By Guest Blogger, Nick Rojas
When it comes to saving time and money for your small business, it is easy to get overwhelmed when faced with the many different ways you could be cutting costs.
On the one hand, you want to reduce your spending and work more efficiently; but on the other hand, you want to increase the bottom line and continue to grow the business.
That’s where various templates can help you make crucial decisions and improve your company’s overall efficiency. Let’s take a look at 12 templates for all small businesses to save time and money.
1. Founders Equity
One of the most daunting questions at the beginning of many businesses is, “How are we going to split equity between the co-founders?” Luckily, other entrepreneurs, who have successfully solved this dilemma, created templates that you can now use to save time and money. Here is one from Foundrs.com.
2. Business Plan
Another daunting and extremely time-consuming task… writing the business plan. This document contains information on every single element of your business, such as product descriptions and designs, sales & marketing strategies, distribution plans, and financial projections. But where to begin? Better check out these ten business plan templates Inc. shared in an article.
3. Business Plan Presentation
No, this is not the same thing as the business plan. While your team will spend weeks, if not months, on figuring out every single detail that goes into the business plan, potential investors do not have that kind of time as they are getting pitched many different business ideas every single day. To get their attention – and money – it is absolutely crucial to prepare a short and good-looking presentation that can be shown in a meeting. Check out these templates from SlideModel.com to get you started.
4. Legal
It is always best to consult an attorney to get full legal protection… always! However, if you are just starting out and don’t have the money to hire an attorney, you might want to take a look at these legal templates that will provide you with a plethora of forms and agreements.
5. Accounting
You can certainly create your company’s budget from scratch in Excel, or you could use these templates. Then there is the matter of bookkeeping, which we suggest you let a professional accountant or business manager handle, especially when it comes down to tax season. However, to avoid spending all your money on accountants until then, you can do as much of the bookkeeping as possible with template forms from QuickBooks.
6. Scheduling
Just as important as keeping track of your money is planning and keeping track of your time. If you don’t have a human resources department or project managers to do this for you, don’t worry; there are templates for this, too.
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7. Employee Handbook
This document provides important information about company policies and procedures. When your business is growing and you might no longer have time to sit down with every new employee to explain company culture and goals, an employee handbook can come in handy. Templates to create the same can come in handy, too. Check out this one.
8. Website Design
At this point, it’s pretty clear that every company needs a website. It’s also clear that you don’t have to pay thousands of dollars for developers to build one from scratch. Use templates from sites like WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, or Shopify instead.
9. Business Cards
One of the most simple yet powerful tools to promote your business will be your business card. Designing one for yourself might be done in a reasonable amount of time. Designing business cards for your entire team, however, could take forever. Here is a tool from Shopify to create business card templates in no time.
10. Merchandise
Speaking of taking forever… there are many different merchandise options out in the market for you to chose from. Instead of starting from scratch with every single one, you might consider using these templates.
11. Social Media Marketing
Once your marketing campaign is in full swing, you will want to record and analyze the results of every single campaign to improve its efficiency. Companies like HubSpot and Hootsuite provide detailed templates that take measuring social media metrics to a whole new level.
12. Letters
Despite the social media revolution, you will still have to write letters in some cases; and making them look professional is just as important as the content within them. Check out these templates from Microsoft Office to guide you.
