper alternative that will still give you the same level of service.
Why rent a near disposable piece of equipment, right?
4. Do you purchase business books at retail? Eek!!!
There are many cost-effective (and no-cost) alternatives for book readers these days.
For example, the local libraries are still being funded, so when’s the last time you’ve been in one of those?
Yet, apps like OverDrive bring library books right to your phone as long as you have a valid library card. 😉
Are you paying an arm and a leg for photos to spruce up your blog or website? If yes, check out Pexels.com.
You can also take your own pictures. Many camera phones produce impressive photo quality, so it’s a mistake to not make your own creatives.
[Related Resource: Also be sure to check out our article on how to optimize your website’s images, which includes inexpensive tools.]
Would you like more frugal tips to save your resume business some bucks? This post can help with that:
Experts say that just by cutting your costs 12%, a 50% increase in net profit is realized.
Make 12% your goal.
If you’re serious about maximizing your net profit, make routine and small incremental improvements to how your hard-earned company profits are spent.
That’s easy enough, right?
*Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links for services I personally use, love, and recommend. If you choose to make a purchase after clicking one of these links, I may or may not receive a referral check.
