A lot of small businesses also have small operating budgets. This is why small business owners continually search for ways to reduce their operating costs without sacrificing the quality of their products and services or without making their employees' lives more difficult. Fortunately, there are some great ways you can reduce your business' operating costs and overhead today – many of which will help you generate more revenue at the same time.

Watch Your Operating Costs

While employing technology will really help your business in many significant ways, watching your operating costs will also help. This is much more than budgeting and nitpicking over where you spend money. Instead, Quick Books says there are several other things you'll want to do here including:

• Outsource some of your work to reduce costs. Instead of relying on technology, rely on another business to take care of those things you don't do too often. For instance, your advertising and marketing may really benefit here, especially if you're like many small businesses who simply don't get enough return on investment (ROI) to make the time spent on these activities worth their effort. Although it may feel like you'd spend more money by outsourcing this work, ultimately by delegating this work you'll save money and get better results.

• Shop around to find lower prices on services that you use on a regular basis. You can even create a bidding system for these projects. Simply ask three different vendors to quote you a price for doing the work. By doing so you'll ultimately receive better pricing. Just make sure that when you do this you know exactly what work needs done so that you can give them an accurate scope of work or request for proposal (RFP). This is important because any missing information or added complexity can greatly affect the amount you're quoted.

• Make sure you pay your invoices early or at least on time. Many vendors will offer you a discount for doing so. Even if you only save 2 – 3% the savings will really add up. At the very least, you'll want to avoid any late fees or penalties by paying your bills on time.

• Cancel any services you don't use. Oftentimes these things get overlooked because they're on auto-pay – being deducted from bank accounts or charged to credit cards without you even thinking about it. However, you really should cancel any service that you haven't used in 90 days. While you're at it, look around to see if the services you're using are cheaper elsewhere. Sometimes when you tell a company you're going to do business elsewhere they'll negotiate a better deal for you.

Embrace Technology

Embracing technology will actually help you reduce your company's operating costs. This is because you can automate a lot of your business' functions simply by using online systems and software programs. There are dozens of programs that will handle things like your accounting, website hosting, marketing communications, and payroll. When these things become easier for you to manage, you'll free up more time that you can spend concentrating on other things, like making more money for your company.

Many people feel it's relatively easy to grow overwhelmed when attempting to choose the right program here. However, if you know what questions to ask, this process doesn't have to become daunting. Simply answer two simple questions here:

• What do I know how to do really well? These are the things that you don't want to outsource.

• What do I spend an inordinate amount of time doing each week? This is what you want to outsource. Start with just one highly time-consuming task then add on others from there.

Additionally, you and your employees really should telecommute more often instead of leasing and managing a physical office. These way things like rent and utilities aren't such a drain on your financial resources. You can even hire top talent who doesn't want to relocate to where your physical office is located, giving your company an additional competitive edge.

Your customers won't even know where anyone they're talking to is located unless they're told that someone is working from home. With a tool like Dialpad phone system that makes remote collaborations easy, workflow continues naturally and also, you can effectively communicate on projects with the rest of your team.

Employees will even find this lifestyle advantageous. This is because they won't spend so much time or money commuting to the office each day. Instead, they can be home for their families and their children when necessary – as long as it doesn't interfere with their job.

Be Watchful

None of this decreases the importance of watching your bills. You always want to be on the lookout for ways in which you can help your business run more efficiently. By tightening up your processes and procedures you'll reduce the amount of material and time you waste. Of course, this will decrease the amount of money you spend.

One example of this is green energy. Many businesses don't realize they can save money by going green today. This will actually reduce the amount of energy you use. Some other ways of decreasing your actual energy usage include:

• Replace regular light bulbs with compact fluorescent lighting

• Improve your insulation and windows so you reduce your heating and cooling costs

• Encourage employees and vendors to use electronic communication like email

Make sure you involve your employees in looking for inefficiencies and finding ways to save your company time and money in these areas. When they do point these things out to you, pay attention. You don't want to waste money because you failed to listen when they were pointing something out to you.

Cutting down on your operating costs as a small business isn't impossible. You simply need to be comfortable working with a lean budget. Sometimes this means increasing your spending in areas that are necessary while really cutting back in other areas. While it's a real juggling act, it's definitely one that's worth engaging in.