As a business, we need to know how to spend money more than we need to know how to save it. In this is the basic principle of cash flow, that in order to get that cycle going, we need to kickstart it with some of our own expenditure. ‘Spend money to make money,’ as the old saying goes.

But while it’s true that budgeting is important and knowing how to spend is important, being reckless or investing on risky ventures can sometimes be a problem in of itself. This is why many businesses, businesses that seemingly put every step forward, can experience bad luck and have to recuperate their losses. For instance, a landlord might properly vet a tenant before letting to them, not knowing that this tenant is inclined to throw parties every weekend and is likely to cause damage to the property.

So, not only do we need to know how to spend money, but what actions to take should those investments not bear fruit. In this post, we hope to discuss how to optimize your spending as a firm:

Proper Spending Around An Investment

It’s not just that making an investment is important, but how you curate the spending around that investment, too. For instance, you may invest in proper packaging that can withstand international travel now you hope to appeal to a broader global market. So far, so good. But it could also be that learning why you need a customs broker can help you understand just how to properly move those products across borders, with the lowest amount of penalties, with utmost dedication to compliance, and with care and attention going forward. 

Predicting The Return

Of course, it’s important to calculate what kind of return you wish to get from your investment, be that a service, utility or profit. Yet it’s also important to calculate and predict this return in terms of timing, because time is ultimately the most important aspect of managing money and value.

For this reason, it’s important to consider exactly what kind of spending is worthwhile to you. It might be, for instance, that the cost of onboarding a brand new graduate staff member and allowing them to slowly grow into the role over a number of months or even years is not as helpful to you right now, at least compared to hiring an industry professional on a higher salary who is able to provide value to your firm almost immediately. In some scenarios, you may find value in the opposite approach. At the very least, you will have taken a necessary step in considering what kind of return you’re expecting, and how that should define your investment rather than flying blind.

Know What You’re Willing To Take A Loss On

It may be that certain investments aren’t a guarantee, but assume some kind of risk. For this reason, calculating risk is as important as calculating the proper return, and minimizing that where appropriate can be key.

Yet it’s also important to remember that a loss can occur, or at least will occur given enough time, as this is relatively inevitable in a fluctuating market. For that reason, it’s important to consider what you’re willing to take a loss on. For many industry-leading firms, research and development is part of this, because innovation cannot always secure perfect results, but the chances of getting to a new kind of technology, utility or service that can flip the script of your industry is more than worthwhile.

For instance, think of how effectively services like Uber have completely changed the landscape. Without the willingness to potentially take a loss in developing that app, and assuming that risk even though it flew in the face of the convention so far, success would have been impossible.

Where Can You Excel? (Especially In Response To The Competition)

While it’s important to invest in your weaknesses to make yourself competent in those areas, it’s also essential to leverage your strengths and invest in them to keep them sharp and capable, particularly in response to competition.

It might be that your business is known for its absolutely excellent support, which isn’t necessarily appreciated in many other areas of your industry. It might be, then, that continuing to uphold this standard and adapting that to the online resource management of how you interface with clients could be key for the future. Sometimes, , investing in a strength can help you secure it, maintain it, and refine it.

With this advice, we hope you can continue to make the most of your business investments.