Every business wants to make money, sure, but every business also wants to reduce business costs – and reduce them without losing services or quality.
There are many ways for businesses to cut costs from eliminating products that don’t sell to reevaluating your technology.
But the first place a business should to start is looking at their monthly bills.
Any one of your clients is probably paying more for some of their services than their competitors on a regular basis. This adds up quicky when you consider all the services companies regularly pays for.
Circumstances change as companies grow, but unless your clients are constantly reviewing their contracts and plans with vendors and utility companies, they may find themselves paying more than they should. Larger companies are often offered better rates for expenses such as power because they use greater volume. But once a company signs up for a plan when they are small, it often does not occur to them to renegotiate to get a better rate once they grow bigger.
Some companies negotiate better deals than others for some of their services, and those companies carry a competitive advantage for years. For example, printer and scanner bills alone can amount to thousands each month, and everyone is not paying the same rate.
Even if a company’s circumstances do not change, that doesn’t mean there isn’t still the possibility of negotiating much better rates and reducing business costs.
Business owners like to think their bills are correct, and they rarely go through them with a fine tooth comb every month. But the sad fact is that mistakes are common. A Gartner study called North American MSBs Seek Cost-Saving Opportunities reports that “Telecom bills for voice and data are often riddled with errors, not discovered for many years.”
The quantity of mistakes is not negligible. About 85% of telecom bills have mistakes! That can cost businesses a 20% overspend each month. And do you really think that mistakes like these are limited to telecom? Paying close attention to bills is key to reducing business costs.
Meter reading mistakes are pretty common and they are a big reason for error-riddled utility bills. These errors can end up costing businesses thousands of dollars. This is definitely something businesses need to check. You don’t have to look far to see examples of faulting meter readings. In Austin a few years ago over 7,000 utility customers got credits due to meter reading errors.
There are also instances where businesses end up paying for water or electricity for other people and companies. How can your clients really tell if some of the utilities they are paying for are not being used by others? Utility companies aren’t exactly motivated to check too closely into this.
One way for banks, utility companies and vendors to make easy money is to charge late fees. Often businesses may not even realize they are doing anything to trigger these fees. It’s wise to analyze past bills to see if any extra fees keep recurring and why.
Sometimes a company pays for a level of service far beyond what they need. This could be anything from an unnecessary level cleaning services to renting too many expensive printers. These excesses can rack up quickly and must be brought under control by those interested in reducing business costs.
Businesses often overpay on their taxes because they are not aware of various exemptions or they have not claimed the full amount. For example, many businesses did not get what they should have through the Employee Retention Credit related to Covid relief.
Whether your clients are overpaying for services, missing out on tax exemptions or getting hit with unwarranted fees, it all adds up. The financial drains enumerated here are only part of the picture.
But now you can help your clients reduce costs and gain a competitive advantage by building a cost reduction consultancy even if you have no background in this area. Umbrella’s cost reduction experts will do it all for you through a program called uSponsor.
Our experts will close the sale, analyze your clients’ cost reduction needs for free and save them money. You get a recurrent stream of passive income for generating client interest.
Interested? Contact Umbrella through our website or call us at 1(866) 760-2638 now to find out about this new passive income stream.