288+ Inflation Tips for Small Business Owners

Carol Roth (American TV personality, author, entrepreneur, radio host and investor) asks great questions! She recently asked her newsletter readers for our best inflation tips for small business owners.

Below are 5 of my best tips PLUS links to so much more. Thanks Carol!

Tip 29 by CoachMaria. Get Creative! Give Time!

Business owners invest in training and courses every year. With profits/money tighter, training expenditures move to the bottom of their priority lists. So, what to do if you’re offering training and courses? Give your clients more time to take advantage of savings. Provide much longer notifications and be creative with early bird specials and payment options. Examples: List upcoming events in your newsletter months in advance. Offer dollars off instead of lots of free paper/video early bird downloads. Lower the monthly price of groups you run but raise the number of people in them.

Here are a few other tips from me, Coach Maria

Subscriptions

If you pay for your website hosting service (vs. paying a company for all your website services), see what specials  the hosting company offers during any holiday.

Here’s what I do to save a bunch of money on hosting my websites.  Every three years, I move to a different hosting service.  Why?

Well, most hosting services offer deep discounts to new purchasers or returning purchasers.  I’ll pay for a 3-year plan up front.   But when it’s renewal time, the plan renews at the usual rate, not including any discount.  Usually that means that the fee is double the original rate or more.  If I switch to another service, which usually costs me $0-$50 to move all the sites over and make sure they are working properly, I can purchase the other service for three years at a good discount again.

I’ve used A2 Hosting (current), SiteGround, and Bluehost.

Domains

My first domain name, back in 1998, coachmaria.com, cost me $70 per year.  At the time there was only one company who sold domains.  Things have surely changed!

A few times a year I get mail from domain hosting companies who see that my website URLs (like elevatingyourbusiness.com and coachmaria.com) will be expiring.  The letters look very official.   Well, those companies are charging $35 or more per domain name!

Shop around.  I pay $10-15 for a domain name using Dynadot.   You can too!

Storage Units

As I do business and life coaching, included in my skillset is financial coaching (budgeting, getting out of debt, reducing expenses, saving more, etc.).  I see both their personal and business P/Ls.  I remember one client who sold a product.  She stored product in her home, then the garage, and then a storage unit.  I’ve had other clients who paid for storage units just because they owned too much stuff.

In either situation, we created a plan to get rid of the storage units.  The plan includes reorganizing/cleaning out one room of the home/apartment at a time.  My clients sort items into five categories: garbage, use, save for emotional reasons, donate, and sell. I tell them to make believe they’re moving and have half the space to bring clothing, furniture, dishes, etc. to the new place.

Not only do these clients make money selling items online (or hiring someone else to sell them or donating items) they save between $1200 and $4400 a year.  AND when they go into their closets, cabinets, and drawers, nothing falls out, everything is in its place, and they tell me they just feel better having so much space.

Coaching/Consulting Savings

My clients, like me, are daily learners.  Taking training courses are part of our “thing” or may be necessary to keep certifications.  If you pay up front for a training course, join a group (versus 1:1), pay a monthly retainer fee, or find out if the coach/consultant has any other plans or programs designed to save you money.  Always, before you pay, check out a few of their free video trainings online, and have a talk with them, too.  I’ve seen too many of my clients knee-deep in debt because they took trainings and never did the work, either because they did not care for the person doing the trainings (they overpromised and underdelivered) or took the wrong course for their needs.

One client took so many courses over a few years and had no idea of the full extent of his debt.  Once he gathered the numbers, he was in debt 111K.  Yes!  He made a plan to pay off the debt in within 1 year, and the debt was gone in 7 months.  Instead of taking more classes, he started taking weekly action on growing his business and bank account.   Sometimes going to program after program becomes and obsession.

Learn how    No contracts necessary.

CouchSurfing

I travel a lot. Nice hotels, are, well, nice. But to me, meeting/connecting with new people is better. And yes, you do need to be careful sleeping on someone’s couch or as I prefer, their extra room. There are precautions you must take (like how many references they have) and you must make sure to verify their information. I’ve couch surfed in the US, Canada, and India more than 70 times. I’ve met the coolest people in the world, seen things that as a tourist I’d never otherwise see, had strangely flavored ice cream, learned about different cultures, and more. Sure, I have been in homes I did not care for, but you can always leave. In my opinion, it’s worth the effort. I’ve met a bunch of new friends who I’ve visited again and again.   Learn about couchsurfing here. 

Read the rest of the 288 Inflation Tips for Small Business Owners. Visit Carol Roth’s blog