Does your business need a plumber ?

Well of course you need a plumber to install a new bathroom, fix a dripping tap or to switch off water gushing from a burst pipe but I was thinking more of money leaks from your business – when YOU need to be your own plumber stopping those money leaks – and trust me – when you’ve done reading this blog post you’ll all be agreeing that you have leaks – probably so many it’s a big flood.

I certainly hope you’ll leave a comment telling us all about the leaks that you’ve identified that aren’t covered in this post. I’ll bet there’s a ton of things I haven’t thought of.

So here are some potential sources of leaks for you to think about:

• Do you read all those books you buy? do you need to buy them or could you borrow them from your university library or even local library?
• How many VIP and membership programmes are you signed up for and never read the stuff that you receive?
• Do you pay to go on workshops and put the learnings into practice or do they remain notes in a binder?
• Do you use those home study courses you buy or do they take up valuable shelf space?
• How many networking events have you been to, collected business cards and then done no follow up?
• How many domain names do you have? do you really need so many?
• How many hosting services are you signed up for?
• How many premium WordPress themes do you have and make no use of?
• Do you buy ink for your printer, almost never print or photocopy anything and then when you do you find the ink has dried out and you need to replace them? (this is my favourite trick)
• Could you use a Skype calling plan instead of a landline?
• Do you really get benefits from premium membership on Linked In?
• How many business organisations do you belong to and are you reaping the benefits? Do you go to the networking events? do you have an enjoyable time? do you make useful contacts? if you’re answering no then maybe you should question whether you should be spending money on these. Of course some you need to belong like the Chamber of Commerce simply because it adds some credibility and prestige but …
• Annual travel insurance is cheaper than buying travel insurance per trip
• Do you really need that extra suitcase you now have to pay for on transatlantic flights (another favourite of mine although I would claim that going for one to two months makes it justifiable!)
• Do you need to fly on a weekend? maybe if you fly during the week the cost of the additional hotel nights would be less than the extra cost in the airfare and you get some quiet time to focus on your business or hey, even some YOU time which is very important too.

Now write your own list and be prepared for a BIG shock .. my list showed that I could easily save $3000 a year – at least. That’s money you could invest in your business; money that would pay for the services of a virtual assistant (VA) to free up some of your time to work on your business or spend time with family; you even be radical and give yourself a very nice – and probably well deserved – holiday !! or just simply save on all that credit card interest.

Why not share with us some of the things that appeared on your list.