Over the past year, I’ve had a couple of clients face unexpected crises in their personal lives. We all know people who have gotten sick, hurt, or had to suddenly check out of everyday life for one reason or another.
None of the owners had a personal crisis plan.
It doesn’t surprise me. It’s so hard to get most business owners to step out of the day-to-day operations long enough to create scenario plans, business continuity plans, and strategic plans. No one wants to think about what to do if something should happen to them.
Here’s what I’d like for you to do. Think about what steps you would want the people (who would be running your business if you were out of commission) to take. Look at things like:
- Authorizing someone to make deposits, get change, sign checks to pay expenses.
- Cross train the team to open and close the business, problem solve with equipment and the building maintenance if you lease your space.
- Introduce your bookkeeper and accountant to a team member to allow the data to keep flowing into your owner dashboard.
- Identify the decisions that each person is allowed to make on your behalf. Give them practice in making those decisions so that they make them confidently.
- Ask someone to monitor your emails, social media responses and engagement, as well as oversee the rest of the team.
I recommend that you make a plan for being out a week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and then 3 months.
Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?
However, those clients I mentioned earlier? One had to close the store and was out for a week. The other had to recuperate from an illness and return before he was ready to a mountain of emails, reports, and follow-ups that no one else in the company knew how to do.
If you recognize that this needs to be done, but don’t have the bandwidth to do it. Give me a call. Let’s set up a time to talk about how to increase your capacity and decrease the business’ reliance on you.
