Author: Marketing Team

When starting a business it’s important to have an idea of what you are getting yourself into.

The reality is that starting a business can be very costly, as there are a number of services and systems that you may require to keep your business and yourself in check.

Making the right decision and knowing what you will need to purchase for new business will go a long way towards keeping your startup lean and healthy.

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Get set up with a payroll system

Get an accountant

Invest in client relationship management

Use a project management tool

Make use of professional business service

Get set up with a payroll system

Generating your employees pay can often be a nightmare to manage. However, if you are going to employ people to work for you, it’s important that they are well looked after. Payroll can often be outsourced to an accountant.

However, it may be best to enroll your business with a payroll system. Some systems such as Payroo’s payroll system, can be used to manage a number of legalities surrounding pay ethic. This service links to HMRC for RTI submissions, Nest Pensions for your employee pensions and it allows up to 10 free users to access its features. Your employees can also check their pay slips and manage there taxes, P60s and P45s.

Get an accountant

Hiring an account can be considered a necessity for your business. They can help with a bunch of different things that may otherwise be difficult to do by yourself. They can help with loan applications, government audits, payroll and general bookkeeping.

You won’t always need to hire an account full time, you can hire one on a pay-as-you-go basis and just use them for the tasks you deem most fundamental to managing your business.

Hiring a professional to look after some of your business practices makes serious sense. You’ll have the reassurance that a professional is looking out for you and your businesses legalities.

You may need an accountant to help with;

Writing a business plan

Advice about legal structure

Help with managing your business’s finances

Audits & Pension Schemes

Xero.com is great accounting service provider and may be a good place to start looking.

In a recent article, Xero stated that it may take you up to 10 hours to do your taxes, if your time is worth its weight in gold, outsourcing this particular task to an accountant could prove to be a win win scenario.

Invest in client relationship management (CRM)

There may be a time when your business is starting to kick-off. When your startup really gets started you will need a platform from which to manage your clients and customers.

A CRM is also used to manage the data associated with those customers. As your customers use your site and its popularity increases, making sure you maintain the profile, accounts and data of your customers will become increasingly prevalent for your business.

Every time someone at your company picks up the phone to talk to a customer, a vast amount of information is shared and exchanged.

Without a CRM or some basic data recording you will miss out on a potential truck load of information you can keep on your consumers. Everything you find out about them can be recorded in a CRM. If a customer calls or makes an input on your website you will need to be there to capture their data.

Every inkling of information you can get on your customers will go along way towards converting those leads into sales.

By making sure you invest in good quality CRM you can keep a closer eye on your customer base and tailor your products, sales and marketing techniques accordingly.

CRM tools are plentiful but again, shop around and make sure you find the best deal. The services can vary greatly in what they offer and some are more tailored to specific business types so bare that in mind when you come to make a decision.

CRM or customer relationship management will be essential for any B2B or B2C based business.

A more detailed article here.

Use a project management tool

No matter where you work in business, it’s quite likely that you will have a vast number of tasks to do on a daily basis. It can be easy to keep track of these task by simply creating a list or by creating a sheet in Excel or Google sheets.

However, most businesses that have 5 or more employees with a busy workload will need a centralised and preferably cloud based, project management tool.

Tools like Dapulse, can help you to keep track of your tasks with all the benefits and requirements that are desired by professional project managers.

Most project management tools use online cloud based systems that allow multiple users to login from varied locations.

A project management tool may include;

Projects & Tasks – List based input with schedules and deadlines

Contact Management – Simple CRM

Real-time – KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

Quoting and Invoicing

Team collaboration – Tasks to be tracked and scheduled by multiple team members

Online Team Discussion and Live Chats – For real-time collaborative work

Reporting and Tracking – For large projects with multiple inputs from team members

Task delegation – for project managers and team leaders

Message Boards – For project discussion

Email and desktop notifications

This list includes just some of the many technicalities and good project management tool can offer.

Basecamp, Dapulse and ProofHub are good places to start looking for project management tools.

Make use of professional business services

Last but certainly not least. Professional business service are a must for most new businesses. They can be useful, especially if you are not fortunate to have an official office location. A professional business service is an essential service to keep your business healthy.

