How you are seen while handling a crisis can be the difference when a client decides to end business with you, or stay with you in the future. Recently, I had this experience and although it added a few years to my life, I was able to get back up and running with some ease.

Planning for Emergencies

As a business in South Florida, we have to be prepared for work-stoppage from Act of God type events, such as Hurricane’s. It was September 4th and it looked like Hurricane Irma was going to be hitting my little town of Jupiter directly. So, I did what any mother of two, wife, daughter and business owner did. Panicked.

“What am I supposed to do? Do I board up the house now? Do I get out with the kids? Do I force my parents and sister in my car and make them leave with me? Do I tell all my clients – too bad so sad I’ll get back to you asap?” Well – after I had my brief interlude of insanity, I took a deep breath and did what I needed to do.

Strategy in Place for Disaster – or an Oh S#it plan!

In the event of an impending event that could take your business off line, my idea’s for the following helped me keep my wits about me and my clients in the loop.

1. Keep an open dialogue with your clients. – As soon as it was stated that Florida was in the cone for Hurricane Irma, I e-mailed all my clients to let them know that we were preparing for an impending issue, and that I was still available for calls the Thursday and Friday before the Hurricane, keeping an open line of communication. Even during breaks from when I was helping my husband shutter up the house, and pull together all of our valuable documents, memories and enough toys and food for the girls to feed them for however long it may be. My clients always knew where I was and how to get ahold of me.
2. Have a plan to get back online. – We ended up losing power early Sunday morning during the storm, but I was back up and running by Tuesday evening. Before we knew we were back up and running, I had a plan that I would head to Kris’s office if they were back online if needed to work and get my clients what they needed. Now, fortunately I didn’t need to use that plan, but it was there incase I needed it.
3. Backup’s of your Backup’s. – If you are like me and everything is hosted in the cloud, life was just fine as long as AWS didn’t go down. But, if you have on-site servers and lose power for a few days, it could cost some serious business. Having a rollover plan with battery back-up’s in place is essential – especially living in SFL.
4. Make sure employees are safe. – Since it’s just me in my little wo-man owned biz, oh and my CCO’s (Chief Cutie Officers – BK and PJ) I only had to worry about me. I’ve heard some stories of other businesses, however, that made their employees come back into the office on the Monday after the hurricane, when it was unknown if there was power, or the roads were deemed safe to drive by the county and police, the fact that we were under a strict curfew and a lot of people evacuated. In my mind, Employee’s come first, Client’s come second. I know – crazy thought. But, if employees are safe and happy with their work environment, they work harder and better for your clients. So ensuring their safety, especially in the AEC industries where Safety is a #1 priority, should come first.
5. Keep your own understanding that things will go really wrong. – Even though you can plan and prepare for the inevitable, things will and always do go wrong. Making sure that you are open in communicating with clients and keeping the dialogue going when you can is priority. Most client’s and partners will understand the situation you are in. And if they don’t then that’s where the evaluation of business comes in.

Client’s will Understand

In the end, I was able to get back online, catch up work and get everything back up in running fashion. I may have a few grey hairs in the process, but going through this for the first time, prepared me for how to handle it in the future. Lucky for me, all my clients were extremely understanding and concerned with the safety of me and my family. I’ve been quite privileged to work with some amazing people that are experts in their fields and brilliant minds, but know what priorities are.

If you would like to discuss SEO, Social Media or my Hurricane menu planning ideas, contact me here!