My Business After Hurricane Sandy: Creating a Contingency Plan

Hurricane Sandy was a monumental, hopefully once in a lifetime, storm. As the hurricane approached the East Coast many people frantically prepared to keep their families safe and supplies stocked. There was a run on the stores as people purchased enough food to last for a week, water to drink and gas to run generators and cars. Preparing for the storm consumed most of the weekend as people looked to see what Hurricane Sandy would do.

As a business owner the challenge is twofold: caring for your family and caring for your business. It is Wednesday and here in Maryland I still do not have power. As someone who is self employed that means I do not have access to the power needed to run my laptop, internet access to email clients and employees, or a charged phone to get on scheduled conference calls. For women that are self employed storms and other natural disasters can create more than a hiccup as deadlines get missed and the needs of clients go unaddressed. While Hurricane Sandy is not likely to repeat itself in the near future winter storms are on the way throughout the country so learning how to prepare your business for a natural disaster or severe storm can help make sure you company does not go down when the lights do.

Read to Succeed: A-List Business Books

With one eye on deadlines and bottom-lines, and the other on client and customer relations, it’s easy to lost sight of professional goals. And, to maintain a palpable level of on-the-job inspiration.

Some days you feel at the top of your game, full of energy and vision. Others, it’s high anxiety, frustration, failure or an overall sense of defeat. You start sweating about your ideas, your integrity… ugly self-talk that sucks the wind out of your sails and incites fantasies of sudden illness and several days in bed so you can recharge.

When motivation and professional satisfaction walk out on you, getting back in your groove can happen two ways: You can hand in your resignation (this, I don’t recommend), or you can, “Try looking at it another way,” as suggested in the movie “James and the Giant Peach”.

Big Thinking for Small Business

If you want to get noticed in a noisy world, your message needs to be better, not louder. And, it needs to be delivered with polish and panache. Your budget may have limitations, but your imagination doesn’t, so just because you own a small business doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for big thinking. Or, big execution.

Need a tangible? Your website.

Thinking like a big company means losing the generic template, outdated fonts and bland copy. If you operate a home décor company that strives to connect to style-savvy urban hipsters but your website is cluttered, and very UN-edgy, you’re going to be perceived as anything but hip. Sure, a website isn’t everything, but in the current climate, it is your primary connection to a potential sale. So if your audience has style, and wants to know where to find more, lead them to it. With the smorgasbord of slick options out there, and myriad young techies-in-training seeking to build their portfolio, you should have no problem getting the look you want—and the one that is going to attract your ideal customer/client—at a price you can afford.