How to Prepare for Disaster More Effectively Than The Titanic

Actually, more things go wrong than right.

In my 15 years of business, I've had what I consider to be a rather successful career. I can think of around 10-12 truly great, celebratory occasions during that time.

One of them was our very first £10,000 day. It was an incredible sensation.

Nobody talks about the 5-7 full disasters that must occur in order for you to achieve those milestone achievements.

I'm in a good position to offer guidance on how to avoid as many of them as possible at this stage, so think about what single incident could have a bad impact on your organization.

"All of our customers are leaving" isn't a single event; it's a series of them. "Our biggest customer is leaving," on the other hand, is a nice one.

Here's an illustration. My brother, Rob, owns and operates a thriving film production company in Brighton. He's filmed Tony Hawk, the writers of the best-selling book 'Brilliant Selling,' and he produces Graham Rowan's 'Elite Investor TV,' the UK's #1 investing web TV show.

Rob's issue is that he has roughly 5 clients.

They all adore him, and their businesses are based on his services, but he loses one of them, and he loses 20% of his client base.

What would you do if you lost your most important client tomorrow?

What if your server went down and you lost everything? Do you have enough backups to recover everything?

What if everyone who owes you money simply did not pay? Would it kill you or keep you alive?

What if you had to relocate to another country on your own? How much of an impact would that have on your business?

Simply consider the top two or three things that could truly demolish you and begin to plan ahead.

Few Clients, High Spend or Your Biggest Customer Leaves

If you have a small number of clients but they all pay you well, try placing 5% of your revenue from those consumers into paid marketing. It makes no difference if they are profitable. The security of having more consumers is what matters as long as you're breaking even on your ad budget.

Don't be fooled into thinking that excellent customer service will keep them forever. Things happen that are simply beyond your control.

Overdue Money Doesn’t Get Paid

If you frequently have big sums of money outstanding and this bothers you, then negotiate better conditions.

If they are currently paying on net-30 terms, try negotiating 7-day terms. If that seems unattainable, contact your principal contact and explain that 30-day terms are becoming difficult.

Major Technical Issue

Consider a server crash, data loss, or machine failure.

What kind of redundancy can you implement to ensure that the issue does not become entirely crippling? We take data backups every 2 hours at Better Proposals and retain them for 3 months. It is completely unnecessary, but it is worth doing just in case.

We also have a completely mirrored hosting setup. We'd be up and running in 15-20 minutes if the main Better Proposals server just perished and the on-site mirroring didn't operate (imagine the datacenter was bombed). In addition, we use a dependable hyper-v backup system to ensure that any lost data may be easily restored in the event of a server catastrophe or breakdown.

Key Person Leaves

Sabrina is that crucial person in my opinion. What would happen if she left tomorrow? Do I have all of the passwords? Do I have all of the contact information for our development team? Do you know who I should speak with at the hosting company?

All of these are simple questions, but they must be addressed.

You Have to Physically Relocate

Life is unpredictable. Perhaps you need to go to a hotter country for your health, or perhaps your wife obtains a job halfway across the country. Whatever the cause, you should be ready.

I wholeheartedly support the concept of conducting a remote business. Even if you don't think you'll need to run a remote firm, you should regardless.

You might begin by reading Automate Your Business. This will assist you in establishing a structure from which you can begin to run your business mostly on the cloud.

Conclusion

Here's the deal. None of these things are a problem right now. Smart individuals will recognize this and understand that it does not imply it will not be a problem in the future. The best thing you can do now is take precautions to protect yourself for when things aren't going so well.

Consider it similar to purchasing insurance or installing a home security system. You won't require it until it's too late.

The difference here is that 'too late' could mean total business loss if you are not careful.