Often a professional business service comes in the form of virtual services. The professional business provider can give you mailing addresses and phone lines that do not exist in your office. Instead they are managed from the physical location of the provider’s own space.

For example, a virtual mailing address would be suitable for business owners who do not have a physical office address themselves. By signing up for a virtual office a new business owner can find a cheap solution for the management of their business and personal mail. You can also get packages and parcels signed for and kept securely.

This is certainly useful if you are out of office or a busy entrepreneur. You can rest assured that a team of professionals will be there to answer your business enquiries. A provider will sort through all of your physical mail. Most will even notify you via your preferred contact method to let you know that you have received mail.

Employees from a professional service provider can even open letters and parcels for you in your absence. As a business owner you will never miss an important letter from the bank or delivery of goods whilst at work.

In addition, most virtual office and virtual mailing address services will forward your mail to you. Here at LowCost LetterBox we can even scan all of your letters to be sent directly to your electronic inbox (email).

Virtual address services will be essential if you live in temporary accommodation or if you are a serial entrepreneur.

We hope you found these tips useful.

Be sure to keep an eye out for our latest posts.

All the best,

The LCLB Team

Author: Marketing Team

If you’re working in a new niche you may be under threat from similar startups who have also gained an understanding of your new niche. They may be outsourcing some of their tasks to speed up their development.

If you are thinking about starting your own business or you have a business already it may be that you want to work quickly and spend a little extra cash to get those difficult to do tasks completed with efficiency and professionalism. More often than not your business will require speedy completion of tasks to get ahead of competing businesses and outsourcing could be the solution.

It may be that you are willing to do the same. If so, here are some tips on how to outsource efficiently, as well as some examples of businesses that have succeeded through making use of outsourced services.

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What is outsourcing?

What sort of funding do you have?

How long can you take to get your product or service launched?

What do you want to achieve?

What types of services can be outsourced?

Are there any disadvantages to outsourcing?

An introduction to outsourcing

When you are first starting out, you will want to hire talented individuals with expertise in their required fields. It would normally be considered more efficient to hire an individual and to train them. Allowing them to grow along with your business will mean that they will gain a better understanding of their role and the wider goals of the business. Resulting in a more efficient situation for both the employee and the employer.

However, it’s not always that easy. Hiring talent is very expensive and the more specialist and experienced an individual is, the more that they will cost to maintain. You should always look after your employees if you want the best out of them. In reality we can’t always hire who we want, sometimes the talent isn’t available and as aforementioned it can often be expensive. So what should be done instead to get specialist work done without hiring? The answer may be outsourcing.

Outsourcing constitutes the purchasing of external services from a third party, to aid with business growth and practice. This is often an alternative to hiring talent directly under the employment of a business.

Although often shrouded by controversy, it’s important to understand that almost every business will need to outsource services at some point in its lifespan. There are efficient ways of doing so. I can’t talk too much about specific services as every business varies but there are a number of services out there that are required by almost every operating business.

Before you can decide whether or not your business needs to outsource talent ask yourself the following questions;

What sort of funding do you have?

Will you have issues with cash flow if you outsource specialist services? You may need to asses you finances to see if outsourcing is the right option for you. Most services will charge on a monthly basis, whether that is a quarter or half term the reality is that paying for a great external service may require paying out large sums. Running into issues with cash flow can cripple your business and leave you, your employees and customers in a bad way.

On the other hand consider if you have enough cash to hire the services via an internal employee. Essentially, try to understand if you can save time and effort by hiring directly rather than using an outsourced service. If you do decide to outsource, let’s say a developer for example, you will have to understand that they don’t work for you directly. Asking them to work like they do will not be possible, as they will have to spend time with their other clients too.

Once you are happy with their work it may be that you hire an internal developer to continue where they left off. If that is the case, remember that it will take them time to transition between the work that was done by the external developer. The type of work you outsource and its immediate relationship with your business should be a factor in deciding how you hire the related services.

More often than not an outsourced service will be cheaper but try to hire these specialists for one off tasks. Maintaining use of an outsourced serviced will not be beneficial in the long run. If you are going to need a job doing for an extended amount of time it’s usually recommended to invest in your own people.

How long can you take to get to your product or service launched?

Often times running a business can be demanding, none more so than when going out alone. If you have researched your niche and are working to build a business in an untapped or emerging market place it’s more than likely that you will run into direct competition and speedy development could become the fundamental factor that determines your success.

