15 Ways You Can Prepare Your Creative Business For Disaster (And Why You Should)
My business in the disaster zone
This week has reminded me that I really need to spend some time assessing my business for disaster and putting more safety nets in place to catch me if bad things happen. As I write this, I’m sitting with my foot in a very much less than attractive support boot, waiting to hear from orthopedics to find out if it’s likely broken (or, cross your fingers for me everyone, it’s just soft tissue damage). I was unable to walk at all for a few days, and am now hobbling around somewhat ineffectively so am hoping it’s the latter.
Thank goodness for an automatic car and it being my left foot otherwise it really would be a nightmare with school runs etc. Thankfully my business is already somewhat flexible – I have multiple income streams, and although I may not be able to get about to do jobs outside the home for a short while, I know I can still do client calls and photography work here in the studio.
Having a business that can be flexible in times of need and provide alternative ways of bringing in the money means I have a safety net.
Steps I’ve taken recently (no pun intended!)
Of course minor injuries might be the least difficult things to mitigate in our business. Sadly if you work for yourself you probably at some point or other have also had to think about what if the worst happens. Getting life insurance and/or serious illness cover if I’m unable to work is something I only took seriously a few months ago. Sorting out a policy that ensured my clients could all get refunds, HMRC would get their money, and my husband and daughter would receive enough money to support them without me for a year (and pay off a chunk of the mortgage). It wasn’t nice to think about, but I feel so relieved that I have been finally grown up enough to sort it out and that my family are protected.
So let’s look at other ways you can provide business continuity and plan for disasters. Making a plan (for prevention, quick response and recovery) is really important - as well as making sure others that work with you or your partner knows what the plan is too!
Whether it’s you being taken out of the business (temporarily or permanently), online attack, natural disasters or business interruptions due to things like strikes or Covid.
15 Steps to Take Right Now
1. Get critical illness and life insurance (ideally enough to cover one whole year of you not working). It can be very inexpensive, mine is around £20/month. Consider also business interruption cover.
2. Make sure a trusted person (a partner or even legally appointed contact) has access to all your business accounts, passwords, copies of your policies and so on so everything important can be recovered quickly and cause the least amount of stress to you or family if something bad happens. Consider a safe with it all in, or lodging a file with your solicitor or bank.
3. Make sure you have copies of all important documents (especially insurance) off-site in the case of a natural disaster – ideally in the cloud too. Make sure this data is protected though – you don’t want it falling into the wrong hands.
4. Make regular backups of all your work both physically (eg external hard drives) and somewhere on the cloud. Being able to get back up and running quickly is vital to securing your business continuity.
5. Keep up to date with your accounts so that you know exactly what your financial position is and it can be easily clear to anyone having to deal with your financial affairs if the worst happens to you.
6. Keep a list of all your business’ physical assets (preferably with time/date stamped photos), eg stock, equipment, tools and so on. Be clear on what you have so that if things are stolen you can quickly and easily make the necessary claims. Keep a note of model numbers, serial numbers, and invoices or receipts.
7. Insure your stock, especially if you know you don’t have the capital to replace everything if its lost, stolen or damaged.
8. Reach out to industry friends – perhaps you can come to an agreement with someone that you’ll be each other’s backup in an emergency situation so your clients aren’t let down if you can’t get to a job or fulfil a project.
9. Make sure your client contracts state clearly what will happen in the event you can’t attend or complete a job. Be clear on your refund and cancellation or postponement policies. These protect you as well as your clients.
10. Have alternatives methods in place, eg the latest postal strikes have made all of us think carefully about how we get physical products to our customers. Have a list of alternative couriers, or think about offering delivery or collection services locally if you can too.
11. Keep a list of emergency numbers in various places, eg doctors, hospitals, plumbers, electricians, car recovery, house and business insurance, bank help lines and so on. In the event of a disaster, you won’t want to be Googling them!
12. Online recovery codes and contact numbers. If you get hacked or cyber attacked, do you have backups stored somewhere to get back online again quickly? Have you got your recovery codes and Two-Factor Authentication turned on to make sorting out these occurrences easier?
13. Do you have a physical location you can mover operations to in the event of an emergency – think about what basics you would need to get back up and running and where from, eg home office, relative’s spare room, a hire van for deliveries etc
14. Financial planning – how long could your business survive if you were unable to generate income for weeks or months? The more buffer you can create the higher the likelihood that something like another pandemic will mean your business makes it through.
15. Finally do a risk assessment on all the factors I’ve mentioned, decide how likely it is that it could happen, how you prepare for it now, prevent it from happening at all, or how you will respond with a detailed list of actions you will take.