Top Investments to Make in Your Business When You’re Just Starting Out

When you’re just starting out your small business, it can be hard to know what to do. We can see a ton of advertisements telling use to buy this product or service because it’ll help us do this thing. It can honestly be quite confusing.

The truth is, you don’t need to buy everything when you first start out. Make investments where you need them, and expand when you start seeing more success. These are some services that you should look into when starting out. They are either free or low cost and can actually help you succeed in the first few months of starting your business.

Your Own Domain

Whether you’re starting your own freelance business or a blog, one of the first things you should invest in is your own domain and self-hosting. This will allow your website to be more memorable. After all, it’s a lot easier to remember OpenProspects.com than OpenProspects.blogspot.com.

In addition, your website will be a lot more professional, which can be a very important factor when you’re starting your own business. People want to be able to trust you and feel like you know what you’re doing before they hire you. Having a well-thought out domain will put you on that path.

Buying a domain isn’t as expensive as you would think. Many start around $10 a year. You may have to do a little searching to see what is available, but a descriptive, professional domain doesn’t have to break the bank.

On the same note, self-hosting your website isn’t very expensive either. We use Bluehost for all of our websites, since it’s easy to use and affordable.

Education

Another investment that you should make is in yourself. Learning more about your line of work will allow you to be more effective and create higher quality products and services. Your clients are more likely to return to you because they know you know your stuff.

Luckily, education in your field doesn’t have to be expensive either. There are a ton of online courses available for pretty much any aspect of running a small business. However, you can also use free online resources and your local library to learn more. See what books are recommended in your field, then search them out at the library. There have been many days where I’ve come home with stacks of books to read for the next week or so.

Social Media Automation

Automating your social media can help you save time and energy throughout your business. You can schedule all of your posts to go out by themselves at preset times. Then, you just have to check in and engage with your audience every once in a while.

This can allow you to batch all of your social media work into one day or couple hours. You won’t have to jump back and forth between tasks to figure out what you’re going to post the next day.

Some social media tools are free to start out with and some have a monetary investment. Buffer and Hootsuite are great tools to schedule your Twitter posts, that are also free at their base level. I have used both of these extensively and wholeheartedly recommend them. I’ve also recently started using Planoly to plan my Instagram posts. I use the free version, though there are paid versions if you post more often. Tailwind is another service that I’ve found to help. This is the only one I pay for currently, as I’ve found it’s worth it.. Tailwind has helped me schedule out my Pinterest pins so that I can be more engaged on the platform. All of these are great tools that I recommend looking into. You can see if the free or paid versions of each are the best fit for your business.

Insurance

As a business owner, you open yourself up to some risk. This risk can be even higher depending on what field of work you are in. Insurance is there to protect you and your property. Let’s say you are a consultant and you give advice that hurts your client (even though you though it was right). Your client could sue you for your advice. However, if you have an insurance policy such as Errors and Omissions, you would be a little more protected financially.

The specific kinds of policies that your business needs depends on a lot of factors. You need to sit down (or call) an insurance agent and find out what insurance you need for your business. But, having these protections in place could save your business one day.

Financial System

If you are running a business, you need to have your finances organized. There’s no way around it. Luckily, it’s not really that hard if you do a little bit of preparation.

The first thing you need to do is open a separate bank account just for your business. Only your business income and expenses should flow through here. When you pay yourself, that’s when the money goes into your personal account. Having a separate account will allow you to see exactly what is going on financially with your business. I also recommend a second business account for taxes. I explain why here.

Next you, need to set up a bookkeeping method. It can be an excel spreadsheet where you track your income and expenses every month. If you will put the effort in to update it, this can work. If you might not, you can look into bookkeeping software. I personally use Wave, though QuickBooks and FreshBooks come highly recommended in the small business world. Either way, just be sure to records of everything including receipts).

Outsourcing

I generally recommend DIYing anything you can in your business when you’re just starting out. It can be hard to justify spending when you’re not making a significant income yet. However, you do reach a certain point where outsourcing can be your friend.

If there is a skill that you’re not the best at, you can spend a couple dollars to have someone else do it. They’ll be able to produce a higher quality project and save you a lot of hours of hassle. Some work that you should look into outsourcing include graphics, photography, and web copy. What you choose will depend on your own abilities and budget.

One of my friends who runs a blog had previously created their own logo. It looked decent and served a purpose. They weren’t head over heels for it, but it served its purpose for months. Last week, he decided to look into getting a professional logo done. He spent $7 on Fiverr and got a high quality logo to use.

A Good Work Environment

Depending on your business, there’s a good chance you’re working from home all day. While this is great, you still need to make sure you have an appropriate work environment. Getting a comfortable, ergonomic chair can help prevent back and joint pain over the long term. Plus, if you’re comfortable, you’ll probably get more work done.

You should also make sure you have a desk that works. This will be totally up to you what that is. Make sure you have enough space to work and that it’s comfortable enough to sit at. It can be your dining room table as long as it works for you.

Storage is another environmental aspect that can go a long way. You can spent hours looking for some document you need if you don’t have a good storage and organization system. Those are hours you could have spent working on your business. Set up an organization system where you can store both paper and electronic documents in places where they are easy to find. You’ll thank yourself later.

These are the top investments I recommend you make in your business when you’re just starting out. You don’t have to spend a lot for some things that can go a long way in helping you and your business.

If you have any other suggestions, let us know in the comments!