If that is the case outsourcing could be extremely beneficial.

Many successful businesses have be launched on the back of outsourcing. Slack, a business recently valued at $3 million, initially grew their business off the back of a outsourced service.

If you find yourself in a race consider that you may need to get to market first. You will be beaten out if your competitors outsource and you don’t. It can be crucial to determining your success.

In a previous article Top 5 business tips (for Startups),  I highlighted a company called Eve Sleep. A brand new business developing comfortable mattresses. Their CEO, Jas Bagniewieski faces a tough competition with a number of new mattress brands appearing since his initial success. A perfect example of a niche business sector currently undergoing a race for expansion.

Getting setup quickly and using your funding to power through the competition is great if you can afford it, and doing so you will most likely find benefits to outsourcing in that case.

What do you want to achieve?

Consider your niche market.

If you are building a brand new app that’s never been done before, the chances are that outsourcing programmers will not be an option for you. Keeping your idea safe will be a top priority and the type of application you develop may require ground-breaking design in which case you will need to hire someone you trust and keep them working for you internally.

It’s important to consider what type of business you are running and unloading the right tasks in the right places should be something that you consider very carefully.

What types of services and can be outsourced?

Again it’s important to note that every business is different but there are number of services that are going to be a mandatory requirement for a new or established business.

If you are running an online business you will need;

A Web-hosting service
An Inbound Mail-server
Outbound and Mail Outreach services
Mailing Automation
Developers
Graphic Designers
Social Media Marketing
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Paid Click Specialists (Pay-per-click | PPC)

Regardless of whether or not your business is based online you will require;

A mailbox or mailing address to get post sent to
A company formation service to get your new business set up with companies house
Internet
Phonelines
Printing
Analytics Softwares
Payment Systems
Office Space & Meeting Rooms
Security Softwares for both websites and computers
Accounting
Administration
Secretarial Services
Booking Platforms

These are just some of the services you may end up outsourcing. However, it’s very likely that you require these and more. So consider which of these tasks can be handled by yourself or by your team, for how long and for how much. If you can’t complete these tasks then look to outsourcing but shop around and find the best service you can, that is both well priced and trustworthy.

If you require repeat work, taking the time to consider your options will pay off in the future as there can be devastating setbacks if you hire the wrong company to aid your business.

Are there any disadvantages to outsourcing?

Outsourcing is usually a very strategic and considered decision by business owners. Taking the option to outsource needs to be a carefully considered decision because there are often risks associated with choosing to do so. A business usually makes use of outsourcing when the resources and skills aren’t available internally. Nearly all businesses will need to consider outsourcing at some point during their operations.

The risks involved can include the following;

A loss of control. You may need a specific task outsourced whilst you build the funds to hire internally. This may include administrative tasks, such as telephone answering or you may need design work and web-development, if you run your business from an online platform.

Most of these tasks are on-going and you risk losing control over these specifics if you choose to outsource. A common example is when a business hires a coder, or developer to maintain a website of application. You may be able to make use of an external business to handle that side of the development, knowing that you will require additional work in the future means that the company you choose to outsource to will need to be trustworthy. More often than not a development company may move there efforts to aid another client and leave you in dust with no help to develop or maintain your service.

If this happens you can see a loss of productivity and you may have issues with the platform that require immediate attention. You could be left to find a new outsourced service or to hire internally at which point you will need to train the new employee and give them time to catch up on the existing work. This type of sudden change can be devastating in the early start of a business and this type of issue is more common than you might expect.

Its these sorts of issues that have lead to a distrust of outsourcing and why most companies take the time to carefully consider whether outsourcing is the right option. Examples of where outsourcing may be useful could be on-going services like a virtual office or mail forwarding service, these tasks can be outsourced cheaply and free you your time to manage your business without the need to sort your mail or wait around for deliveries. You may also require on off design work for a specific campaign that you are running, another example of where outsourcing could be a better option than hiring internally.

In conclusion

Whether your business is still an acorn of an idea or a fully functional organisation, the need for businesses to make use of outsourcing will not diminish anytime soon. You may be able to take advantage of experts who work virtually or be lucky enough to have the funds to hire talent. Outsourcing though, will never be outdone for the cash it can potentially save a business owner. Not only will you be able to keep costs down but the need to train and spend time with those individuals, you would have otherwise employed, will be drastically reduced. Meaning you will have more time to work on the important things your business requires from the day-to-day.

