How protected is your business, really, from a catastrophic event?  It is amazing how surprised business owners are when they are hit by an unexpected lawsuit, a few large clients/patients move to a competitor or the rules change.

Guess what!  Your business WILL be hit with a serious negative event!  It’s not, IF; it’s WHEN.

How prepared are you?

When you are a business owner, anything can happen at any time.  An employee could embezzle money, or steal IP or databases, from right under your nose.  Severe weather could interrupt your business for weeks and sometimes months.  The list of possible disturbances goes on and on.

Too many businesses have gone bankrupt simply because owners didn’t take the time to protect and prepare. We call this “The Battleship Principle” because you must attempt to look at your business as a long-term, defensible, solid structure.

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The best time to plan for an attack is when things are good. Take the time to think clearly and create a plan.  When things are bad, everyone is in a panic, and it’s a little too late.  No one wants to think negatively about bad things that could happen to their business; human nature makes us not want to prepare for horrible things that could happen to us.

Here are 7 things that you can put into place quickly to protect your business from the inevitable storms on the horizon:

Get an insurance review

      Touch base with an experienced and highly successful insurance agent to see what types of insurance you will need:  E&O insurance, D&O insurance, Buy-Sell insurance, COLI, life insurance, disability insurance, etc.  Begin to put into place the different insurances your business needs for the greatest threats your business has.

Rank your customers by size.

      Take all of your customers, and rank them in order of annual revenues, to see what percentage of revenue comes from each customer.  You will learn a lot about exactly where your revenue is originating.  Then begin taking steps toward building stronger relationships, starting with your largest and presumably most loyal customers.  Then make plans to find more clients similar to your top clients, in order to create more revenue.

Review your financials every month.  

      Sit down with your accountant or CFO to review the cash flow statement, profit and loss, balance sheet, etc.  How are you doing year-to-date versus your budget?  Do you even have a budget in the first place?  What goals do you need to create to keep your revenue where you want it to be?

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Take care of yourself.

      Your body is an asset.  It’s important to take the time to properly take care of yourself.  If you are the main person keeping things going and moving, you must take care of your greatest asset, YOU!  Get 8 hours of sleep per night.  Drink plenty of water.  Eat right.  Exercise!  You know what you should be doing.  Do it, and create accountability by putting it into a schedule.

Do a quarterly SWOT analysis with your team.

      Take a moment to think about what your current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are.  Create a plan to secure your business from any weakness or threat that could put you out of business.

Get ideas from mentors

      Meet with other business owners to see what they are doing to protect their businesses from failure.  Also, consider meeting with those who have lost businesses, in order to not repeat that mistake inside of your enterprise.

Follow the Business Finishing School program.

        By learning the 12 Foundational Principals of Business, you will have a proven blueprint to follow, which will radically increase your probability of long-term success.  There are no silver bullets in the world, but we believe that tried and true principles always outperform blinky-shiny, quick-fixes.

If you have any questions related to this article, please contact Ashleigh Mooney at info@BusinessFinishingSchool.com

The author of this article, Rick Sapio  also recently sat down with Phil Romano, Founder of Macaroni Grill.   He would love to give COD members the opportunity to “peek in” on this conversation and learn more about the Billionaire Mind and how to implement it in your life., please CLICK HERE or the picture below for access to this free video.

 

Richard_Sapio_profileRick Sapio has been involved in more than 100 companies, as either a founder, investor, owner, or operator, over the past 30 years. Rick has realized that by using a principle-centered business approach, one can radically increase the success of virtually any business. For the past 22 years, he has been CEO of a financial services/healthcare holding company. Go to www.BusinessFinishingSchool.com to learn more about his 12 Foundational Principles of Business.