Millions of workers across the UK have quit their jobs in the last year. A poll conducted at the turn of the year reveals that millions more could follow in 2022. A whopping 63% of dissatisfied employees in London said they are looking to quit their job this year.
It’s clear that people are becoming disillusioned with the corporate world and yearn for a better work-life balance. It is anticipated that a sizeable portion of workers quitting in the ‘Great Resignation’ will launch their own business.
Unless you are fortunate enough to have a deep treasure trove to start up a new business, you need a strategy to grow your business on a shoestring. Whenever venture capitalists take over a merger, the first thing they do is cut costs.
Cutting costs is a good strategy for start-ups and small businesses that have been struggling to establish themselves for several years. The less you spend on overhead, the more cash flow you have to invest in other areas of your business.
Sign Up For A Low-Cost PO Box Address in London
If your business headquarters can be run from your garage or back bedroom at home, you will save a substantial sum of money by avoiding office rental costs.
And there’s no shame running a business in your pyjamas – on days that you don’t have clients to meet of course. Let’s not forget that some of the world’s most profitable companies today started as work-from-home ventures.
Having said that, credibility is a key factor and brand image plays a huge role in the success of a business. How consumers perceive a company will influence their purchasing decisions.
Moreover, consumers are highly distrustful of companies they find on the internet that they’ve never heard of. Today’s consumers are also very good at researching and technology allows them to visit a business virtually using Google Earth.
If your registered address is your home address, customers will not be encouraged by the sight of a three-bedroomed semi in Barrow.
There’s one other issue with registering your home residence as your business address that is worth considering. It will be accessible to the general public.
This poses businesses with two potential problems. The first one is unavoidable. You will be inundated with junk mail from B2B companies in your locale.
The second one is less likely but far more problematic if it were to arise. It’s not unheard of for disgruntled customers to turn up at a business to demand their money back. You don’t want angry customers banging on your front door…whilst you’re working in your pyjamas.
A PO Box in London, or virtual mailbox, provides you with a prestigious address and a physical location in London. With Low-Cost Letterbox, you can also use our mailing service to receive post and parcels and our telephone answering service to handle your calls and forward them to you.
Furthermore, our virtual mailbox service doesn’t announce that you are using a PO Box as the post office does.
Your official registered address will read:
Your Business Name Ltd
95 Mortimer Street
London
W1W 7ST
The benefit of hiring a low-cost PO Box in London is all about perception. London is recognised all over the world as a business and financial centre and anybody running a business in central London must be pretty successful.
Businesses are successful because they are good at what they do. A PO Box address in central London can elevate your business.
Register Your Business With A Virtual Office Address
Officially registering your business with a local authority legalises your company and gives consumers more confidence that you are a legitimate business. But as mentioned above, you ideally want to avoid registering your business using your residential address.
The best solution is to register your address using the company formation services offered by a virtual office provider. This gives you the legal right to publish a physical address on your website, marketing material, letterheads and invoices etc.
For all intents and purposes, your business will appear as though it’s based in Oxford Circus, central London. In reality, you have the freedom to work from anywhere. This service is ideal for digital nomads and anybody else with an overseas company that wants to register their business in the UK.
The experienced professionals at Low-Cost Letterbox can register your business with Companies House on your behalf. You can even use a virtual address as your director’s address and avoid disclosing your private residency in the public domain.
Take Advantage of Virtual Office Meeting Rooms and Facilities
Virtual offices can provide you with much more than a PO Box and a registered address. Many of them offer co-working spaces which enable you to hire hot desks, private offices and meeting rooms.
We can’t speak for every virtual office provider, but we are confident that the majority will offer fully-functioning offices. Co-working spaces and serviced offices, therefore, give you access to office space as and when you need it. And all without heavy overheads.
What this essentially means is that you can spend a day or two in an office environment with access to printers, photocopiers, scanners and other office facilities. If you hire any staff, a virtual office is a good place to meet up to work together and discuss your next move.
Virtual offices also typically have meeting rooms which come in very useful for meeting clients. We can erect signs with your business name and logo on them to keep up the appearance that your business is doing well. Then it’s over to you to impress your client with your knowledge.
The business model we have at Low-Cost Letter Box is designed to help start-ups and small businesses operate on a shoestring business by giving you access to all the facilities you need without overspending.
Whereas most virtual office providers tie you into monthly or long-term contracts, we offer a pay-as-you-go solution. This means you have more control over your spending and can channel your resources to other areas of your business.
