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.

It happened again today. A marketer had a product I was interested in, but when I arrived at the sales page it was “closed” for business.

This is the principle of scarcity – and it gets people to buy more. Why? Because they are afraid of losing out. They may not need the item being sold, but because it is disappearing at a particular time, they go ahead and buy it anyway – just in case.

That’s how your hard drive quickly becomes full of items you don’t use. It’s how you end up spending a lot more money than you need to – because you are buying “in case” and not because you need it now.

I’ve begun to notice scarcity more lately because I’ve been busy on the weekends. It seems there are a lot of marketers who think I’m sitting at home, waiting for their offer. So they decide to expire the offer late on Sunday night or early Monday morning. Sorry, I’m doing other things at those times.

Naturally I recognize there are times when scarcity makes sense –

• when you have a limited number of copies of a physical product
• when you know you can only respond to a certain number of coaching clients at a time
• when you have paid for only a limited number of seats on your webinar service

What I’m talking about are digital products – those that can be duplicated millions of times with no additional work! There is NO reason to decide that a digital product is scarce – other than to force people into buying something they might not otherwise have bought.

I can’t change what other people do, but I can control my behavior. Yes, I may offer some limited time pricing now and then, and I certainly limit the number of coaching clients I take, but I want my products to be available for you to buy, when YOU need them.

So if you’re looking for a product to achieve a particular task, please check my Books, Courses, and Other Products links here on my website at http://JeanetteCates.com  We’re open for business around the clock – for YOUR convenience!

Warning: Rant Ahead.

I got another “great” offer today telling me how someone I’ve never heard of did this great and wonderful thing. Being the sucker that I am for a great deal, I went to the sales page.

“So and So Made $1497 in 72 hours and now is willing to share his secret”

Whoppee! It may sound good, but let’s look a little deeper.

1. Is this worthy of a headline?

Frankly, I’ve made that much – over and over. But it never occured to me to make a headline of it. It’s called “doing business” and making a living.

So does that make me a bad marketer for not bragging on every little thing I do? Because if this is your “big deal” then you won’t last long in business. $1500 in 3 days is good, but unless it’s sustainable, you won’t even hit six figures this year.

2. Is this a one-time achievement or something he can do day after day?

I would challenge you that ANYONE can make $1500 in 3 days. It’s a matter of focusing efforts and putting all of your results into a short period of time. For example, you could do a 7-day build-up to a big launch, then only offer it for 3 days. Assuming you involved some strong affiliates, you could easily sell that amount in 72 hours.

But that model won’t work week after week. In fact, you can burn out your affiliates if you hit them up for one big deal after another, not to mention irritating their subscribers. There can only be just so many truly great deals per week.

3. Can anyone else repeat this success with this “system”?

A system is something that turns out predictable and consistent results. Until a set of steps can do that time after time, regardless of who is using it, it isn’t really a system. It’s an experiment.

So when someone offers to share their secret, that’s great. They will tell you what they did. If you are willing to settle for hearing their story, then you should consider it. But if you want to be able to use their experience and do what they did, then you need to be looking for reputable teachers who provide a system.

Here’s my advice: Ask yourself these questions as you read a headline like this:

– Is this a one-time achievement or something that happens every 3 days? I would suggest it’s a one-time shot or it wouldn’t be in a headline.

– Could he do it again? If it’s not repeatable, you don’t care how he did it. It won’t work again.

– Can other people do the same thing? It’s one thing if one person can do it once, then do it again. But will it work equally well for other people?

– Can he teach it? Some people can do something themselves, but don’t have the ability to teach others how to do the same thing. Essentially they haven’t set up a system.

– Are you willing to do whatever it is he did to make it happen? You would be surprised at some of the lengths people will go to create a headline-worthly event. Be sure you are willing to stretch your practices that far before you sign up to follow them.

With practice and these questions, you’ll avoid buying into the hype of the One Hit Wonders.

When someone talks about building an online business, they generally talk about the importance of freedom and why having a business will “free” them from their current job, worries, or obligations. However, freedom does not come in just one flavor. There are actually two approaches to the freedom associated with an online business – Freedom To and Freedom From.

Although the concept has been around for hundreds of years, it was made popular in today’s literature by Aunt Lydia, a character in The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Let’s put it into the context of building an online business.

Freedom From is generally the first thought that someone has when dreaming of leaving their job to start their own business. Freedom from:

• an overbearing boss
• obnoxious co-workers
• a grueling commute
• too many rules
• someone else dictating your priorities
• asking permission to take the day off
• restricting your vacation to two weeks per year
• crushing debt
• dictated work hours

Just think of all of the negative reasons that you don’t like your job and you’ll have your own list of Freedom from reasons.

On the other hand, Freedom to provides a more positive perspective. It emphasizes the Reason Why you want to build your business. You may want the Freedom to:

• travel when you want to, for as long as you want to
• volunteer at your kids’ school
• take time off when you want
• enjoy sunshine coming in your home office window
• make your own rules
• hire the people you want to surround yourself with
• spend your money as you choose
• donate time and money to the charities of your choice

Freedom To allows you to dictate and control what you want. Freedom From is the list of what others control for you and what you are trying to escape.

If you have had a difficult time staying motivated long enough to build your business, take a day or two to list your Freedom From and Freedom To reasons. Keep those in front of you, particularly on those days when it seems overwhelming to build a business online. You’ll be quickly reminded of WHY you are doing this – and what you are moving toward in your life.

There are only a few days left in the year. So now is the time to take those last minute tax savings.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. So do your due diligence and either check with your CPA, tax planner, or the IRS site.

If you are a cash-basis taxpayer, as many sole proprietors are, you claim expenses as they are paid. Likewise, you claim revenue as you deposit it.

So take a quick look at your annual Profit and Loss statement and decide: Do you need more revenue or more expenses?

Now I’m not talking about making more money. I’m referring to when to claim the money.

If you are facing relatively low income for this year, as compared to what you think you will have next year, then you may want to move as much revenue into this tax year as possible. So gather up all those checks lying around and head for the bank. Send out invoices via paypal to vendors who may be willing to pay you this year. Call people who may already have an invoice they could pay. Pull as much revenue into this year as possible.

On the other hand, if you’ve made more money this year than you planned – and you may have “forgotten” to file estimated income tax, then let’s move some expenses into this year. Otherwise, you’ll have to claim more income – and perhaps pay a penalty for the estimated tax you missed.

Stock up on office supplies. From paper to pens to file folders, you can use these items “next year.” But you can pay for them this year. View pan card status for each of your employees, cover it for them if it is due and don’t forget the calendars and tax software!

Prepay expenses. If your insurance is due on January 12, go ahead and pay it now. (Remember, this only applies to cash basis taxpayers!) Look at all of your other payments and pay them now.

Buy equipment that you can expense. As a Section 179 expense you can expense any piece of equipment up to a total of over $100,000! (Be sure you read the IRS document on Section 179.)

Buy an SUV. No, I’m not kidding. Any vehicle over 6,000 pounds can have $25,000 of its cost expensed in Section 179. (You have to purchase and put it into use before the end of the year. If it’s not practical this year, remember this tip for next year.)

Pay your employees and contractors at the end of the year – even if it’s not their regular payday. They’ll be happy and it will add to your expenses to reduce your taxes.

If ever there is a deadline you want to meet, it’s the end of the year. There is no putting it off till tomorrow. Taking action can make the difference between paying a penalty or getting a refund. So take the next hour – get your tax savings! And make sure you do not delay the PAN card reissue, if one is needed.