When Life Has Other Plans - Is Your Business In Order In Case of An Emergency?
By: Laura Howard West | Leave a comment
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 collegue, 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 marianted, planned, brainstormed, calendarized, 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 recooperating - 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 Policiy 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
Last 5 posts by Laura Howard West
- Tips for Planning Your Own Creative Business Retreat for 2009! - December 31st, 2008
- Announcing a New Book! - December 30th, 2008
- Are You On My Sticky Note? - December 3rd, 2008
- The Power of Gratitude - November 25th, 2008
- Laura West Named Official Attraction Marketing Expert! - October 30th, 2008
June 21st, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Laura — sorry to hear about your illness — but good to hear you are recuperating!
Solo Entrepreneurs would do well to heed your advice. It’s astounding the number of my colleagues/clients/contractors who have had illness, injury, surgery, and other unexpected personal interruption. And I usually don’t find out until after the fact, often after I’ve wondered why they aren’t responding to my email, etc.
Giving your VA all your contacts so she/he can notify everyone is an EXCELLENT idea. I know, being on the other side of the fence many times, that I sure would have appreciated knowing what was going on — and so I could keep them in my thoughts and send healing energy, too. Doesn’t have to be a long explanation or even specific (some stuff is and should remain personal.) Just a short note is enough!
My $0.02,
Terri Z