3 Reasons Your Small Business Is Leaking Money -- and What to Do About Them

It's time to break out of that pattern.

Many small businesses operate on tight margins. This especially applies during the early months, when businesses are first ramping up and finding their footing. In fact, it can take years for a small business to generate a profit, so if you're a small business owner, it's important to do what you can to conserve cash during that period of growth.

But it may be the case that you're spending your small business's money needlessly -- and costing yourself other opportunities in the process. Here are a few reasons your business may be hemorrhaging cash -- and what you can do about it.

1. You're paying for services you don't really need

Do you own a local store and pay a social media manager $500 a week to build up your web presence and promote your business? You may be throwing your money away if your social media page isn't driving much traffic to your business.

Think about the different services you're paying for right now and assess each one's value. If you're not convinced you're getting your money's worth, cancel that service and stop the bleeding from your checking account.

2. You're paying for labor you aren't really using

Sometimes, it can be difficult to find people who are willing to work on a part-time basis. As such, you might have a team of full-time employees who not only get paid for 40 hours of work every week, but also, get a host of benefits, from paid time off to health insurance.

It's one thing to keep full-timers on staff if you truly need the help. But if you really only need people working 25 hours a week, make cuts.

Yes, the labor market is difficult to navigate today. And you may need to throw in other perks to entice workers to come on board part-time (think flexible scheduling or, if applicable to your business, the ability to work from home on a partial or complete basis). But if you're paying for labor you aren't using, you're really just throwing money away. And that's not worth doing.

3. You're outsourcing tasks your current employees can do themselves

Maybe you're paying a delivery service to shuttle goods over to customers as online orders come in. But if you have employees with free time during their working hours, that's a task you can have them do -- even if it wasn't necessarily included in their original job description.

When you own a small business, you have to make the most of the resources you have. And if your in-house customer service rep doesn't like delivering orders during slow times, then you may want to consider letting that person go and hiring someone who's willing to be a lot more flexible.

As a small business owner, you can't afford to waste money on things that aren't benefiting your company. And so if these factors apply to you, it may be time to rethink your spending -- and make changes or cuts that allow you to conserve funds accordingly.