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What Small Businesses Spend the Most Money On

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To discover some of the key areas of your business, which you may be spending too much of your business’ budget on, simply continue reading to discover what small businesses spend the most money on.

What Small Businesses Spend the Most Money On:

Power:

Most small businesses spend a fair portion of their budget on their power bill. If you’re the owner of a small business it’s well worth trying to find effective ways to decrease your business’ power bills, like switching providers to Utility Bidder. As an example, you may want to invest in double glazing or you may be interested in swapping out your current light fittings for energy efficient light fittings.

If you’re serious about reducing your next power bill it’s also a great idea to speak to your employees about the importance of turning off lights and electronics when they’re not in use. As you’ll be able to drastically reduce your power bills by making an effort not to waste energy unnecessarily. For example, recent studies have shown that you can reduce your small business’ power bill by up to 70% by simply switching your lights and electronics off when you’re not using them.

To learn more about saving money on your business’s energy costs, check out this informative eBook: SME tips

Production costs:

If your small business produces physical products or digital products it’s highly likely that you spend a large percentage of your business’ budget on your production costs. As an example, you may pay a manufacturer in order to produce your business’ product range for you. Or if you produce your product range yourself you’ll need to pay for machinery and wages, in order to produce your business’ stock.

If you’re interested in reducing your business’ costs, you may want to find clever ways to decrease your business’ production costs. As an example, you may want to switch your supplier or manufacturer, to a cheaper supplier.

Marketing:

Even if you’ve discovered how to harness the power of social media in order to market your business, you may have to spend some of your business’ budget on marketing your business. As the smaller your business is, the harder that you’ll have to work in order to increase your business’ client base. As an example, you may want to pay to have your business’ posts marketed to targeted members of your business’ key audience on social media platforms like Facebook.

Property:

Unless you operate a business which only exists online, you’ll need to either purchase a physical premise for your business or rent an appropriate space for your small business. Unless you choose to purchase a property out right, you’ll end up spending much of your business’ budget on mortgage repayments or on rent.

Staff:

Another sizable expense that you’ll need to factor into your business’ budget is staffing costs. Especially as your business starts to grow as you start to employ additional team members, to handle all of your business’ essential day to day tasks. As an example, as your business grows you may want to invest in employing a few extra part time team members. Who you may eventually choose to offer full time roles.

So if you’d love to be able to greatly reduce your small business’ costs in order to increase your business’ profits, it’s definitely well worth finding ways to decrease some of the costs which are outlined above!

Why regular hydraulic repair and maintenance is important

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A good practice with any machinery is to perform regular checkups and fix any little issues as soon as possible. If you ignore small problems or naively think an older machine will run as efficiently as a new one without regular maintenance, you could have serious consequences on your hands.

The same goes for hydraulic systems. Due to their moving parts and regular use, they should undergo regular hydraulic repairs and maintenance to ensure they keep running efficiently and safely. Often a little bit of effort regularly prevents major catastrophes in the long term.

The benefits of regular repair and maintenance

The benefits of regularly monitoring hydraulic systems and repairing minor issues when they arise are numerous. Particularly critical is that regular maintenance keeps operators safer from potential hazards. Dealing with issues promptly can help avoid costly repairs later on and can prevent time delays affecting productivity.

Health & Safety

Health and safety are paramount in any work environment, and checking hydraulic equipment regularly is a key way to ensure you are complying with safety standards. Regularly checking and maintaining the integrity of hydraulic equipment helps reduce the risk of accidents. Without doing this, serious harm to operators could result.

Avoid expensive repairs

By putting in a small effort regularly to keep machinery clean, you can delay the need to replace parts and can prevent a significant issue later on. However, if you put off dealing with a small issue, you will likely have a larger and more costly one on your hands. By doing regular hydraulic repairs, you can avoid a costly situation.

Prevent time-loss

If major hydraulic repairs are required, equipment will be out of action for a time. This may have significant consequences for a company. By practicing regular repair and maintenance, you can avoid delaying jobs and losing productivity.

What should you look out for?

There are a number of simple things you can do on a regular basis to prevent negative consequences. You should consider the following things when performing regular hydraulic repairs and maintenance:

  • Clean your system. Dirty hydraulic fluid can damage working parts.
  • Check your hydraulic fluid including whether it is contaminated, and if the temperature and viscosity are correct for the operating conditions.
  • Is your system operating slowly? This is likely a symptom of an issue that needs to be identified.
  • Any unusual noises could indicate air is entering the hydraulic system. If the hydraulic fluid is contaminated with air it could cause significant damage.
  • Don’t overheat your system.
  • Check that your components are working optimally, especially the hydraulic pump, valves, actuators and seals. Small issues with these may cause bigger issues throughout the system.

