Guide for Helping Small Businesses Grow

save energy
Reducing costs by lowering energy bills
Every business has to start off small. However, if a company wants to grow, there are a few things which need to be looked at. You’ll want to do all you can to increase your customer base, improve the way your business is marketed and try to keep running costs down.

As far as running costs are concerned, one of the most expensive and important overheads any small business has is its energy bills. Without gas and electricity, it can be hard for a business of any size to fully operate, but value for money is also important.

As one of your biggest overheads, it pays to keep the cost of energy down, but that can be hard when you’re locked into a contract that runs for between one and three years. However, it’s possible to switch suppliers when you’re heading towards the end of your current energy contract, as every supplier has a ‘renewal window’ where you can either choose to stay with them or get your energy from another company. Unfortunately, if you want to change suppliers, you’re going to need a good sense of timing as, typically, these windows last for a period of 30 days.

When the ‘renewal window’ opens, one of the best things you could do to find that better deal is go to Make It Cheaper. They have saved small businesses a combined £88m on their energy bills over the course of 2011, and do all they can for their clients to find a good deal for their gas and electricity supplies. With them, you can compare prices offered by a number of different energy companies and find out who’s the cheapest and who offers the greatest value for money.

In reducing your energy bills, you might find that the money you’ve saved could amount to thousands. Many small and medium-sized businesses often find that any money saved can be put to good use on any other part of their business. They could use the extra capital to fund marketing, spend more on recruiting new staff, update technology or improve their office space.

You might think that saving money isn’t going to help your business grow, but switching energy suppliers doesn’t mean having to use less energy than needed. Cutting down your utility bills is a great way to help boost your company’s finances in the long term, and if you spend your savings well, you could find that your business is on the right track as far as growth is concerned.