{"id":12813,"date":"2018-12-05T08:41:05","date_gmt":"2018-12-05T14:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=12813"},"modified":"2019-01-06T10:00:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-06T16:00:53","slug":"disasters-is-your-small-business-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2018\/12\/disasters-is-your-small-business-ready.html","title":{"rendered":"Disasters: Is Your Small Business Ready?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12816 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/disaster-300x189.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"189\" srcset=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/disaster-300x189.jpg 300w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/disaster-768x483.jpg 768w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/disaster-800x503.jpg 800w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/disaster.jpg 803w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Earthquakes in Alaska. Fires in California. Tornadoes in the Mid-west. Floods on the eastern seaboard and the Gulf coast.<\/p>\n<p>Water pipes break in your computer room. Your freezers break down. The electricity goes out for an extended period. A key player in your business dies. Someone hacks your data.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Big disasters and small disasters. Your business faces them all.<\/strong> Understand that the issue of a disaster happening in your business is <strong>not an if, but when<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The question is are you ready?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>By their nature, small businesses, with limited resources, are more vulnerable to events that interrupt their routines. Yes, you may have insurance for a fire but what about a coffee spill on your data server. And does that insurance you have cover the loss of income you will have until your business is up and running again?<\/p>\n<p><strong>You can&#8217;t protect yourself from every possibility<\/strong>, but, you have take some simple steps that will<strong> get you back in business as quickly as possible<\/strong> with the smallest amount of interruption in time and money.<\/p>\n<p>How?<\/p>\n<p>It starts with a disaster plan. You can get templates for such at:\u00a0the Extension Disaster Education Network at <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/EDENReadyBiz\">http:\/\/bit.ly\/EDENReadyBiz<\/a> or FEMA at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ready.gov\/business\">www.ready.gov\/business<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Next, take 3 simple steps:<\/p>\n<p>First, plan to stay in business.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Know potential disruptions<\/li>\n<li>Assess how your company functions<\/li>\n<li>Protect your employees<\/li>\n<li>Provide for evacuation and sheltering in place<\/li>\n<li>Prepare for medical emergencies (CPR, first aid, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>Train on using fire extinguishers and other prevention tools.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Next, talk with your people &#8211; staff, employees, key suppliers, key customers, bankers, family, etc.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Create an emergency planning team<\/li>\n<li>Practice drills (fire, tornado, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>Encourage employees to make home emergency supply kits and develop family emergency plans<\/li>\n<li>Detail how you will be in contact with employees, suppliers, customers and others<\/li>\n<li>Talk to your employees, and your own family, about the need to balance family and business needs during disasters<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Finally, protect your investment.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Meet with your insurance provider to understand and review current and possible additional coverages, such as lost income or business disruption<\/li>\n<li>Prepare for utility outages and disruptions<\/li>\n<li>Secure physical assets<\/li>\n<li>Protect your data and IT systems (off-site backup, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>Perhaps even consider options for where you may relocate all or part of your business (i.e., what if you need cold storage or freezer space)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These steps are not inclusive but are provided to get you thinking about &#8220;what would you do if.&#8221; They show, however, that planning need not take a great deal of time or money but might save you such in the long run.<\/p>\n<p>The Purdue Initiative for Family Firms recently had an article on protecting your firm from a natural disaster. They have done an extensive study of small business survival in the wake of Katrina (https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/agecon\/PIFF\/Pages\/newsletters.aspx).<\/p>\n<p>You can\u2019t protect yourself against all possible disruptions, but by<strong> taking a proactive approach, to the extent possible, you can have peace of mind and a quicker recovery if something does happen.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earthquakes in Alaska. Fires in California. Tornadoes in the Mid-west. Floods on the eastern seaboard and the Gulf coast. Water pipes break in your computer room. Your freezers break down. The electricity goes out for an extended period. A key player in your business dies. Someone hacks your data. Big disasters and small disasters. Your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,21],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12813"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12813"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12817,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12813\/revisions\/12817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}