From "Career Kick" - Advice for sharpening your job skills. This month: How to eliminate costly overhead.

1. Utilize Your Space
Look around your office – is your space being optimized? You may be paying rent for a large building you simply don’t need. Consider downsizing, or even just working from home. If you own your office building, consider subleasing rooms or unoccupied space to other small businesses as an extra revenue stream.

2. Go Paperless
In the digital age, scale back on paper, printers, ink/toner and filing cabinets. Transition to a digital invoice and payment system and file all important paperwork on your computer. Don’t forget to back up all of your documents to the cloud.

3. Leverage Your Client Base
Word-of-mouth remains the best form of promotion. Scale back your advertising efforts by relying on your clients to drum up new customers. You can even offer affordable incentives such as gift cards or future discounts for referrals. Build it into a consistent program to drum up business.

4. Advertise on Social Media
Trim that marketing budget down to five key platforms: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Snapchat. If your audience isn’t active on all five, focus your attention on the ones they use the most. Social media is a (mostly) free resource for promoting your brand, cultivating leads and engaging with your current customers.

5. Limit Travel
Traveling is an important part of sales, but you can still make deals without going on the road every other week. When it makes sense, replace those trips with emails, phone calls and Skype meetings. If you absolutely have to fly out to meet a client, book an affordable business hotel.

6. Bring in Interns
Reducing staff is the easiest way to save money, but also the most painful. Instead of letting people go or hiring new employees, discover interns looking for experience. They’ll be grateful for the opportunity and you’ll be able to lighten the load around the office.