B2B Services that Keep Dollars in Your Pocket

Let’s face it, these are tough times for a lot of people, and as we all seek ways to cut costs, I decided to go on a personal quest to find the top products and/or services that can save a start-up company M-O-N-E-Y.
Here’s what I’ve found:

PHONE: Maxmail: Who ever heard of a local LAN line for $84.00 a year—sounds insane right? Well, if you’re just starting a business and don’t want to pay your local phone company that outrageous monthly fee, Maxmail is a good solution for those who need a local line, a method to send faxes and a way for clients to reach you and leave a message so you can get back to them quickly. All this for what equates to about $7.00 a month, the voicemail and faxes are sent directly to your email so you check messages right away—Fabulous for a home-based business!

LOGO and WEBSITE DESIGN: If you’re looking to pay for branding and website design on your terms, I would recommend sites that enable you to let service providers bid for your project. One of my favorites is elance.com. While you will save money using this method, be aware that companies that bid for your projects are both national and international. If you choose an international vendor for a long-term project, make sure you know what you’re getting into, and ask questions about support for your solution, contract terms, ownership of code, etc. Elance is great and offers services for projects such as graphic and website design, programming, software development, legal, writing & translations and more…
If you’re looking for something a little more straight forward, I recommend LogoWorks. They offer comprehensive design packages that are priced competitively. With a 98% customer satisfaction rating spanning 70 countries, they’re one of my top picks for logo design. If you decide Logoworks is a good fit, you can save $20.00 off your logo order for a limited time.

ADVERTISING: Ok, I’d be crazy not to plug my own company in my blog, but biznessdoor.com has a great self-service banner ad tool that makes it easy to advertise your business for less than $4.00 a day. All you need is your logo and the dates you would like to advertise--it’s that simple. For additional ways to save money, check-out our Blog, Five Free Ways to Advertise Your Business in a Down Economy. I also recommend the article Fast Cheap and In Control by Daniel Flamberg, B2B magazine.
Be sure to visit my profile for an exclusive offer reserved for Sup.biz members when you advertise on BiznessDoor.com.

LEGAL:

Legal Zoom this is a great site for business documents and filings. While Legal Zoom was created by expert attorneys, you aren't charged an hourly attorney rate because they bill per project, not per hour. As a result, you can save as much as 85% off what an attorney may charge you for the same process. They have an extensive knowledge of federal, state and county laws and offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee, so if you need business documentation or filings, they're worth checking out.
Prepaid Legal: I’m the biggest skeptic in the world, but I own a business and it just didn’t make sense not to have access to an attorney, so I decided to check it out. I researched it, spoke to a representative, I signed up and I really like it. This is a great solution for a small business that currently doesn’t have access to an attorney—you’re going to have a lot of legal questions and if you can ask an attorney without getting charged $200.00 an hour to do it, it just makes sense.

You can take a look at their services and pricing here, and if you like what you see, there is an online registration form. AFFORDABLE Access to an attorney is a smart and necessary investment if you’re self-employed. You can also make additional money for referrals, so it may be a good idea to take a look at the associate plan if you sign-up.

Office Space
Virtual Offices are growing in popularity, especially with home-based business owners that need to meet with clients, but prefer to keep their home private. A virtual office provides you with office-space on an as-needed basis for a low monthly fee. You can add options such as a virtual receptionist to answer your calls and forward them, and have all of your mail forwarded to the office address.
It’s a great solution if you have regular meetings with clients, don’t always want to meet at the local coffee shop, and don’t have the funds to lease or purchase a commercial office space. It’s a good idea to research virtual offices in your area; however, some of my favorites include Regus, if you’re looking for something more upscale, and Intelligent Office if you need access to your building after-hours.

How do You Save Money?
I’m all about supporting my fellow entrepreneurs, so I want to know from the sup.biz community, what services do you provide that help save a small business or start-up-company money, or if you have your own favorite ways to save money, let me know. I’m going to select the top-five and feature those companies on my website at www.biznessdoor.com and in my next blog; we’ll call it the “Smart List.”

Communities are about learning and sharing, so let’s leverage the expertise of each other. Once again, I’m honored to be a part of such an ambitious and talented group of entrepreneurs. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Want to gain more visibility for your business— visit my profile for an exclusive offer reserved for Sup.biz members when you advertise on BiznessDoor.com.

Kanika W.

