As you work on building a resilient business, it’s essential to think about the different hazards you face each day. This list is not to make you nervous or scared to start a business. It’s simply an effort to point out the apparent roadblocks that all business owners face.
Natural Hazards
These types of business hazards include anything that may occur, such as bad weather, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, avalanches, wildfires, drought, and so forth. While you cannot stop any of this, you can be prepared for it by purchasing the right type of insurance and making contingency plans for each possibility depending on where you live.
Manmade Hazards
Any disaster or situation that is caused by humans that can happen should be considered. These actions may be through negligence, lack of knowledge, or even be deliberate, for example, the water poisoning in Michigan, an oil spill on the Gulf, or a mass shooting at the local mall. While you probably cannot stop these things from happening, staying aware and making plans, so you know what actions to take if it happens will help you bounce back faster.
Internal Hazards
Your business comprises human beings, either just you and your family, or contractors you hire, or even employees – when you work with people, things happen sometimes. People get sick. People steal. People stop doing their work. People do all sorts of things that can be hazardous to your business, but if you set up systems, processes, automation, and so forth, you’ll have the internal checks and balances to prevent these things from harming your business long term. For example, if you hire a content writer, what happens if they get sick? Do you have someone else you can employ last minute, or do you try to get three months ahead so that sick days are not a problem?
External Hazards
Killer technologies, the stock market crashing, new regulations, a pandemic, and things like this can affect your business even if it’s not on your radar. Anything you cannot control within your organization will still affect you if you haven’t planned for a problem. For example, what would happen if your autoresponder software company went out of business? Are you ready with a backup solution that you can easily turn on?
There are always risks and rewards that come from having your own business, but you can lessen the risk by being prepared for the things that can happen. The remarkable side effect of creating plans from known issues that may develop is that you can repurpose your plans for unknown problems that may develop when and if something novel and unexpected occurs. Having any emergency planning in place is going to help your business keep going even in hard times.
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