Business At A Glance
Startup Costs: $2,000 – $10,000
Home Based: Can be operated from home.
Part Time: Can be operated part-time.
Online Operation? No
Business Overview
Calling all business managers, controllersand operations managers. You can profit from your business and budgetmanagement skills and experiences by starting your own expensereduction consulting service. Expense reduction consultants provideclients with services such as controlling long-term product and servicecosts and developing expense reduction strategies to suit individualclient needs.
The objective of the expense reduction consultant is touncover costs associated with doing business that can be reduced oreliminated while still maintaining the efficiency of the business interms of operations, customer service and profitability. Potentialclients will largely be small- to midsize businesses, but you can alsotarget your marketing efforts toward professionals, nonprofitassociations and privately-run institutions.
Additionally, many ofthese consulting services will specialize in a particular type ofbusiness or industry such as fixed location retailing or manufacturing.Get started by developing an expense reduction manual. The manualshould be representative of the type of business of industry you’lltarget and include an index of categories you’ll analyze, such asbusiness location, employees and communications. The purpose of themanual is to act as a road map to guide you through each client’sbusiness.
You can then tailor the manual to a specific client’sbusiness and enter subcategories for each business component that youanalyze. Expense reduction consultants present each client with anextensive written report at the end of their investigation. This reporttypically outlines the consultant’s suggestions in terms of reducingcosts, including relevant supporting data and statistics.
Fees for theservice vary. Some consultants prefer to charge an hourly rate, whileother prefer to charge a percentage based on the amount of money theycan save a client. The percentage can range from 10 to 50 percent ofthe first year’s saving. Marketing the service can be as easy asjoining business associations to network with small business owners.