Tags: advertising, b2b, biznessdoor, design, legal, logos, marketing, money, save, telecommunications

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Comment by Jeanine Mercer on June 10, 2009 at 1:55pm: There are lots of ways to save money while starting or maintaining a business. I don't think Pre-paid legal is the best Attorney advice out there, but if there's a better one let me know. Of course I advertise for free, http://www.dirsbiz.com/jamsline. I try to do everything for free. People call me so I don't have to call them, etc.

Comment by Michelle Porter on June 9, 2009 at 4:22pm: Here's one that helps network marketers. SponsorDaddy. It's a generic marketing and communication system that includes autoresponder campaigns, the ability to market up to THREE businesses with the same system (ever lost your list because you changed companies?), training, LEADS INCLUDED and is designed to be self-funding. It can also become a great second stream of income!
As an added bonus, there are affordable health insurance plans (only in the U.S. and 5 states unavailable).
Locally, my husband (Electrical Contractor) participates in TradeFirst. Businesses trade services for a small fee. Available in MI and Ohio.

Comment by James Broadfoot on June 4, 2009 at 12:53am: Great suggestions. Communicating online definitely saves on phone bills.

Comment by Bill Pierce on June 2, 2009 at 6:56am: I can help with Advertising. My company provides you an immediate Internet presence complete with your location and contact information, logo, complete business details, the ability to easily create and upload coupons or specials, and upload images and videos. You also have driving directions to and from your place of business if you have a brick and mortar location - and we provide for customer feedback. If you already have a website we provide the link to your website.

Most importantly, we have relationships with 109 of the major search engines, our own private network, and nearly 1 million social media and high volume websites. Rather than wait for people to find you we push your Ad out to all these locations. We provide excellent short term targeted traffic while building your long term organic results on the search engines. Our proprietary geo-targeting technology enables us to connect you to people in specific zip codes. All of this is self-managed, providing you the ability to change and update 24/7. The cost ranges from as little as $1.95/day to $6.99/day, depending on the number of zip codes you wish to target.

You can learn more by contacting me at 214.473.4248 or bpmktg09@gmail.com.

Comment by Veejay on June 1, 2009 at 6:41am: If you are UK based you can save money on your business utilities - gas, electricity, telephone and broadband, here:-
http://www.uwdcvideos.co.uk/index.taf?exref=C24537&v=1

Comment by Timothy Demissie on May 31, 2009 at 9:22pm: Check out my website!
WWW.StemCell4All.com

Comment by Ced Reynolds on May 30, 2009 at 12:42pm: Using freecoferencecall.com and vereconference have proven to be wonderful money savers. When I need to meet with people who are extremely busy, it has been great to have these services available to me for free at any given moment.

Ced Reynolds, CITRMS
CedReynolds.com

Comment by adnan ghalib on May 30, 2009 at 3:28am: Thank you for the tips.God bless.

Comment by EntrepreneursCoachGarethEmberton on May 29, 2009 at 2:30pm: Cutting cost is dangerous as it normally means something you have done isn't working.

In alot of cases businesses have been wrong footed in this economy because their sales and marketing was reliant on word of mouth as a marketing strategy...companies in the good times were doing well but complacency had set in.

They had not focused on getting their marketing right and didn't know how to sell.

So the problem comes when things change economically.....oh dear we have got no leads coming through the door and those customers who do are beating us down on price....hmmmm so lets all get scared and cut costs. A natural reaction....its human instinct.

In past times the accountant ruled....the more we cut costs or kept them down the more profit we made.... not anymore...cost cutting has not only a negative effect on the mindset of the business owner but their team to.....it also takes more energy to cut costs than to grow sales. Lets face it what is the best you can do by cutting costs...save 10%? What does that net down to? 1.5% net profit?

So lets ask better questions what would happen if you focused on sales and marketing? How much more business could you generate? How would that reflect on our bottom line in %%%%%%%%%%% net profit? You could grow your business expodentially!

But I hear you say haven't you heard there is a recession on......so get creative.....if you are going to go down go fighting not with a whimper....

As Henry Ford once said....if you think you can or think you can't you are right!

Comment by Deborah Thompson on May 29, 2009 at 12:36pm: I really enjoyed reading your article, you offered several services that will aid in keeping business cost down.

One of the things I like about PPL is that they offer Documents on Demand-free tools, such as assorted flyers, brochures, scripts for prospecting, etc., in addition to the tools you purchase to run your business; and make so many other services are available to you via their website. Thank you for information sharing.