Investments to Make When Starting a Business

by Michael D. small business marketing consultancy

Starting a business from scratch can be extremely rewarding – but it can also be very stressful! One of the biggest headaches usually concerns finances. The average start-up spends over £22,000 in its first year – and that’s not including money spent on stock or product development!

The truth is, no matter how good your idea or product, your new business will struggle without a firm control on finances – especially expenditure. One of the big considerations early on is what to invest in at the early stages of the business.

Here are some suggestions for what could be worthwhile early investments.

Website

I was frankly amazed when Sara Lynn was able to (jointly) win the 2018 series of The Apprentice without managing to get round to building a working website for her business.

That may (somehow) escape censure from Lord Sugar, but it will kill a small business in the real world. The fact is, a company without a website will raise eyebrows. Even if you don’t sell anything online, a web presence can give information, it can give contact info and it can tell the story of your company or brand.

Spend a little money on a domain and a website builder, spend a little more to hire a pro to do it for you. The decision is yours – but choose one of them.

Security

How would your company recover from a burglary? It would probably struggle; it could even end the business before it can get started.

That’s why I don’t understand people who don’t invest in the security of their business and employees– or worse, make poor investments. The most expensive thing in the world is a useless security system.

CCTV is not good enough, fact. All it will do is record the burglar stealing your equipment and stock. It’s great you’ll have evidence – but the damage has already been done!

Monitored CCTV tailored for business makes way more sense to me. It uses CCCTV with built-in motion detection. When triggered by a burglar, a central control room is notified and the company can observe, via the cameras, what is going on.

You can also find services such as RE:SURE GO, which will help your lone workers stay safe as well, which means you will always be in compliance with all labor laws – and more importantly, make your staff feel valued and safe.

Marketing

No one is going to buy your product or use your services if they don’t know you exist. Many startups see this as an area to save money however – by doing it themselves. That can work if you are only targeting local businesses, or you are in a niche where you already know who and how to reach out to with advertising.

Most business though will probably need a little help here. There are marketing businesses in existence specifically because marketing is hard! I don’t know why people assume they can do it themselves – except to save money, but it’s a real false economy.

Bad marketing will not only fail to attract customers – it could actively drive them away.

Food

I chose food because I like to eat – but this tip can be happily tailored to you. If you like wine, replace it with that. Replace it with a monthly bar tab, a paintball session, whatever.

Like I started with up top, starting a new business is stressful – trust me on that. In the early days – and those days will last longer than you assume – you will be sinking an awful lot of time and effort into your business.

Set aside some budget for yourself. It doesn’t need to be much, but taking a little time out every now and then can be good for the business – and your sanity!

Get a pizza delivered, crack open a bottle of wine – and put the bill on the company tab. Just take a little something for yourself every now and then.