A natural disaster, building fire, or burglary can cost your business tens of thousands of dollars in damages and erase your records and client contacts. Such a tremendous loss can often end a small business for good, which is why it is so trememndously important to be prepared. If you take proper measures ahead of time, these worst case scenarios can be avoided. Here are a few tips that will help you and your work survive a potentially business destroying disaster.
The first step in disaster prevention and preparation is to identify your core assets. What does your business need to function healthily? This can be everything from a stock of supplies and a storefront to spreadsheets stored on your computer’s hard drive. On a quick initial analysis it is almost impossible to avoid missing some vital assets, so I suggest you spend a month monitoring what you and your employees rely on to keep the business chugging along. Be sure that you separate the necessary from the convenient and helpful.
You know what you need to defend, now you have to figure out what you are defending against. What your potential threats are will depend upon your location and your business type. If you operate out of coastal Florida,for example, hurricanes are going to be a much greater risk than if you live in the midwest. If you live on a fault-line, it might be important to guard against earthquakes. Are your offices in a part of town that has a notoriously high crime rate? Watch out for burglary. What does your business do? If you are heavily reliant on computers and the internet, viruses and hackers present a major threat. Likewise hacking is less of a worry if you own a vintage clothing boutique, but if your stock gets damaged in a fire, it will be far more difficult to replace than simply reinstalling software.
After establishing your business’ assets and its potential threats, it is time to develop a plan. Back up any important data and records that you store on a computer to both an on site external hard drive and an offsite server. Do so regularly. This way, if one of your computers goes down, for whatever reason, you will have quick access to any lost information. And, if your office is the target of theft, flood, or fire, you have all that vital information stored thousands of miles away, untouched. Do you have an up to date and reliable security system? How quickly will the police be contacted if an alarm is triggered, and how long will it take the police to arrive once they are notified? If you are uncomfortable with the response time and are especially prone to theft, it might make sense to hire a security guard.
Be sure to review your insurance policy. Does it cover the threats that you have decided to pose the greatest potential risk? Will the money your insurance policy pays out cover your losses, or will it only put a dent in the price of recovery? I also recommend that you establish a line of credit. After a disaster strikes it is important that you reestablish your business quickly, instead of languishing for months trying to come up with the money. A line of credit assures that you will have access to the funds you’ll need to bounce back from the brink.
By establishing your core assets, major threats, a clear plan of action, and a financial safety net you can rest easy knowing that nothing, not even Mother Nature’s wrath, will stop your business. Intelligent preventive measures and planning will guarantee that your entrepreneurial spirit will come out on top, bruised, perhaps, but not beaten.