(c) Copyright 2004 Do you run your own business? If you do, have you ever stopped to think what would happen to it if you were sick?
Would it be able to continue without you for any time at all? You may be its driving force, its brains,
force behind its success and growth. That is all well and good. But if you are its sole key to survival - if it would it collapse without you present and active for even a short time - then you are in a very precarious position. You should be worried.
Are you indispensable?
If you run a successful business on your own, or with just a few employees, you are potentially very vulnerable to state of your own health. You never know when you may fall ill to some bug or other, or more serious longer term disease. Unlikely? Well, maybe, but possible.
More likely, perhaps, if you are young and fit is a sporting injury of some sort. Injuries occur regularly in such activities as skiing, mountaineering, riding motorbikes, riding horses, and so on. You may be even be knocked down crossing road.
All these events have a small but finite risk of occurring, but if and when they do you and your business had better be ready.
Imagine you were unexpectedly away for a week. Could your business run without you? What if you were away for a month?
A small business can fold in these timescales. Customers won’t always wait for an extra a week before receiving delivery of their orders. One in a thousand would wait an extra month. And if you are not even there to answer emails or telephone then they will write you off straight away as a dud company or a fraudster.
So what can you do? Well, here are a few ideas to put into practice.
1.Keep records. Don’t keep all your knowledge in your head. Keep it on paper, electronically, wherever, but record it. Keep customer records, sales records, records of bills to be paid and when they are due. Keep records of everything that is essential to know to keep business running while you are away. Record your business processes and procedures. And do it all in a way that someone else can understand.
2.Brief somebody you trust to be ready in an emergency to take those records and procedures and at very least keep your business ticking over. The absolute minimum would be to answer messages and to inform your customers and contacts of situation and how it is being dealt with so that they do not suffer. It would be better, of course, if your stand in could at least run business at a stable routine level so that your customers don’t even notice that you are away. Just postpone all your new plans and growth ideas until your return.