You may also want to take advantage of our telephone answering service. This gives you access to a professional receptionist who will be responsible for fielding your calls and forwarding them to you.
We give you a private hotline which is answered using your business name. The receptionists will take the details of the caller and contact you on the number you provide us. If you are available and willing to take the call, our receptionists put the caller through. If you are not available, we will take a message and forward it to you via email.
Use Contractors To Build An Affordable Website
The internet has revolutionised the way businesses interact with consumers. In 2022, it’s practically impossible to grow your business in you don’t have a website.
According to Forrester, 71 per cent of customer journeys start with a search engine. This means if you’re not online, you missing almost three-quarters of your potential audience.
What’s more, they’ll go to your competitors.
It’s understandable that the thought of investing in digital marketing is enough to fill a start-up business owner with dread – especially if you’ve been sourcing quotes from English web design companies. They’re expensive because we live in an expensive country.
The technology that web developers use to build websites is all the same. That means you can find qualified and talented web designers for a fraction of the cost overseas. A fully-functional website tailored to your business brand gives you more credibility, and authenticity and serves as your shop window to the world.
The cost of a website obviously varies from one business to the next. Web designers typically charge by page plus additional costs for complex solutions such as a database.
Websites for professionals only need a basic number of pages explaining your services and a blog. If you’re selling products through your website, you can get free eCommerce plugins – although many have limitations.
The cost of building a website depends on what you need to do rather than what you would like to happen. The good news is that what you need to do can be achieved for a minimal cost.
Use Free Marketing Tools
To grow your business in 2022 and beyond, you need to establish an online presence. Although the internet seems a daunting place, digital marketing is not all that difficult.
Whilst some professional digital marketers may be able to help leverage your online presence, outsourcing your marketing will be expensive. You can save a significant amount of your budget by creating your marketing content yourself through blogs, videos and social media marketing.
For some small business owners, social media is the most cost-effective channel to promote your business. Social platforms are free to use – unless you opt-in for their marketing program. Even then, social media marketing is not that expensive. Splashing £10 a month on Instagram, for example, can draw in hundreds of new followers.
Being active on social media also shows customers that you are a legitimate business and not another internet scammer trying to defraud consumers. Social platforms are also brilliant to use as your soapbox to share your knowledge and demonstrate your expertise. (More on that later).
The key to growing your business through social platforms is to join groups in which you are most likely to find members of your target audience. Although self-promotion is usually discouraged, you can reach out and answer questions that have been left by other users.
This has two advantages. The first benefit is that all the comments you leave on various social feeds are seen by hundreds if not thousands of people. Comments are also highlighted on your own account.
Perhaps just as importantly, the more consumers have contact with a brand the more it stands out in their memory so make sure you use your brand logo as your social media vector.
Blogging is another inexpensive means of demonstrating your authority in your chosen field. Written content can also be used to promote your services in greater depth and provide your audience with insightful tips about how your products and service will benefit them.
Keeping a blog also plays a critical role in helping your website to be visible in search engines. In truth, if you don’t have a blog, you’ve pretty much wasted the investment you spent on building a website.
You need to add blogs on a regular schedule and share your content on your social media account. At least one a week is enough, but if you have time to write more, you will achieve search engine visibility faster.
Offering a free downloadable pdf with relevant information that offers value is also a good way of getting access to potential customers. If visitors want to download the pdf, they have to enter their email – which gives you the opportunity to reach them with targeted offers via email.
Create Homemade YouTube Videos
Running a successful business – especially online – is impossible if you cannot demonstrate trust and authority. As I briefly mentioned above, two ways to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise are through your blog and social media accounts.
However, there is no better medium to build trust and authority than video. There are several reasons for that:
- Customers get to know you and we all like to put a face to a (company) name.
- Online users consume video more than any other digital media (78% watch online videos every week).
- You can probably explain the benefits of your services better through talking than you can in words
- You can physically demonstrate how your product works better on video and customers can actually see how it works and the results it delivers (89% of YouTube creators give the best information about products).
The power of video cannot be understated. And making videos doesn’t have to be expensive – although it can be time-consuming. But plenty of successful small business owners are making great content and posting it on YouTube. All you need is a smartphone, a script and a video editor.
Are you looking for ways to grow your business on a shoestring budget? Low-Cost Letterbox can help by enabling you to use our address as your registered office, collect and forward your mail and phone calls and, when needed, provide access to fully-functioning office space and meeting rooms.
