Controlling your Costs: How to Handle Property Expenses as a Business Owner

It’s all about margins and your ability to effectively manage and reduce expenses. As a business owner, your success and growth are determined to an extent in the first year of your operation, but the same fact holds true throughout your career: the better you are at controlling your costs, the more successful you’ll be. 

So, let’s cut right to it. Here’s what we recommend you consider in your efforts to streamline your business and its property expenses. 

Space costs. Be careful with it.

Buying or renting a property isn’t exactly a quick affair at the best of times. It’s usually a process that involves a lot of careful research and visiting prospective areas – if you want to do the job properly, that is. 

What many business owners report regretting is the acquisition of a building that is either too large or too small for their needs. Whether you’re an engineering or manufacturing firm that needs equipment and workspace or a retail company that needs to ensure a smooth and pleasant customer flow through the building, you’ll benefit by knowing just how much floor space you really need. 

Every square foot of your property will cost you in various ways, from rent to maintenance costs. This makes it important and valuable for you to consider exactly what you need before you buy it. This will help keep your expenses low and avoids the disruption and lost time you can accrue by jumping from building to building in search of the perfect fit. 

Negotiate your rent or property purchase.

Rent will invariably make up the majority of your property expenses and is the largest outlay for most new companies. Once you know the property you want and you have it matched to your space requirements, it’s important to at least give a cursory attempt at negotiating down your rent or purchase cost.

You can get creative on this one, too. If asking for a modest reduction of your rent or purchase figure doesn’t work, you can instead ask for additional ‘sweeteners’ for your deal, such as furniture or a delayed period of payment for the property or its rent. If you approach this subject respectfully and with a professional mindset, there’s little reason for the other party to get offended; it’s business, after all.

Take care of your electrical compliance early.

If you have and use a building, you need to have a schedule for fixed wire electrical tests. You can’t avoid this. Fortunately, it’s actually sensible and appropriate to view this as a compliance requirement that gives real benefits when it’s handled right.

First off, you can work with your testing provider to arrange a schedule that flexibly fits your company. This can include staged testing of your electrical circuits and visits out of your core hours. That helps avoid any lost opportunity cost via lost hours due to shut-downs. 

Secondly, you can usually get recommendations from the engineer or electrician that appraises your site on how to become more energy-efficient. You only have to Google ‘energy efficiency savings examples’ once to realise just how much these can add up to. If your property and business make significant use of electricity, you can save hundreds and thousands of Pounds by adopting and upgrading to newer appliances. It’s worth considering. 

Three points to think about.

A quick and, we hope, helpful article to get you thinking about how to improve your business by streamlining its property expenses. It’s a worthy subject and, if you take care of it sooner rather than later, it’s a helpful box ticked in your to-do list as an entrepreneur.