When Life Has Other Plans-Is Your Business in Order in Case of an Emergency?
January 23, 2008
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Fairy Godmother Laura West of Center for Joyful Business writes today’s post:
Well, I started off 2008 very excited and pumped about the new year, new plans…new possibilities. I kicked off the New Year with a Business Planning Retreat with my friend and colleague, Wendy Watkins of PassionFruit People Growers. We went to the beautiful mountains in North Carolina and holed up in a luxury timber home - spoiled ourselves while we marinated, planned, brainstormed, calendared, blew up, and blew out plans for 2008. Talk about coming back and being revved to go!
Well, my intention was that I would be writing you a blog entry about our retreat, what we did, how we did it, etc…and give you some ideas and inspiration for your own.
Life had other plans.
Within two days of returning I had a high fever and severe abdominal pains, my Dr. sent me directly to a surgeon who put me in the hospital. Long story short…two and 1/2 days in the hospital, fortunately no surgery, just dehydration and eventually they discovered a lung infection. Sent home with antibiotics and an order for lots of rest.
Hmm, this wasn’t how I planned to spend the kick off month! Right now I would be in Las Vegas with David Neagle, at his workshop, “Experiencing the Reality of Success”. Cancel plans.
I like to look at these life turns and see what arises for a message. What is my body trying to tell me? My biggest question that keeps arising is “Am I fully en-joying life while I grown my business?”. I absolutely love my work and the amazing people I work with. It fills me up creatively and provides lots of stimulating, creative conversation. But what about personally? It’s had me tweak my calendar and add in some time for massage and spa time and also I’m looking at taking some personal fun & creative classes. I think life gives us these little wake-up calls to see if we are paying attention!
It also had me thinking about my business emergency plans. I needed to call and let clients know, rearrange teleclass plans, change cafe conversations, etc…at one point I even was talking my 10 year son through writing an email to a client so she would know I wouldn’t be on the call.
It’s inspired me to create - or start creating since I’m still recuperating - some back up plans.
Here’s a few of my ideas (please feel free to comment and add your suggestions):
1. Keep my Virtual Assistant up to speed with all current clients and contacts (or even better share my calendar) so she can contact them in one fell swoop.
2. Give my husband my Virtual Assistant’s contact information so if anything really traumatic should happen he can talk with her and keep folks up to date.
3. Get that new SmartPhone so I can have up to date contact information instead of having to call people to call other people. (obviously wouldn’t worry about this in a life or death situation, but in minor emergencies it streamlines a lot of effort)
4. I also spoke with my VA about updating our Policies and Procedures Manual. What if the emergency isn’t with me? She lives in Colorado and we sometimes joke about if a “bear gets her” what do I do. (Not that we are sending any intention or energy there, but she did have a close call last summer) My Policy and Procedures Manualoutlines all my online programs - the how’s of how to log-in, where we keep things, passwords, access codes, explains the different client lists, products, etc… Ours is out of date since we have grown so much over the last year so we are planning time to update.
All of these are just in case. Then I can rest comfortably knowing that my clients and readers would be taken care of and that I could take care of things if my support gets in a crisis.
How about you? What are your Emergency Back-up Plans?
En-joy!
Laura
Laura, I agree. First I must say Kudos to you for having a VA.
I have been planning since April to do a Disaster Recovery Plan, this would include both business and personal plans. I wasn’t thinking about illness until I read you post, I was thinking about a fire or other things that would leave me out of the “office”. If I have my disaster recovery plan in order, the goal would be to still run my business from any computer. In this case, a CD with all of my documents is going to be stored in the bank.
I hope you are feeling better. I’m glad there was no surgery!
Lisa,
Good for you for even thinking in this direction! A Virtual Assistant is a great way to have a “duplicate” you!
Thanks for your well wishes!
Laura
Hi All,
Great discussion going here about VA’s…highly recommend them. Lisa Callsen was ours last Summer, you’re awesome!
I also just wanted to mention that two of my friends were seriously injured this week- prayers for Laura Jacobs of Herbs for Health in Pleasant Grove broke her hip in 3 places and Kent Hart of Southern Utah was involved in a 5 car pile up on a snowy day, both are in the hospital right now. Makes me think that your post is very appropriate for all of us to consider, we just never know and want to be prepared for smooth transitions in case we need it (also recommend your spouses get theirs in order as well!)
Laura,
Rather than putting important information into the hands of just one VA, you could have an entire virtual organization specializing in taking care of that info, from which you gain the flexibility to not have to rely on just one person. I’m sure your VA is completely outstanding, but it is a definite risk you take in using an individual VA rather than going with a company that specializes in managing VAs (and your information) for you.
Jim
http://www.WorldwideOfficeSupport.com