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.
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?
