Saving the planet is the name of the game. If you are looking to cut costs, integrate new business processes, or just make a more streamlined entity, getting into the habit of reusing or repurposing materials can make all of the difference. But reusing and repurposing materials doesn’t just have to be in a physical sense, there are other aspects of a business that can benefit from a little bit of recycling. What are these aspects, and how can they help us?
Shutterstock Licensed Photo – By G-Stock Studio
The “Store Cupboard”
Whether it’s a manufacturing business or stationery supply company, the store cupboard is a treasure trove of items that can be reused. In the most basic sense, working with tool manufacturers to acquire a toolkit that’s of a high standard is always a good investment. After all, from the perspective of a carpenter, a manufacturer, or any physically oriented industry, a good toolkit is invaluable. It’s that idea that if we have good tools, we are able to get our work done to the best possible standard. It’s not just in terms of sockets and wrenches, from the perspective of a company that harnesses IT capabilities; we’re talking about servers, networks, as well as malware or spyware programs. The store cupboard is where we get all of our resources from. Having our materials continually replenished, either by chucking out old spanners or upgrading our systems can be futile. It’s expensive to get a good quality system in place, but if we feel that it’s going to be obsolete in a few months’ time, we panic buy the latest. But instead of doing this, if we held off and waited for the latest model to be released so we could look at how useful it would really be to our business, we will have a better-informed decision.
Repurposing Marketing Materials
We are in an age where content is king. As such, be pressure to continually deliver on this front is more than overwhelming. Every time we invest in a new marketing strategy, it becomes a process where we have to start everything from scratch. We continually evaluate our products and services and see if they are relevant in the modern age. But then, all of this research that we undertake to check out our demographics, as well as our graphics, promotional materials, and the product itself, means that we are forever running through good ideas that are being put out to pasture as soon as they are released online. Instead, by looking at something and seeing if it works in another format means that we are getting the most mileage out of our ideas. Marketing is where we should make the most of our ability to repurpose ideas. For example, if you have product descriptions that worked for a recent blog piece, can you repurpose them to be the actual product descriptions that you can use on your ecommerce store? Using an idea in various formats will ensure you get as much out of it as possible. But it’s also good business sense, in the fact that you are able to transform an ideal into different formats.
Something that originally worked as a billboard campaign may very well benefit as an explainer video, just as long as it had a little more expansion. We have to get out of this habit of using an idea once. Some people don’t believe in the idea of rehashing something. In actual fact, it’s not rehashing if you are turning it into another format, or you have the foresight to see that one blog post had an idea that can be expanded in another. We can have meetings that go on forever trying to come up with that one good idea, when we should see if one little idea that was about to be thrown out actually has legs, and can be turned into something completely different. This is all down to the team you have, of course. But if you get out of the habit of using an idea once, it’s going to serve you infinitely in your marketing practices.
Making Multi-Purpose Transport
Saving money is continually a benefit to any business. Repurposing or reusing items needs to become a learned habit. And when we have transport or fleets, it can get to the point where it is too much of an expense, or it’s not serving its original purpose. As such, you either decide to get a new vehicle or fleet, and sell off your current ones. But instead, if you get into the habit of having transport as a multi-purpose entity, with a little bit of organizing, you can save yourself an infinite amount on fuel, not to mention car insurance, as well as stress. In its simplest sense, this has been demonstrated with the practice of carpooling. But when we need to go far and wide for business meetings, how can we condensers any further? This is where flyer miles and business perks on specific credit cards can come in handy. It’s quite an effort to get this right, but if you have your schedule in front of you, and you see where you can benefit from certain flyer miles, and get the most out of your own transport, this will result in a considerable saving. Everybody using their own vehicles creates and massive carbon footprint, so if we can condense this into using the bare essentials, we’ll save money, but we can truly embody the habit of repurposing.
We are forever in the habit of buying new things because we think this is the best way to get ahead in business. It’s far better for us to work smarter, rather than work harder. Getting into the habit of repurposing materials means that we will reduce waste, save money, but it becomes part of the culture of the business. It teaches us that everything has more than one purpose. Because we can spend a long time debating a certain issue, and then having to spend money on something that’s brand new, we end up stockpiling a lot of junk. As such, if we can get into the habit of repurposing or reusing, this could save us cutting corners, and it may even stop us making layoffs when our business hits choppy waters.