If you notice any issues, it is best to contact a professional hydraulic repairs service as soon as possible.

Need a trustworthy hydraulic repairs service?

At Hydraulic Solutions, we are able to assist with regular and major hydraulic repairs. If you suspect there is an issue with your system, or you’d just like a regular check up, let us help you. We have years of experience troubleshooting, analysing and repairing every aspect of hydraulic systems. Get in touch with us today on +61 8 9437 5388 or fill out our contact form.

Technology and Business tips

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As technology is one of the most powerful tools that you have at your disposal as a business owner, it’s well worth continuing reading to discover a few tech related business tips.

Technology and Business tips:

Store some of your data in a cloud based system in order to keep your business’ sensitive data secure:

In order to ensure that your data is safe, it’s a great idea to start storing much of your business’ data in a cloud based system. As a bonus, you’ll also free up room on your computer’s hard drive or your external hard drive. Which is great if your business amasses a large amount of documents. Just be sure to compare the different cloud based systems and packages which are available before you decide with cloud based system you should use.

Make an effort to keep up to date with the latest SEO trends:

Even if you know the basics of how SEO marketing works, it’s important to stay up to date with the latest SEO trends, which will help increase your business’ search engine ranking. Which will in turn drive traffic to your business’ website which will increase your business’ sales, profits and revenue.

Market your business on social media instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars on expensive ads:

Most major international companies such as Coca Cola, Nike, Louis Vuitton and BMW pump a lot of money into their social media profiles. Why are companies who can afford to splash out on expensive print and TV campaigns deciding to advertise their businesses using social media? The answer is that social media marketing is now the most effective form of marketing. Especially as the vast majority of individuals will visit several social media channels, multiple times per day and therefore expose themselves voluntarily to internet marketing from small and large businesses alike.

Also think about starting a company blog in order to increase your business’ profile:

Another way to successfully increase your business’ profile is to start a blog, in order to drive traffic to your business’ website. You can even sponsor well loved bloggers who your business’ target audience look up to, so that they’ll write guest posts for your blog. Which may significantly increase your website’s hit count.

Make sure that your business boasts glowing online reviews:

If you notice that your business is starting to attract negative reviews, it’s important to rectify any issues that are raised in your reviews, so that you can save your business’ online reputation.

Hopefully you find all of the tech related business tips which are listed above extremely useful. Especially if you’d like to help your business grow from strength to strength.

3 Interesting facts about some of Commodore’s best selling products

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If you’re interested in Commodore’s products and history, simply continue reading to discover a few interesting facts about a couple of Commodore’s best selling products over the years.

3 Interesting facts about some of Commodore’s best selling products:

The Commodore sx 64 portable computer was an early portable computer:

Before the invention of laptops, many individuals relied on early portable computers like the Commodore sx 64 to conduct their business on the go. How big was the sx 64? The sx 64 wasn’t small by today’s standards but could still be carried in a suitcase or a large briefcase. There were two primary groups who purchased the sx 64, the first of which were business men and women who would conduct business on the go or who would travel for business on a frequent basis. While the second group of individuals who purchased the sx 64 in droves were wealthy individuals who wanted to use the sx 64 at home. Rather than lugging it about.

When the Commodore sx 64 was released it was priced at $995 US dollars:

In 1986 when Commodore officially released the sx 64 they chose to price it under $1000 and settled on the figure of $995. If you’re unsure of how much $995 in 1986 would be worth in today’s currency, the answer is that it’s the equivalent of $2452 in today’s world. Which meant that every day individuals weren’t rushing to purchase the Commodore sx 64 and that it was primarily targeted to wealthy individuals and businessmen and women.

The Commodore 64 Cassette Player was the equivalent of an early memory card:

If you’re curious about how individuals used to save the games which they played on their Commodore manufactured gaming consoles, the simple answer is that they had to buy a Commodore branded cassette player. Such as the Commodore 64 Cassette Player. Which happens to be one of the most popular cassette players which Commodore produced. By connecting the 64 Cassette Player to their gaming console individuals would be able to save their progress and high scores. As the cassette player would burn such information onto cassettes.

Think of Commodore’s cassette player like an early memory card. If you can remember purchasing memory cards to save your progress when you’d play your favorite Play Station games. If you’re old enough to have owned an original Play Station.

So if you’re a huge fan of Commodore as a tech brand, hopefully you found out a few interesting facts about some of Commodore’s most popular products.