五大省钱新招

1. 减少专属办公座位

    私人办公空间是项花费很高的支出。约翰•德哈特是家庭保健提供商邻家护士公司（Nurse Next Door）的联合首席执行官。去年，该公司位于温哥华的总部员工从28人增加到了45人，但办公空间却缩小了。他们是如何做到的？秘诀在于：他们按照先到先得的原则给员工分配座位。“就连我本人也没有自己专属的办公桌，”德哈特称。仅此一项，该公司就节约了6万美元的租赁费以及4万美元的IT基础设施成本。

2.加快商品流通

    为什么一定要等产品入库后才开始着手促销工作？总部位于达拉斯的Driversselect公司的创始人兼总裁史蒂夫•霍尔通过拍卖采购二手汽车。一旦拍卖成交，他马上就开始在自己的网站上兜售这些汽车，而不是等到这些车到货时才动手销售。结果旧车在其车库中的停留时间从44天缩短到了36天，每月节省利息、保险、以及库存成本1.44万美元。他还表示，2011年，该公司的销售额已近9,100万美元，简直就像“旧车销售行业的Zappos（美国最大的鞋业销售网站——译注）”。

3.公用事业收费也要讨价还价

    人们很容易认为，公共事业费用等日常开支没有讨价还价的余地。李•普罗森尼亚克打理着位于丹佛的舞蹈培训机构樱桃溪舞公司（Cherry Creek Dance），他每个月都要收到康卡思特公司（Comcast）的电话账单，苦不堪言。于是他要求电话公司降低费率，几分钟后他的要求就得到了满足。对于多数其他日常支出，他也如法炮制。如此一来，该机构每月的成本支出降低了1,650美元。2010年，该公司的营业收入达到了160万美元。“每次，我们都能通过协商，拿到更划算的价格，”普罗森尼亚克称。

4.降低借记卡交易手续费

    兽医整形外科及运动医学集团（Veterinary Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Group）位于马里兰州的安纳波利斯章克申。这家营利性诊所的创始人之一、杰森•卡纳普变更了公司的交易处理机构，为公司节省了3万美元。“交易处理其实是我们每天都要用到的服务项目，”卡纳普说。这家公司目前的年销售额为650万美元。此外，他还要求借记卡用户在袖珍键盘上手动输入个人身份号码，而不是直接刷卡，于是又额外节省了1%的交易成本。

5.尝试云服务

    许多企业主至今仍然对托管敏感数据心存疑虑。精华翻译公司（Choice Translating）在夏洛特市和秘鲁的利马市都设有办公机构，该公司正是由于采用了数据托管服务，每年能节省下3.3万美元的资金。因为他们就无需再支持7台服务器和两个防火墙，该公司的联合所有者弗农•梅纳德三世亦无需再支付每年1.56万美元的IT支持成本。这家公司节省的其他开支还包括：后台支持费用降低；电费减少；不再出现因软硬件问题而引起的宕机，等于延长了有效工作时间。

    ——Verne Harnish是执行教育机构Gazelles公司的首席执行官。

    译者：大海

1. Ditch assigned seating

    Private offices are an expensive addiction. Ask John DeHart, co-CEO of home health care provider Nurse Next Door. The company reduced office space while expanding from 28 people to 45 at its Vancouver headquarters last year. How? By making all desks available on a first-come, first-served basis. "Even I don't have my own desk," says DeHart. The company saved $60,000 in rent and $40,000 in IT infrastructure costs.

2. Sell faster

    Why wait until products are in stock to promote them? Steve Hall, founder and president of Dallas's Driversselect, peddles the used cars on his website from the moment he purchases them at auction instead of waiting till they're delivered. That cuts the time cars sit in his lots from 44 to 36 days, saving $14,400 a month on interest, insurance, and storage. Sales at the company which he says is like "a Zappos for used cars" are on pace to reach $91 million in 2011.

3. Ask for a better deal

    It's easy to fall into the mindset that routine expenses like utilities are nonnegotiable. Frustrated by the monthly cable bill at Denver's Cherry Creek Dance, Lee Prosenjak asked Comcast for lower rates and got them minutes later. Doing the same with most recurring bills, he reduced monthly costs by $1,650 at the firm, which had more than $1.6 million in revenue for 2010. "We negotiated a better rate every single time," he says.

4. Reduce debit card fees

    Jason Canapp saved $30,000 at Veterinary Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Group in Annapolis Junction, Md., by changing transaction-processing firms. "It really is a commoditized service," says Canapp, a founder of the profitable clinic, with about $6.5 million in annual sales. He took advantage of an offer to shave another 1% off transaction costs by getting debit card users to enter their PINs on a keypad instead of swiping them.

5. Try the cloud

    Many business owners are still uneasy about hosting sensitive data off-site. But it's brought savings of almost $33,000 annually to Choice Translating, which has offices in Charlotte and Lima, Peru. Since getting rid of seven servers and two firewalls, co-owner Vernon Menard III no longer pays $15,600 annually for IT support. Other savings: cheaper backups, lower electric bills, and no downtime caused by hardware and software problems.

    --Verne Harnish is the CEO of Gazelles Inc., an executive education firm.