We hope you find these tips useful.

Read our previous article, How A Virtual Office Can Help You (Run Your Business From Home).

Author: Marketing Team

In business terms, bootstrapping refers to starting a business without external aid from others, from both a personal and financial perspective. It’s a good thing the technique exists, as so many of us have the desire to start our own businesses but have very little capital on which to draw from. I have been in business with brand new startup owners and I have learnt that it’s far, far easier to spend money, than to make it. There are ways however, of starting a business on next to no budget.

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Stick to what you know

Planning for spending

Getting set up with a physical address

Crowdfunding

Partner up

Most of us have dreamt of starting our own business. You may well know the requirements of starting up but fear the next steps. Getting investors on board can seem like a mountain to climb. Especially if you do not have close friends or family with the means to back you up. For anyone who has started their own business the difficulties involved with getting interest and more importantly, investment, are more often beyond that of which, we as normal human-beings can manage. Bootstrapping a business can take away the stress of getting investors on board, by managing everything yourself and limiting your spending you may be able to kick-start your new business, stay lean and ultimately succeed all by yourself.

“Most of us have dreamt of starting our own business. You may well know the requirements of starting up but fear the next steps. Getting investors on board can seem like a mountain to climb.”

We wanted to shed some light on how and where you can gain traction for your new business. At very little or no cost to you. So without further explanation, here are our tips.

Don’t go in blind, stick to what you know.

For those who have experience working in startups, it’s often advised that budding entrepreneurs work in an industry that they already know. Familiarity with a niche domain, and by that I mean your specific business sector, is considered obligatory.

We wrote about this in an earlier article this year, our Top 5 Tips For Startups, but it’s important to reiterate this point. Starting a business without specific industry experience can be a killer from the get go.

Attempt to learn your craft first. Working in your chosen industry can give you the relevant experience and an in depth understanding of its prerequisites. Starting your business without first hand industry experience can be considered detrimental to your future success. By working within your industry, not only will you become more knowledgeable about industry trends, but you will build up insight concerning your competitors and you will have the chance to build relationships with key individuals. Individuals who may be able to give you a leg up when you need it most.

If you are reading this, it’s most likely that you have already started your business or are on the verge of doing so. Being told to get a job in your chosen industry may seem like a taking a step back, or at least a distraction from your own business venture. However, you can gain industry insight in a number of ways.

We are lucky today in that we have access to unlimited resource from the internet and most online social communities are incredibly friendly and willing to help. So get on Reddit, get in Facebook groups and get on Twitter to shout for help. Some experts may even be willing to lend you their time face-to-face.

You could also join a co-working space like central-working. You may find yourself surrounded by entrepreneurs who have the same difficulties as you or even those who have learnt to surpass them. Don’t go in blind and certainly not alone.

Planning for spending

O.K, so I have just spoken about how Bootstrapping your business can be beneficial as it usually means no cost. The reality is that there is no such thing as a purely bootstrapped business. The aim here would be to limit your spending as much as possible. Stay lean.

Gain a considered understanding of what your costs might be. The services you require, advertising, labour and design. If you’re manufacturing, what costs might you be subject to? Consider any penalties or administrative costs as well. It’s best to overestimate here. Once you know what you might be spending on you will be able to go through your ‘shopping list’ and determine which services you may be able to negotiate on and which individuals may be able to help you with either free help or significantly reduced costing. Taking steps like this is great business practise. You can download a free business plan template from the princess trust. Use it to form your business practices and get an idea of what your costs might be. If you have a friend who works in finance, now would be the time to communicate with them.

Getting set up with a physical address

You may have the urge to get set-up with a physical office location. Having a place to work outside of your home can be really tempting when you first start out. There are certainly advantages to renting an office. You can make use of printers, phones, computers and have a clean and neat environment which ultimately might help you to stay focused. Not to mention the additional space for a studio or simply your new employees.

BUT..

