© 2006 Dream Merchant Dream Merchant • 2309 Torrance Blvd. #104, Torrance, CA 90501 (310) 328-1925 email: Jkm316@aol.com STARTING A COMPANY AT LOWER COST BY BUYING USED Do All Your Business Purchases Have to be New Items? Absolutely Not. By Reid Bryce Robbins
Just a little background about myself. I have been a freelance court reporter for more than 25 years. I have owned both large and small businesses, including a large freelance court reporting firm in Philadelphia, a small court reporting firm in Anchorage, Alaska and several typing and marketing businesses throughout the country.
During the time that I owned my businesses, I've tried to find ways to keep costs to a minimum in all of my businesses. My favorite saying is "Why would I want to pay extra for that when I can use the money to buy myself something nice for my home?"
There are several ways to buy new items for your business. First, you have to figure out how up-to-date you need the item to be. Why buy the newest computer on the market if its only function is going to be to print out billing statements? Maybe you can still work with a computer from two to five years old.
I once bought a computer for $25 off Ebay that works with my court reporting program. I also bought several computerized shorthand machines that saved me spending more than $4,000 apiece for new ones. The used machines I bought for between $290 and $800 were used for multiple years by both me and the court reporters working for me. One machine I bought from a pawnshop for $500 and one of the court reporters working for me immediately paid me $1200 for it. It was worth a lot more, but she was about to spend around $4200 for a new one when I came across the deal.
Another resource is trade magazines. A lot of times when somebody has something they tried to use for work and it wasn't compatible, they will sell it fairly inexpensively to get it off their hands. I have purchased many used cassette transcription machines for between $25 and $50, when new they would cost several hundred. I have bought them off Ebay, or through court-reporting magazines (they usually have a classified ad section of "for sale" items.
A good online resource is Craigslist. You can find almost anything on that site.
For my Shaklee business, I have found quite a few sales aids much cheaper than if I were to buy them direct. I have bought four different Airsource 3000 air purifiers for between $50 and $200 off Ebay. They normally go for more than $700 at retail price and I have been able to use them as sales aids to sell new ones. My sales profit on the new ones are a lot more than I'm paying for these used machines and usually all that I need to do to sell one is place a machine in somebody's home and the machine does the sale. Of course, if I had to pay full price for each one, I would have to sell many more to make a profit.
The other thing I have purchased for my Shaklee Business are used audio tapes and sales brochures. That can run into a lot of money if you buy them new, but there are always people willing to give them away for practically nothing if they get out of the business or overstock on the sales materials. I save thousands a year in advertising costs this way.
I have always bought used cars. You can get a great deal on a used car (I drive taxi part-time, as well, and put too many miles on a car to buy it new). I recently wrote a book called Cab Driving as a Second Career for Fun and Profit, telling about the adventures I've had driving taxi at night here in the Twin Cities (the computer I wrote the book on was less than $50).
In summary, almost any business you have can use a few corners cut. Just make sure you don't cut them too far. Get what you need and, maybe just a little more.
Reid Robbins, Freelance Court Reporter, has been a Shaklee Distributor for the last eight years, as well as a freelance court reporter throughout the country for more than 25 years. You can see his story on his website at:
http://www.shaklee.net/reid OR http://www.cinchplan.com/reid
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