When you think about the word “disaster,” you are probably thinking about things like tornados, floods, and the like. While these are indeed disasters, consider that other types of disasters can happen to your business. From pandemics to technology failures, every day you’re in business, there is a risk of a disaster. The good news is if you plan for these things, you can mitigate much of the damage.
Know the Risk
There is always going to be a risk. You can walk outside tomorrow and get struck by lightning. It’s rare, but it does happen. Take the time to write down a list of things that might happen, have happened to others in the past, and that you can use to form your readiness.
Get Insured
Some of the potentialities can be insured against. Floods and other acts of nature have caused the government and businesses to start insurance to help you if one of those things happened. Of course, how much insurance you get or whether you can get it at all depends on where you live and what the real risks are to your business, but it’s all worth checking out with a qualified insurance agent. Consider talking to a non-commission-based insurance agent to help guide you and advise you.
Develop Plans
Once you have thought about the different things that can happen to disrupt your business during any disaster, whether internal or external, develop easy to follow plans. When you do that, you’ll simply take out the “earthquake plan” and follow it should that happen. The great thing is you can repurpose some plans to use when something unexpected happens, modifying them as needed on the spot without having to start at ground zero.
Create Disaster Kits
One thing every business owner needs is various disaster kits to overcome the situation. Whether that is first aid, water, backup software, or something else is up to your needs and particular to your business. Remember, not all “disasters” involve first aid. Some may include accessing important information to contact the proper authorities or your customers.
Save For a Rainy Day
All business owners, just like all families, need to save money for emergencies. A rainy-day fund is used to keep your business afloat when revenues are down. It is recommended to save three to six months of operating expenses to help you through almost anything.
Disaster-Proof What You Can
In some cases, you can disaster-proof parts of your business by investing in redundant backup systems, using more than one contractor to outsource projects to, or simply by getting the ice off the entrance to your business so that no one slips. Some things are apparent, but some aren’t. You may have to really think hard on how to disaster-proof your online business.
Keep Inventory of Your Business
Always know how much you have to sell, how much is selling, and whom. This will help you a lot because you will also notice trends that may signal disaster as you keep track. For example, the first sign that something was amiss during the COVID-19 pandemic was that Amazon FBA sellers had issues sourcing their product due to factory shutdowns as early as December of 2019.
Monitor the News
While there are issues with getting good news from reliable and unbiased sources today, you can still watch the news for problems that might affect your business by paying close attention to industry publications. Even if you are a smaller player, the industry still affects you. For example, if you knew that factories were shutting down, you could consider ordering extra product to avoid problems when and if your factory shuttered.
Communicate
Set up predesigned communication for different types of disasters that you can simply turn on when needed. It can be surreal to communicate with your audience during a disaster if you don’t change the tone or information you’re offering them as soon as possible.
Take Care of You
While you are a business owner and have a responsibility and obligation to your customers and your employees or contractors and affiliates, you also have a responsibility to do what is right for yourself and your family.
You cannot possibly be ready for everything, but you can be prepared for something. When you have a plan that you can put in place for a disaster, you’re going to come out of it so much better than if you have never given it a thought at all. After all, considering “what if” and then writing down plans for those “ifs” guides you to follow procedures borne from research and knowledge and not just your gut feelings, thus giving you even more chance to overcome.
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