When it comes to business coaching, I don’t like to focus on the negative, however every sensible business hopes for the best, but plans for the worse. Disaster can occur in many shapes and sizes. It can be instant and it can creep on us over a period of months, or even years. In this article, I’m not going to talk about natural disaster or a global pandemic, but I am going to talk about some very practical and real things which can go wrong – and which, most importantly, you can often prevent, or at least highly mitigate!
Disaster & Crisis in Small Business
Financial Failing
I’ve had businesses become coaching clients of mine who thought they were doing great; super busy, lots of work and huge turnovers. However, when you looked at the bottom line (profit) things were not good at all. Too often business owners either don’t have the time, or don’t have the skill and understanding of figures to understand their reports. Financial failing can occur due to pricing, not having or sticking to budgets, letting money leak out of the business, or even theft and fraud in the business. I frequently teach clients what to look for, how to access their position and to get great practices in place.
Wellbeing of People
Yes, I know that Workplace Health & Safety often brings on the thought “not that again” or “oh gosh, more paperwork!” but the reality is that it’s not just about paperwork, or appeasing a government body but about having a plan, training your team and behaving in a proactive way. What would happen to your business if you broke your leg or arm, or worse, had a coronary and ended up in hospital? Do you have a plan? Do you have insurance? Do you at the very least have instructions for others to keep things going at least in the short term? Never say “It won’t happen to me!”
Marketing or Sales Failure
So often clients have come to me where they’ve had someone do the wrong thing by them; or their website was hacked or quite simply they just are not getting the business and work that they need. People often don’t realise that just by simply spending more money on marketing will help; they need to convert those leads to sales; which means having reasonable sales skills. If you’re not great at ‘sales’ then this is something that as a business owner, you should learn. Most small businesses cannot afford dedicated sales people to bring in the work; initially at least, they need to do this themselves and whilst the face of sales hasn’t changed hugely over the years, there have certainly been some aspects which are quite different. Just like this marketing, what worked a year ago, may not work today or tomorrow. One great example is email. Too often businesses email their proposal to a potential client and then think their job is done; not realising that approximately 50% of emails end up in spam folders!
Theft & Fraud
Ok, theft in your business could be as small as some postage stamps or a pen or two. However, over the decades of helping Australian and New Zealand businesses, I know that theft can be somewhat more. One particular instance was where the person stole $500K PLUS maxed-out business credit cards. What was particularly sad about this is that the business owner’s wife was ill at the time. That’s a more severe instance. I’ve known instances where stock walks out the back door, fuel is pumped in the personal family car and $20 or $50 is lifted from the till every once in a while. It happens and it happens more often than you’d think; however solid processes can reduce these situations.
Cyber Security
Your website or email or accounts get hacked. This is becoming more and more common. You get a ‘fake’ bill and someone not realising pays a bogus electricity account. Your email is hacked and when you email out your invoices, they are intercepted and duplicated, but with different bank details on them. For years, conveyancing lawyers refused to accept bank details for settlements via email – with great reason! Staff training, education and sensible security practices can be implemented. My own policy is that passwords are never emailed to anyone – not to my website person, accountant or insurance broker – never!
A Client Steals your Staff, or Staff Steal Your Clients
This happens at times also. Strong client and employment agreements should have clauses included that there are consequences to one or the other, stealing your workers or stealing your business from you. This is not ok and you need to communicate that clearly via lawyer-approved agreements.
You Get Sued
This is always a possibility if you do the wrong thing or an incident occurs. Start with having suitable insurance, but also having great systems and processes in place. By having quality staff training and documented processes, less mistakes are likely to occur. Also monitor works and have systems in place to ensure work is on the right track. Disclaimer clauses within your agreements or on your website will protect you. Plus, having the right attitude. If you don’t do the wrong thing, then you’re less likely to get in trouble for doing the wrong thing. Sounds simple, but some people don’t get it.
You Don’t Get Paid!
Not getting a couple of hundred likely won’t hurt you too much, but what if this was $20K or $200K? It comes a point that too large amount/s could send you over and potentially put you into bankruptcy. You might say that getting paid is out of your control, but it’s not really. Having a credit process is the first step; what are the limits? What are your processes if someone becomes slow-paying? How much credit will you offer any one person – if at all? Are there types of people or businesses you should not deal with?
Control Your Assets
You’ve sacked your website person or bookkeeper and they won’t hand over the passwords. Can’t happen? It does. I even saw it happen with an accountant, after being paid in full, would not hand over the accounting software login. Someone else purchased your domain name and then they go out of business and your domain isn’t paid, which means you could lose your website. These types of things don’t happen to everyone, every day, but they do happen. Sometimes the incident is malicious and sometimes it’s purely an accident. What are your processes to protect your IP and assets?
Your Computer Dies
Again, this can happen and can be relatively managed well by having backups in the Cloud – as well as ensuring you can retrieve such backups successfully. Having a Computer Recovery Plan might be a really wise action as sometimes you don’t get time – it just dies instantly.
You Lose a Staff Member
Now, in this instance I’m not talking death, but simply, they decide to leave and move on, for whatever reason. Start with having a Staff Retention plan, so that your staff turnover is reduced. High turnovers cost businesses a lot. Ensure that no one team member has all the knowledge; that is there are always two people who know how to do a task. Having up-to-date documented processes will help too; especially when a new person comes on board. Care about your team, look after them, value them and help them feel appreciated and valued. Yes, paying them well helps too, but it’s not always about money. Be a place that people like to work at, and new people will want to join.
These are just 11 possible things that can go wrong; the list essentially can be endless. If you’d like to work with me to make your business more sustainable, strong and help it grow – click here for a FREE CONSULT.
