Yup, that how I started last week, eating breakfast and felt something hard in my egg. Lo and behold there is my lovely 10 year old cap. Rushed to the dentist to find out that my tooth had fractured and I need to get the whole thing redone – post in the tooth and new cap. It will be over 1 ½ weeks before the work can start and the price tag is high. So I’m left with a hole in my teeth; it’s uncomfortable but not painful and I luckily quickly learnt to chew differently. Definitely not in my plans but such is life!
So what would you do if a “tooth” falls out of your business? How quickly can you learn to function in different way? How much resilience do you have in our business?
We will never be able to anticipate everything that can happen in our business. Just like I never imaged that my tooth would fall. However we can make plan for the major part of our businesses. For example, if you outsource your website development/management do you know where the site is hosted and do you know all access information? What happens if you web developer goes out of business, get sick or you have a misunderstanding? What would be the impact on your business if you couldn’t access you sites or if they went down?
That just a simple example of an area that business owner consider critical for their business but often do not have the details they need in case something happens. Have you thought about contingency plans if any important element of your business breaks? What will you do if for example your internet stops working? If you website is hacked? If something happens to your merchant account? If a key staff member gets sick?
I love to see entrepreneurs follow their passions, serve more people and create the lifestyle of their dreams.
- When Life (or business) Give You Lemons 🍋 Made Lemonade - November 15, 2022
- The Power of Great Questions! - August 9, 2021
- Get Sh!t Done – The Power of Accountability! - August 4, 2021
Oh that’s really annoying!
Sometimes mad, unexpected things just happen.
Great post Heather,
I try to set up structures and then leverage my time. I look for new income streams and always thinking about what else I can do.
If my actual tooth fell out, I am not sure I would fair as well lol! Hope you get fixed soon.
Beth 🙂
Beth: Thanks for commenting. Yes having your tooth fall out is a bit unnerving Lol. Looking forward to having it fix this week. Setting up structures and systems is so important for business no matter what size. It is what will provide resilience in our businesses.
Hi
It is so true. In my accountancy career where being the financial controller /director of a small business entails much more than just “bean counting” I’ve always advised the owner to diversify. My online marketing mentor always says many streams make a river.
You brought another important thing to attention, what happens if the person who you outsource disappears or has a problem and that’s so important. I am not an expert on WordPress but I know enough to alter things and that just happened to our online employee, his computer has just broken down when he is on the middle of an important WP project for us. Luckily I know enough to step in if necessary.
Great Post and great reminder.
Liliana – Thank for commenting. Diversify is important as well knowing the important part of what you are asking people to do. Website access is just one.
Sadly I’m not that set up for if something goes wrong. Being freelance it’s easy for it to be acceptable to live contract to contract but I’m going to start putting things in place! You’ve just given me a little project!
I’ve had all kinds of crazy things happen in my business. While I don’t always have a contingency plan upfront, I am able to put out fires quickly. I’ve always functioned well in a crisis. I try to make sure I have plans for what to do (like when my website was hacked and went down for 7 hours last week), but honestly I spend the majority of my time setting up structures so emergencies don’t happen in the first place. Then I just roll with it, cause I know my business isn’t going to fail in a day. 🙂
Amethyst – Excellent, that is what a business needs to be like. ” I spend the majority of my time setting up structures so emergencies don’t happen in the first place”. That is my point, so many business owners do not invest the time in setting up the structures.
Thank you for sharing.
Great reminders about the importance of being on top of what is going on in your business, having a plan, and a backup plan ready. 😎
Donna, exactly! You need to be top of things, delegating or outsourcing does not mean letting go of the responsibility. I’ve seen too many business get into trouble when they do that.
Thank you for commenting.