Posted By 
By Sia Hasan
Special to the Financial Independence Hub
Building a company from scratch and being your own boss are the dreams of many. However, it is small businesses that have it the hardest, and you’ll need to bring your A game in order to survive the first year of operation. There are many ways that a small business may stack the deck in its favor, however. Here are the tips you need to know in order to keep your business from going under.
Maintaining Cash Flow
Businesses strive to make money, but a business owner must also cover his or her overhead expenses in order to stay in business. Therefore, one needs to maintain one’s cash flow in order to continue to compete. This is especially pertinent when it comes to invoices, as invoices can be great for consumers while being a detriment to smaller businesses.
An invoice factoring company can help you maintain cash flow by buying your invoices from you at a slight loss in exchange for immediate payment. While this isn’t much an issue for established, successful companies, small businesses can benefit tremendously from this practice.
Reducing Costs
Another important way to strengthen your cash flow is to simply reduce the costs of some of your necessary experiences. In some cases, you can outright eliminate expenses, as well. For instance, you can try to find better prices within your supply chain, or you can even buy directly from manufacturers in order to cut costs. In such cases, you need to be sure that you’re not losing too much in terms of quality or reliability, however.
On the other hand, antiquated methods of distributing communications can be updated in order to save some money. A prominent example is that of printers and fax machines. Digital alternatives to the distribution of documents such as email are less expensive and more accessible, meaning that paying for paper, ink, and toner can be a thing of the past without ruffling any feathers.
Hiring Specialists
While maintaining cash flow and reducing costs are important to the success of a small business, so too is taking on additional costs here and there, and there are few better examples than hiring specialists. Bringing experts into the fold can dramatically boost your revenue by way of more experienced marketing campaigns, for example. Even hiring a professional accountant has major benefits, as taking a complex task off the shoulders of less experienced workers or yourself can result in more accurate record keeping. Likewise, financial advisors can help you make the most of your budget by providing fiscal guidance. IT professionals are generally becoming an essential part of any company, and cyber security is also on the rise. This is because these fields are complex in nature and often elude the layperson. Simultaneously, more advanced technology is becoming the norm within modern businesses, and adequately maintaining that tech requires expertise.
Embracing Technology
As mentioned above, business tech has become much more advanced in recent years. This raises the bar for competition among businesses, and it also has a steep barrier to entry. For these reasons, IT [Information Technology] workers are essential, but it also depends on pursuing the right tech for the right applications. For example, cloud computing has tremendous potential for data processing, and IoT [Internet of Things] technology offers the interconnectivity of your business’s various devices. Both of these emerging technologies offer a major boost to productivity, but they do so in different ways. While both of these technologies can help any business, a smaller company may need to choose between the two, so finding the tech that most helps your business is critical.
Running a small business takes a lot of work and planning, and it can thoroughly test fledgling business owners. However, there are plenty of methods that can help you get through the hardest parts of growing your business, and those same methods will serve you well in the long run. These tips will help you secure your small business and set you up for long term success.
Sia Hasan is a tech entrepreneur by day, and a freelance writer by night. Her passion lies in business technology, efficient and sleek programming, and customer relationship management. When she doesn’t have her nose pressed against her computer screen, you can find her spending time with the loves of her life, her two dogs, Pixel and Vector.
