Business Bits- Creating Plan B

Monday, September 13, 2010


Topic: Creating a Plan B for Your Small Business

This week my trusty sewing machine began hiccuping. And then hissing. All in a very dramatic, threatening fashion.  For a very long and distraught five minutes as I fiddled & unscrewed & jimmied & prayed & unplugged & unwound & hoped I thought of all possible worst case scenarios for this moment. Orders that would not be completed. Money to be frantically spent. Plans to be canceled.

                                                                {image courtesy: Leefenvisual }

It reminded me of a brief little fiasco I endured right during the rush of holiday orders last year. I took my machine in for a minor repair and the shop lost it. That's right. They lost it.  They searched high & low & presented a variety of possible excuses. If not for my fussy toddler & quivering-just-about-to-lose-control lower lip I think I would've been up a creek. Noticing my despair & their obvious error they gave me a brand spankin' new machine right then & there..

But what if they hadn't?

That thought has haunted me this whole past year and has resurfaced as I begin preparing for this year's holiday rush.  Along with my other bouts of bad luck; like our computer crashing. Twice. The baby sitter canceling. Again.  I'm working on Plan B for the business.....

What will I do if ____________? {fill in the blank with any sort of crisis}

such as:
illness
computer crash
snow
injury
sick children
sick animals
machinery malfunction
etc....

Of course, we don't want to be a bunch of Nervous Nellys or Parnoid Pollys...but a Plan B is probably a good idea. And a Plan C or D is even smarter.


What types of plans & precautions are you thinking of taking in regards to your shop?