Three Reasons You Need To Create A Disaster Folder

Creating a disaster folder is an idea I developed many years ago and now I make sure my clients create one for themselves when I do mentoring. Many businesses overlook the importance of a disaster folder until a disaster occurs. I also recorded a podcast on this particular subject.

Every business needs to create a DISASTER FOLDER, a place where you can store all the steps required to quickly get your business back on track when something goes wrong, and believe me; things will go wrong in your business regardless of how much preparation and forward thinking you do.

The good news though, with a little preparation and forward thinking you will minimise the impact it has on your business.

What Goes Into The Disaster Folder? Your disaster folder should contain the contact details and names of your Electrician, Plumber, Maintenance Person, Aircon Technician, Refrigeration & Computer Technician, IT Consultant, Telecommunications Rep, and every other service provider you use.

For example, if a panel of glass is smashed who is your preferred supplier. In addition to contact details, there should also be a clearly defined framework or system in place explaining, step-by-step, precisely what to do in each circumstance.

If there is a broken pane of glass, your team doesn't need to know who your preferred supplier is, all they need to know is to go to the disaster folder, go to the glass section and call the person or company you have listed.

Losing Power: If your business has a generator that's great, but the majority of companies don't, so losing power at any time is going to be a real problem.

So, what steps do you have in place for a power outage? And, how you handle a power outage will differ depending on the time of day. Arriving at work and having no power will present different problems compared to losing power midway through the day or at the end of the day.

If you don't have a detailed explanation of how you want it handled, your business and business reputation will suffer.

Team Problems: Your disaster folder should also contain a step-by-step process of what needs to be done, and in what order, when a key team member calls in sick with very little notice.

If your business relies heavily on fixed timed bookings, this will cause a huge problem, especially if a client is travelling some distance. You must outline exactly how you want this handled.

Three Reasons Why You Need It?

1. It's a great training tool for new team members: When a new person joins your team they will, of course, learn all the tasks related to their specific role, but do they know what to do when a problem arises.
2. It reminds existing team members how processes work and what needs to be done when problems occur. Everyone needs to be re-trained and reminded that this folder exists and it needs to be updated as your business grows and develops. I would suggest going over this folder every 6-months.
3. It takes stress off the business owner and allows them to have a holiday without ongoing interruptions (phone calls and emails). You should be able to go on holidays and enjoy yourself, and if a problem arises that is not already in your disaster folder, learn from it and add it to the folder when you return.

A disaster folder is not something you create once and never look at it again. It needs to be updated as your preferred providers change and regardless of how complete it looks, new problems will occur, but when they do, you won't stress, you'll just add it to the disaster folder.

Having a disaster folder will help get your business back on track faster and stop your business from losing money. Anything that prevents you from delivering your service or product in a timely fashion is not suitable for your business.

I hope you get something from this and if you have any questions from this episode please email me at [email protected]

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