And it’s a big BUT. The cost of a physical office can be huge. Paying rent and office admin fees may take away all of your profit and if you are first starting out, the last thing you want to do is to spend your hard earned cash on assets that do not bring immediate return to your business. If you are still determined to get an office make sure you have customers first, running into problems with cash flow early on can paralyse your business and may end up leaving it dead in the water.

However, there are always alternatives to renting an office. You may already be aware but if you aren’t, it’s important to know that most services you expect from a rented office can be hired at a significantly reduced fee. Instead of renting an office with a physical location you can use the service provided by a virtual office provider.

A virtual office includes;

A Trading Address. This is used for trading purposes, you can send and receive mail with this address.

This means any spam mail can be filtered here and important mail won’t go missing as you can get your provider to notify you about certain letters you may be expecting.

You will also get that mail forwarded to an address of your choice.

Some services allow for email and text notifications when you receive new mail.

Any mail you do receive can get sent to your home computer or mobile phone. Your provider can open your mail with your consent and proceed with making a digital scan which can be sent to your electronic devices.

A virtual office may also include a telephone landline with a telephone answering service. Also known as a virtual assistant.

An address in a prime location may be used to represent your business and can often impress clients.

Remember when trying to bootstrap your business you must always consider options that can cut costs.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding can be a great way to kick-start your business. It’s the practice of funding a project or new business venture by raising small amounts of money from a large amount of people. Crowdfunding can be achieved in a number of ways, through mail-order subscriptions or benefit events but the term usually refers to a method via internet related registries. Crowdfunding has been popular for a number of years and has contributed to the rise of a number of amazing projects that otherwise couldn’t have been possible without it.

There are a number of crowdfunding platforms available today. Some include;

Funding Circle

GoFundMe

CrowdFunder

Kickstarter

Some of the most successful businesses in the past few years have been a result of crowdfunding. One project, a crowdfunded video game called Star Citizen created by Wing Commander boss Chris Roberts, made history by becoming one of the largest crowdfunding projects to date raising $163 million. This meant that funding had surpassed that of most triple A video games from larger studios. Star Citizen began its funding on KickStarter. More recently a digital currency by the name of Filecoin, a blockchain virtual currency from the Ethereum platform, became the largest ever crowdfunded project, raising over $257 million dollars!

Crowdfunding has proved itself as a viable method of lean business design. However, if you are going to get people to buy into your business you must make sure you deliver on your promise, failure to do so will result in disaster and a collection of angry customers.

Partner-up

Find a co-founder. You can’t undertake this journey alone. Having an extra pair of hands to help you out, with an extra set of eyes to watch over you can be extremely valuable when you are first starting out. If you are bootstrapping your business, most of your work will be done internally. Your co-founder should bring additional funding but your skill sets should also compliment each other. If you can cover a broad range of skills between the two of you, you will have less chance of needing to outsource those projects to external specialist which will prove costly. Maintain the philosophy of low-spending.

Bonus

Focused on yourself as well as your business.

Ask yourself these questions;

Are you hiring the right people? Are you being efficient with your spending? Could you learn skills that you need rather than outsourcing them? Remember, nothing is impossible to learn, if you can manage your time you may well be able to add to your skill set and save some serious cash.

We hope you found these tips helpful and we wish you the best of luck in your new venture!

Author: Marketing Team

We’re inviting you to share your business stories with us!

Due to the nature of our business we work closely with young startups and small businesses from the day to day.

We thought it would be interesting to hear your business stories and give you the chance to promote your business from our platform.

Doing interviews is a great way to promote yourself and by answering our questions we in turn can provide you with a valuable link back to your website.

As part of our new blog series we are interviewing small business and startup owners!

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How does it work?

E-mail us at info@lowcostletterbox.com

or contact me directly via Facebook.

Answer the following five interview questions in any way you like.

Provide a photo of yourself and any other photos owned by you that relate to your business.

We will link to your business from our site and promote the interview on social media.

It won’t cost you anything!

If you would like to be part of the series please don’t hesitate to get in touch! It’s a great way to promote your business!

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The Questions

1. Please introduce yourself and your business.
2. Why did you start your business?
3. What is your background as an entrepreneur?
4. What is the most difficult part of running your business?
5. What would you like to achieve in the near and distant future?

We hope you have fun answering the questions and we can’t wait to hear your responses!

All the best,

Tristan

DM @LCLB