How To Plan For The Worst In Your Business….And Why You Should

What If I Get Hit By a Bus Tomorrow? Sharing the real and the raw about starting a new business. #100daysofstartup

If I get hit by a bus tomorrow…….here is how you do my job.

I don’t know why we always used this scenario, but it was our standard. Maybe because getting hit by a bus seemed pretty unlikely so it was easier to talk about. We like to think about things just carrying on as they are. Each person doing their assigned jobs and not worrying about what everyone else is doing.

But we know shit happens on a regular basis. It isn’t the unexpected, its actually the norm. We just like the idea that everything should go as planned everyday. That’s so much easier. We can put the right person in the job and count on them doing the job.

If it were only that easy…………..

Longevity in business only happens if you are resilient — rolling with the punches of everyday business challenges. If you pretend that bad things won’t happen, I worry about you and your business. We got this wake up call in the first month. You have to be able to take a punch in the mouth and get back up.

Related : To The F*ckers Who Broke Into Our Store — Thank You.

Sometimes you don’t have the advantage of the wake up call being so clear. Often it is more like a whisper that you need to attend to something like the constant drip of the faucet in the background. It’s there but it isn’t demanding immediate attention. Put off until tomorrow, or the next day and then one day it becomes an urgent crisis.

Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) are likely the most important thing most small businesses never do. Relying on the owner or other key individuals flying by the seat of their pants everyday hoping to keep all the plates spinning. It makes the business fragile and keeps those employees stressed.

Entrepreneurship has been marketed as this highly creative space where you are free to follow your passions and the money follows. Doing what you love everyday and creating personal freedom.

Leadership requires vision and creativity. But you need solid operations to build that into a business.

Business is really a set of repeatable systems. Without that, there is no way to deliver your products or services consistently. Any number of everyday occurrences will create chaos or extra effort to manage.

Right now our biggest focus is on marketing and sales. We are trying lots of things to find something repeatable that works. The most important thing in this process is measuring. Testing new things against the old things and optimizing what works.

Our systems are far from established. We have only been in business a couple of months. It will be an ongoing process of developing, documenting and refining until everything works smoothly. Until then, lets hope we don’t get hit by a bus!

If you enjoyed this story, I would appreciate a few claps so others can find it!

Hi, I’m MaryEllen. I used to be a CPA. Then I got burned out. I thought I could just wrap it up and be done. So I retired from the corporate world at 48 and set off for parts unknown with only half a plan. I’d figure out the rest later. What I know for sure is jumping off the path and figuring out my own way was the best idea I ever had.

I didn’t want to be done, I just wanted to make my own rules about work and retirement. I’ve been figuring out a lot since then and I share what I have learned here and on my blog at maryellenmiller.com. I’m also on Twitter @TalkMoneyWithME