The nightly news often relates the latest natural disaster with its legacy of destruction – loss of property and loss of life. Businesses are disrupted, water supplies destroyed and people without electricity.
If you live in Hurricane or Tornado country and are a small business owner, you probably have a plan for natural disasters. You know how you’ll operate your business after a natural disaster hits your place of business – how you’ll deal with lack of electricity, flooded data centers and other foreseeable events. First thing – get contact information for a reliable professional, armed with the best tool backpack for electricians and all the things required inside it.
But few of us plan for the ultimate crisis – what to do when “we”, the business owner, have a personal crisis and cannot attend to our business. This might happen with a death in the family, an illness, an injury. All of those things we don’t like to think will happen “to us.”
Smart business owners will plan for this crisis – when you are not able to be there yourself. Here are five areas you need to plan for before the crisis.
Customer relations. You need someone who can call your clients, reschedule meetings, respond to emails and phone calls. This person needs to be trained in your business affairs and have access to all of that information before the crisis occurs. So you need to have an assistant, a customer service department, or someone like your CPA or attorney who can step in and take over your client relations.
Procedures. You need a procedures manual that an experienced administrator could step in and use to operate your business for a period of time. If you are your own webmaster, for example, you need the access information for each of your sites. You need the procedures for shipping products, refunding purchases, and other common tasks in a detailed printed or digital form. Keep it in a place where others can find it – either in your office or online in a secure site.
Backlog of issues. If you publish an ezine, you need to have several issues completed ahead of time. That way the ezine can continue to be distributed, even when you’re not able to write. Without it, client relationships can be lost or damaged. It only takes a few weeks of not hearing from you before subscribers forget who you are.
Residual income. When you’re in a crisis, the last thing you need to worry about is how you’re going to pay your bills. When you have established Online Oil Wells (sales sites that sell digital products and deliver them automatically) that continue to crank out income even when unattended, you can be assured you’ll have a steady income.
Accounts payable. You can’t afford to ruin your credit rating while you’re in crisis, you have to establish business credit in the best way possible. So you’ll need someone to physically pick up the bills from the mail box or website. Plus you’ll need someone who has access to your checking account, online and offline, who can pay those bills for you, on time.
A word of caution about choosing people for these roles. Your first temptation may be to ask a close friend or family member to be your “back-up.” The danger of that is that if you are in crisis because of a death in the family or your own illness, they will be involved in the same crisis or at least in helping you through it. So try to set up systems outside of your close relations.
Finally, be sure your loved ones know who to turn to should a crisis occur. There is no point in your having made all of the preparations if they are unaware of who to contact to put the plan into motion.
While we never plan to be sick or injured or have someone close to us fall into that category, things happen that are not in our control. That’s the definition of a crisis. But when we understand that such things can and do occur, we can take steps to ensure we have a business left after the crisis has passed. Don’t put off your crisis planning another day.
Get your business systems ready for a crisis with Organize Your Online Business.
Boy are you on target…late last year I got home from a wonderful trip to China, thinking I’d get all the stacked up issues and projects updated in a breeze…that was before I realized getting off the plane that I had contracted a really bad respiratory issue that totally knocked me out. So, I was late with email, responding to customer questions and the routine chores of serving clients. And, worse I didn’t realize how inept I was being because I was so sick. Have to admit I had a couple of really terse and worried questions when I was finally able to get my head above the covers.
My main job now is making sure that my systems are in place, including notifications of when I am not around. And, handing off routine chores and alerts to my assistant when I am out of town.
Yes, I think it only takes one of those scary crises to realize we need to better prepare. My wake-up call was with the death of my mother ten years ago. I had systems in place, but they all depended on my daughters who were working for me! We learn from experience – and hope that others can learn from it, too.
Great article, Jeanette!
I think many of us who do “everything” ourselves can forget about this scenario…
Thank you for the timely reminder.
🙂
Great tips Jeanette…
When I help people organize, I try to implement emergency procedures such as posting emergency numbers close to the phone and making certain important documents are stored safely.
I love how you bring to our attention that the same preparation needs to go into our business planning. You are at the top of my list for being organized in business. Keep teaching!
Thank you, Cynthia! You know I love to teach and will do so as long as I can.
I hope our readers will follow your link to your website and pick up some great tips. Storing documents and being able to find things never matters – until it’s the ONLY thing that matters!