The word “KISS” can mean a lot more than physical affection. KISS - or “Keep it simple, stupid!” finds its way into all kinds of business practices, especially online. It’s easy to look at a competitor’s website and get hung up on one-upping their web presence. But don’t take that so far that you overdo it either.
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Simplicity is a good thing. Small business owners and entrepreneurs should know that extravagant marketing campaigns, high tech software, and expensively built websites may be unaffordable or time consuming, putting them out of reach. And that’s okay. The great thing about technology, the internet, and computers is that in 2017, we have a lot of free resources as well as more affordable options – you just need to be on your A-game.
Don’t overthink it, be open minded, and stay aware of the resources you have at your fingertips.
1. Know When to Go DIY
There are a lot of things people pay for that you can honestly just do yourself. You can set up your own website and store before your business is profitable enough to afford professional web design and development services. You can use a good WordPress, Squarespace, or other webhost template and reading a little bit about code. You can run actual stores through Storenvy, Limited Run, Etsy, and other self-run e-commerce sites.
You can do your own SEO and word-of-mouth promotion by guest blogging and using skills you’ve read about in the Moz.com or SEM Rush blogs. You can even ship products out of your own home. Ultimately though, don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you have a business partner, make sure they are pulling the weight of this with you and you’re both performing some of these tasks.
2. Watch Your Expenses
Two of the best pieces of financial advice I’ve come across on the internet come from Intuit Australia: only hire when your business really needs it, and keep stock low. I’ve seen employers hire too many people on at once and then let them all go in a matter of time – it happened at my place of employment years ago. Many of those people were rehired but for a while, everyone was extremely worried they were next.
What happened was that they were doing well, so they thought a risk with more productivity would boost their success, when in reality success took longer to roll around than they thought it would. Unfortunately, due to this mistake, they just lost more money, and people lost their jobs.
In addition to not hiring too much, the importance of maintaining a low stock is overlooked and underutilized. It comes down to this: Don’t produce or manufacture an excess of products if you don’t think you’ll sell it. You can always order more later as long as you are making more than you put into it. This keeps cost of storage, manufacturing, and such down so you don’t end up with too much of a backlog. Also, you’ll need an emergency fund in case things don’t sell as much as you project, and you need to be saving for that too. Be realistic based on past sales and cautious expanding.
3. Your Internet Is a Wonderland Full of Free Tools!
So many tools are available on the internet, for free or an affordable price. Google Drive for all office programs, Mailchimp for mailing lists, not to mention social media in just about every capacity.
There are things you can and should pay for, of course. And a great website will usually cost you some money. But don’t underestimate the tools right under your nose. You can network with other companies and suppliers, and even trade services in some cases. In doing this networking, you may be able to find deals and coupons from every kind of manufacturer. The bottom line – the internet is something past generations of business didn’t have, and being an online business, you should use it to its fullest potential. After all, it not only hosts your business but plenty of others like your own, and you can all help each other out.
How do you keep it simple with your online business? Let me know in the comments below!