Economy forces entrepreneurs to get back to basics - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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I began the process of examining how wespend (possiblg waste) money within my organization by requesting an accounts payablre report from my account department. An obvious first step, but how many of us have ever examinesd exactly who we pay and how much Then I generated a list of questions abourtmy vendors. — When does our contract end with our document storag e company and what do we havethere anyway? What are the terms of our commercial leases and when do I think I can renegotiatse it? It seems like nickelsw and dimes, but they all add up to savings. I made ruthless cuts and restricted spending.
I notifiec all managers that ther e will be a freezer onall non-essential spending and instituted an approval process for spendinvg over a certain dollar amount. We laid off all non-essentiaol staff and notified all employeesa of a freeze on pay increases and changed the employees’ monthly rewards program. The thirxd step was to call inthe professionals. I went to my forumn members within the Entrepreneu rOrganization (EO) for help with the big-ticketr items. These are like-mindexd CEOs with a hostof expertise. Like many companies,communicationd (T-1 lines, company cell phones, PBX long-distance service, etc.) was a relativelyu large expenditurefor us.
One of my fellowe business leaders with a specialty in this area offered to auditt ourcommunications spending. Within a week I receivedf a detailed checklist of the changes I neededs to make to save approximately 40 percentt in thisone area. Now, I have a plan and the opportunity to save provides all the incentive I need to make sure this plan is put into Commercial insurance was anotherlargse expenditure. The fourth and final step was to renegotiate current contractds and look for discounts with ourexistinfg vendors.
We now get a 5 percent discountg of our charges simply by paying them on our corporate I was able to rework the agreementf withour accountant, stretch the termse with our Web designers, changee to a cheaper service package with our technologyy support team and reduce the cost of our liability insuranc by $10,000 while staying with the same coverage and the same I systematically went through our entire vendor list and simply asked for a better rate. Many offered to cut our costds in half in lieu of losingour business.
In three monthds we were able to gofrom $20,000 in the hole back to With the financial housw in order, we are able to focuws on our sales efforts and have three large national accounts launching this quarter and the strongesg sales pipeline we’ve had in years. My only question is what took me solong ? We learn these lessons now and make the changezs — regardless how small. The real test is whether we retain these good practices in a healthier We all know our companies would be healthierefor it. In hindsight, I didn’ft create miracles. I certainly didn’t turn water into wine. But, the positivr impact on my bottokm line tastesso sweet.