What would happen to your business if disaster strikes? Would your business grind to a halt? What would happen if you suddenly got so sick you couldn't show up to run your day to day business activities? Think about what that's like and what it will cost you if you're a solopreneur and you haven't planned ahead for a disaster. In this episode of the Social Media Marketing Happy Hour, Dawn and Traci share what happened to them, why it wasn't a complete disaster, and what you can do to make sure you don't face a situation where your business stops completely because you do!
What happened?
The Social Media Marketing Happy Hour was left a little crippled when Traci got really sick and was out of the game for more than 2 weeks. She had this horrible cough, she couldn't speak, heck, she couldn't even read her Kindle (and we know how much Traci loves to read). She was literally out of it for a month. But what saved us (although this situation wasn't really planned for) was the fact that we were able to set up a lot of things in advance.
Why wasn't it a complete disaster?
Traci's absence totally impacted the business. But there are things you can do to mitigate the impact. We actually planned to record a few our podcasts in advance for a different reason. But somehow, we ended up recording more than what we initially planned for (enough for the whole month of July). And thank God we did! Dawn also stepped up and tried her best to do a Periscope session. Another thing is we had all out email autoresponders going out as they should, Twitter was set up so that it would seem like it was on autopilot, there was one podcast that wasn't posted on time though. But other than that, Happy Hour was still pretty much functioning.
Having all of these things done in advance really minimized the potential for more problems. If we were building our business on reactive mode all the time, we would have been in really big trouble. It all boils down to being prepared and having a plan in place in case any unforeseen emergencies or disasters come along. Always try to be ahead of the game and don't build your business last-minute.
What can you do to avoid being in a similar situation?
You should definitely automate parts of your business. Almost everything on social media can be automated. You are free to post and schedule in advance. Use tools like Hootsuite and Post Planner and Social Oomph to schedule posts on different social media platforms. These are the ones that we think work the best for us at Happy Hour. You should also have email autoresponders like AWeber or GetResponse. Better yet, if you're ready to level up your business automation, you might want to go for Ontraport. You can find this at www.HappyHourHangouts.com/ontraport. You can find all of the resources we've mentioned on our blog. Just head on over to www.HappyHourHangouts.com/resources.
If you think you need help marketing your business, we do a few one-on-one business diagnostic calls a week. To apply for a free business diagnostic session, go to www.HappyHourHangouts.com/coaching.
