Throughout the life span of a business, there are likely to be periods when the money and orders trickle rather than pour in. It is in these times when it is beneficial to be able to see additional ways in which your business can pull in some extra cash to keep it afloat and providing wages for all of your workers and yourself included.
However, this can be easier said than done, especially when you are fixated on the problem and unable to see the answer.
#1 Hire Out Your Expertise
You would likely be able to hire out your own valuable expertise to other businesses that require your services, or if you have qualified and highly experienced members of staff you could very well do the same for their services while your own work is hard to come by.
#2 Sell Promotional Space
If your business is one that ships a lot of goods to customers or interacts with members of the public, you may find that you can sell promotional space on your shipping packaging for other businesses to either put their business name or their logo. This will promote their business to your customers, so it is a good thing to keep in mind and not to approach any of your competitors for business.
#3 Rent Out Unused Office or Factory Space
Just like renting out your own or your staff member’s expertise, you will be renting out unused space within your business to other small businesses to rent and use. Areas such as office space, factory floor space, or even warehouse space can be very much in demand and provide a stepping stone for those small businesses that are going from working in their own home office to requiring and affording premises of their own.
#4 Change the Way That You Ship Your Goods
You may very well have to change how you ship your products to your customers while the money is tight. This is especially so if you have your own fleet of vehicles for your business deliveries. Rather than sending out a vehicle with less than a full load in you may benefit from using the services of a third party that offer ltl freight shipping for when your items don’t need a whole vehicle. This will not only save you in gas but could also free up your driver to work elsewhere within your facility and, therefore, save your business in time as well.
Final Thoughts
When times get hard within a business, and it looks like money is going to be a real issue you need to be able to step back and reassess all the assets that you have and not have to sell them off either.
There are masses of small businesses that are struggling to cope with not having any business premises to run from, missing out on valuable resources because they can afford to have the right person on a continuous payroll, or for that matter having access to highly beneficial departments within their business.
These small businesses could very well flourish if they could get a local business to rent the space within their own business premises, or experts that can fill the void for the length of certain projects or even lease them time within certain departments such as accounts, front end office, HR, or marketing to name a few areas that very small businesses tend to be without. The key is to keep your business ticking over during slower periods by adding creative revenue streams wherever possible.
