It's important to be prepared for the unexpected. There are many things that could go awry with any business. It's important to have a backup plan for major issues that could traumatize your business. Problems may not be avoidable but could be reduced if a plan is thought out ahead of time and implemented quickly to reduce downtime.
I just spent a few days vacationing in Vermont with my family. We all ski and wanted to check out the Vermont mountains. We drove up to Sugarbush. The first day of skiing started out great! They ha
almost a foot of fresh snow on the mountain from the night before. The day was warm, it was still snowing and the snow was fluffy but sticky.
However, my vacation was crushed in a matter of moments. My glory of zipping down the mountains jumping over the moguls and laughing with my kids was shattered at the same moment that something snapped in my knee. I fell and could not move my leg. I managed to get up after a while and ski down to a first aid building. I am told that I tore my ACL, some ligament connecting my knee to my shin, and I can barely walk. My ability to get around was diminished for a few days.
It's important to be prepared for the unexpected. Any business could experience a trauma at any time, such as a computer crash, a fire, or a recession. It's important to have a backup plan for major issues that could traumatize your business. Not all problems are avoidable, but the outcome could be different depending on the plans put into place and how quickly those plans are implemented.
INABILITY TO RECEIVE TRAFFIC
The inability to receive traffic to either your online website store, or your offline store can have a damaging effect to any business.
We had a great local business here in town for many years run by a woman and her dog. She sold gift items. Most of her income came around Christmas time. From September to December the town was reconstructing the road directly in front of her store, which included the parking spaces. What parking there was for her store was well hidden in back and due to construction trucks there was limited access to her store. She closed her shop sometime in January unable to pay her rent.
Could she have avoided this? She knew several months in advance about the road construction. She had enough time to come up with some alternative ways of selling her goods. Instead of coming up with a plan, she fought with the town to no avail. Arguing with the town may have helped in some cases, but she should have also had an alternative plan to get traffic to her store.
What could she have down? In order to stay in business , she needed to get creative! She needed a plan for how to sell her goods and a plan to make it easy for her customers to buy them. She needed to tap into her resources and team up with some of her associates that she networked with.
What would your plan be if something happened to your traffic? What would happen to your sales if your website goes down for several days or weeks? How much would you lose? What could you do as a backup plan?
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