45 Ways for Entrepreneurs to Save Money in Recession

While every entrepreneur likes to focus on making money, it is just as important to make sure you are keeping your costs as low as possible.

There are many excellent free or low cost services or products which can knock thousands of dollars off the cost of running an online business.



Here is a list of some of the ones I recommend you consider, together with my own personal cost-saving tips:

Communication

Skype - great for communicating with colleagues and partners. While Skype-to-Skype calls are free and Skype-to-phone calls are inexpensive, I don’t think the quality is good enough yet for using Skype for all customer communications

Jajah - allows you to make cheap landline calls. Calls are up to 98% cheaper than telco charges

Truphone - enables cheap mobile calls between friends

Sim4Travel - if you travel a lot and want to use your mobile phone while overseas. Receiving calls while travelling is free and making calls is cheaper than with normal mobile roaming rates

DimDim - recommended for web conference calls, where you can share your desktop, slides and videos. Free for up to 20 people

Google Sites - use for file sharing and collaboration. A free instant intranet

Google Calendar - the best application for noting and sharing appointments with your team. Free



Productivity

OpenOffice - a free alternative to Microsoft Office, which will probably still meet all of your needs

GoogleDrive - another free alternative to MS Office. Cloud based and allows multiple people to edit at once. WIll probably meet the majority of your needs too

FreeMind - an excellent mind mapping tool, for capturing all of your thoughts on a subject or issue within one page. Free

AVG Free - as the name suggests, a free anti-virus solution. It is as good as most commercial products

Carbonite - outstanding for data backups. It costs $49 a year for unlimited data. A small price to page for peace of mind

KeePass Password Safe - ideal for managing your passwords. Free

CutePDF - use to create PDF documents, rather than spend hundreds of dollars on Adobe software. Free

Freshbooks - a cost effective service for invoicing clients

Photoshop Express - if you are a light user of photo editing software use the free online Photoshop solution. It has all the most used features in an easy to use interface

PayPal - if you need to take payments online PayPal is now the most cost effective solution and much easier to get approval during tough times, when the banks are closing their doors to new merchants.

Audacity - great for free audio editing

Jumpcut - very handy for free online video editing



If you do need to buy software, have a look if the manufacturer offers discounts for students, teachers, or educational establishments. The savings can be huge. However, be aware that this discounted versions cannot be used for commercial purposes

Always search for a voucher code. Most online services offer discounts. Very often you can search on Google to find a current discount code. For example, search for a “GoDaddy promotion code” or Godaddy discount code” and you will immediately find codes that will give you up to 25% off domain name registration





Website Specific

Wordpress - a free and powerful blogging solution

SubHub - an advanced, hassle-free membership site solution

Google Alerts - a free way of monitoring what people are saying about you, your company and your competitors on the internet

Google Analytics - an excellent free webs stats package, which will enable you to track all of the visitor activity on your website

FileZilla - a free FTP solution which enables you to easily manage the files on your web server

iStockPhoto and Fotolia - micro-stock photo sites that are great for sourcing images



Marketing

Rather than using tools, I suggest you focus on building organic traffic through writing and publishing regular, good quality articles. This will avoid you having to spend money on Adwords and other expensive online marketing.

Additionally, if you haven’t started a blog, it could be the right time to do it. A good blog can build traffic, which can be directed to your main online business.





Managing Your Customers

SugarCRM - very useful for managing your customer information. For a more simple paid solution try Kayako



Hardware

Buy hardware that is one generation behind the curve. The improvements in each new release are getting smaller and the out-of-date models are always heavily discounted. In most instances you’ll never notice the difference.



Upgrade your old PC rather than buy a new one. By simply buying a new processor and a bit of extra memory an old PC can spring back into life.



Consider one of the new low-cost Netbook laptops which are selling for £300/$499. They are capable machines that are ideal for working and surfing on the road.



Buy multifunction devices where possible. There is little point in shelling out for separate printer, scanner and copier when a single machine like the excellent Canon Pixma IP610 will take care of all these tasks.

Keep your old monitor. Screen technology is changing slowly so you’ll probably see little improvement from upgrading your monitor.

Sell old kit immediately. If you have old hardware, sell it on eBay as soon as you stop using it. Hardware values depreciate very quickly.

Outsourcing

Many simple tasks can be outsourced. If you have simple repetitive tasks that need to be regularly undertaken, such as data entry or outbound calls, consider outsourcing them via websites such as eLance and oDesk. Be wary of outsourcing big and complex software development projects. Most go horribly wrong!

Other Cost Cutting Techniques

When any contract is coming to an end – mobile phone, broadband, insurance, etc – phone the supplier and threaten to cancel. Many companies have special offers to retain existing customers.

Turn off devices on standby. According to research, 10% of all energy consumed in the home and offices is from devices on standby.

Save paper and ink by printing on both sides of a sheet of paper in draft mode. Most modern printers have a duplex option which will automatically print on both sides of a sheet of paper.

Haggle on all major purchases. It goes without saying that you should negotiate on all major purchases you make. There are a lot of discounts and reductions to be had in a recession.

Offer customers longer contracts for a discount. Lock in your revenue streams for as long as possible.

Identify which countries are still prospering and target your sales at them. At the moment all oil producing countries are worth looking at.

Avoid cutting your prices; instead give away more value e.g. online businesses giveaway a free downloadable eBook to all customers. It costs you nothing, but can provide customers with significant value (if the book is good!).

Focus on keeping your existing customers happy. It is much easier and cheaper to look after existing paying customers than continually having to find new ones.

Conclusion