A young boy walked up to his dad and asked “Dad how much does it cost to be married?’ His Dad replied “I don’t know son because I’m still paying for it!” Running a business is similar. Unless you truly understand all of the costs involved you can be paying for it for the rest of your life.

Apart from having owned and operated my own businesses successfully for more than 40 years (none of them ever went broke and they all made me money), I have trained others to establish and run a business on behalf of our State Government for the last 10 years. The attendees’ ignorance on business costs always astounds me.





I give them a variety of business training workshops, and then ask them to find out how much it will cost them per hour, per day, per week, per month, and per year to operate it. I’m sure that some of them decide not to proceed and give the idea away. Under the circumstances that is a good result. I have possibly just saved them a lifetime of pain.

Here’s the good news. A Laughter business is cheap to set up, and cheap to run but still requires a depth of financial knowledge. The following information provides an idea of the complexity that can be involved regardless of the size of your business.





Here are 5 types of costs that you need to be aware of.

  1. Fixed or static costs. These are often referred to as “operating” or “running” costs. Examples are your annual indemnity insurance, car insurance, website domain registration, and monthly rentals or fees that may not vary such as phone or data usage plans. Be aware however that all of these can increase at any stage so try to lock them in for as long as possible.
  2. Sliding or variable costs. These increase with the more business that you do. Stationary, printing, petrol, car services, meals, accommodation, and flights fit into this category. Always try to pass the travel ones onto the client. They usually (should) understand.
  3. Product and services costs. If you have products (and you should) then work out how much they cost “per item”. This way you can recover some presentation or workshop expenses with back of room sales, or afford to give them away as gifts. The services that you will require are from people such as website developers, graphic designers, accountants, and solicitors. Going cheap is not always the best option with any of these service providers.
  4. Upgrade or periodical costs. Computers, phones, printers, car tyres, and even cars don’t last forever. You need to budget ahead for these and calculate them monthly.
  5. Time and opportunity costs. And last but certainly not least is time. How much time do you spend on day to day tasks that provide you no income. Sending emails, quotes, invoices, and making phone calls are probably necessary, whereas social media, writing blogs and newsletters that nobody reads may not be. (I can’t believe that I just wrote that last bit ha ha ha)

If you have any further questions regarding business costs then please feel free to email me at [email protected] at anytime. Any recommendations for future topics are also appreciated.