As a business, it’s essential to consider how everything reflects back on your brand. Even the most innocuous social media tweet may blow up for reasons that you may not have anticipated, nor meant. This isn’t to say that you should hold your cards close to your chest and never make an attempt at outreach of any sort; to do that would to be afraid of putting any foot forward.
However, putting a foot forward is often well achieved when you have practiced and researched how to walk. This also includes every single decision you make from an internal perspective, who you hire, how you set up your office, and how you try to cut savings. There’s a real price to cutting costs, which by the nature of language can sound contradictory. However, you’ll likely notice when a restaurant serves you a poorer cut of steak, or perhaps serves you frozen food instead of fresh. That cost-cutting approach on behalf of the chef may have convinced you not to return, or even to leave a bad review.
This means when cost cutting, it’s important to know if you can afford to save money:
Cost Of Diminishing Returns
Many think that the cost of diminishing returns is only well considered when investing in something, but it can also apply to cutting costs. There comes a time where trying to save well is simply not as worthwhile as the lack of quality you are getting as a result. You may find that an overaggressive approach in this direction can really harm your output, no matter if that’s in the staff or customer experience. Be mindful of this, and always verify how quality changes will affect your firm.
Smart, Clever Cost-Cutting
It’s important to consider how to cost cut in a smart manner. For example, ink cartridges can be saved on when purchasing in bulk, or purchasing crates of coffee for your staff office can be saved on in the same way. It might be that introducing a delivery fee for those purchasing all products, not just cheap items, can help you cover those costs more thoroughly during a low volume of sales. Just be sure they are planned and the consequences are verified, because unexpected issues can present a real problem if not thought through.
Opportunistic Measures
Savings can also come from opportunistic measures. For example, you may find that there are certain moments in which cutting costs in the moment are simply not worth it, but sometimes, they are. Undercutting a competitor struggling in their space may help you gain a great deal of extra traffic, and it may be worth taking the loss. However, it may also be that refining your product without the extra frills can help you gain an advantage. For example, when PC hardware is sold in 2019, it often comes with a driver installation disc, despite the fact that few people used drive bays and most websites offer support files. It could be that taking the lead here saves you from including this, while also taking the opportunity of seeming more forward-thinking.
With this advice, and the spirit behind it, we hope you will figure out if you can afford to save money.