2 Simple Ways to Increase Your Bottom Line

Every business owner I work with wants to increase their bottom line and make more money, but forget that often times the simple steps can have the biggest impact. The one issue that stops many of these owners from “seeking the simple,” is that they feel if it’s so simple, it can’t possibly work.

Well, think of Mike Tyson, all he used to be a champion were straight punches, hook punches and the occasional upper cut to effective. Simple stuff when you break it down, right?

Here are two simple, yet amazingly effective, ways for growing your bottom line:

Decrease Expenses

Trying to get a business owner to look at their expenses, all of them, is like herding cats. Most don’t feel it will be worth it, however I recently helped to decrease a small business’s expenses by 20%. That is an immediate 20% increase in profit to the bottom line and can be used any which way the business needs or wants to. Want to increase salaries? Do more marketing or advertising? Take a better vacation? Provide bonuses? Get new software or hardware systems? Often times if you can simply just reduce certain expenses that are not needed, you’re paying too much for, that you can do yourself, or find a way to get it done for free, then do it. For example, I had a software system that was mediocre and charged way too much. When I switched, I saved about $1000 a year and computer performance was improved.

Below is a list of ideas that will get you going in the right direction. Some ideas will work, others might not. This process could take you about 30-60 days, maybe more or less depending upon how proactive you are….and how much money you’d like to save.

• Stop print marketing and focus on online/social media
• Barter services with clients when it makes sense
• Find a smaller/cheaper retail location
• Let go of your retail space all together and go virtual
• Drop the cleaning company and have your employees clean the office
• Items for your Banking:
  • Reduce merchant services costs
  • Look for better banking accounts and services
  • You could pay a nominal fee monthly for wires instead of for each one
  • Ditch writing checks and use ACH (reduce cost and fraud!)
  • Get a credit card that can pay you up to 2% instead of a debit card
• 1099 your workers instead of W-2 employees
  • Talk to your accountant first!!!
  • You may or may not be able to do this depending upon your industry
• Reduce travel expenses, use zoom to connect
• Can you reduce utility bills?
• Can you reduce insurance?
• Reduce any unpaid debt which reduces interest expenses
• Pay off your credit card each month and avoid interest costs
• Reduce Staff:
  • Remove your low performers
  • Do certain job duties yourself for a while (stop being lazy)

Increase Sales

Sounds like a no brainer, but hear me out. I speak with dozens of small business owners each month and many, if not most, are always looking for more working capital like a loan or a line of credit to help do certain things to generate more revenue. One of my first questions is always ‘if you sell an extra $100,000 of your product/service, would that help?’ the answer is always ‘yes, of course.’ They generally have some reason, a bad one by the way, of why they need a line/loan and not more sales. Ugh, sales is revenue my friend!

If you own a business and are averse to doing any “selling”, then you need rethink what your viewpoint of sales actually is. Do you believe that your product/service truly benefits the end user, AKA your customer? If yes, then why would you be reluctant to telling the whole world about how your product/service helps them? Many business owners have this idea that if they open their doors, create a web site, or get business cards, that somehow people will flock to them and give them money (I’m serious). In today’s hyper competitive world of business, you’ll sink faster than a lead balloon. Learn to sell in a way that allows you to be you. Learn to sell using a method that you feel helps you to maintain your personal integrity. But no matter what sales method you use, learn to sell. Your bank account will thank you.

Here are some suggestions for learning new methods:

• Read sales books (1 per month)
• Listen to audio books (1 per week)
• Talk to your industry peers about what they do (1 call per week)
• Physically shadow another business owner on a sales call (once per quarter)
• Take online courses, here are some examples to look up:
  • Grant Cardone
  • Jeb Blount
  • Jeffrey Gitomer