So how has 2009 been for your company thus far? Are you ahead of your targets for this stage of the year? I hope, for the sake of your business, that you have answered both of these questions in the positive; I am however fully aware that the majority of the readers of this article will in fact be struggling. During the course of my week I meet a lot of business owners and from what I am hearing things are very tough out there.

So what can a business do in order to survive this recession? Well a number of the company directors that I have spoken with have contracted a cost reduction to enable them to reduce their business overheads. Having this extra pot of cash, from the savings that they have made, is of massive benefit as we are all very much aware as to how scarce money is right now.

Just a quick point before I continue; I am not a cost cutting expert therefore please do not think that I am trying to sell you something here. I am in fact a person who offers various forms of stuttering aimed at helping people to achieve fluency.

In which areas could a business potentially reduce their costs? There are, of course, many however the more obvious ones would be the electricity, gas and the telephone. Then there are the telephone charges; there are many company’s now offering a “cheap calls to mobile phone service”. There is also computer services, window cleaning, general maintanence, I.T, to name a few others.

There has never been a better time to think about ways in which your business could cut costs. I personally believe that we are now very much in the middle of this recession and I am yet to see any of those infamous “green shoots”.