Creating redundant systems is essential to surmounting almost any problem that might come your way, especially when it comes to your business operations using software, cloud services, and even human resources. Some people think this only affects big businesses, but the truth is, redundant systems are even more important for the sole proprietor running an online business by themselves.
Cloud Hosting
Your website needs to work all the time. Downtime for a website can kill the entire business. Most people aren’t going to give you many chances regarding your website, if any at all. If they go to it and it doesn’t work for them the first time, and every time, they won’t be back.
Consider at least identifying an alternative host to the one you use now or sign up with two hosts now so that all you have to do is click or call if your original one goes down for any length of time. If it’s set up in advance, you won’t have any downtime. Do check to ensure that the hosts you’re using aren’t really the same company since there is a lot of white labeling happening in the hosting business.
Software
Any software you are using to run your business from autoresponder software, landing page software, scheduling software, or project management software is subject to stopping working, going out of business, or having other issues. If you’ve already identified options and perhaps even set up free or low-cost accounts with your options, you can quickly switch over if the need arises.
For example, what would you do if your autoresponder software decided to stop allowing affiliate marketing? Do you know what options you have? Are you keeping track of your subscribers so you can transfer them to a new system without problems? What if your payment processor kicked you out and locked your account? Do you have alternatives you can turn on to weather the crisis?
Social Media
No matter how committed you are to a social media platform, you have to remember that it’s just a tool. Any social media platform can either go away or change to the point that it loses its usefulness for your purposes. You have to use it to connect with your audience, but don’t make any one platform the central platform you use to communicate with your audience. Instead, sign up for at least three platforms that your audience likes and devote equal time to them.
Human Resources
You might wonder how in the world you can set up redundancies with your contractors or employees, but it is possible. Instead of hiring one full-time VA, hire two part-time VAs and split the work you give them. If one should become unable to perform the duties, you can temporarily provide the other VA important work while finding a new one.
If you regularly hire writers, hire more than one to have a built-in back up. Also, don’t assign an entire project to just one person. Give parts of a project out to expert contractors so that if one thing doesn’t get done, it won’t stop the entire project and that one item can be replaced easier.
The one thing to remember is that all of these things are really just tools for you to use to run your business.
- Whether you use one social media platform over another is not as important as using the one your audience uses.
- Whether you use one cloud host over another only matter in terms of the uptime and reputation that it has.
- Whether you use one autoresponder over another only matter in terms of how good it works for you.
These are all decisions that your audience is entirely unaware of since they happen behind the scenes. All your audience knows is that your website works, they receive communication from you, and that they can relate to you on social media and get answers from you easily. They don’t care how you do it, as long as you do it. You can ensure it happens if you’re ready when something goes wrong with backup systems and services already in place and ready to go.
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