Part of having a successful business means being able to always have a Plan B ready to go. I think we may be on to Plan D already after last week.
A big part of the BusinessToInvestment challenge is the websites. And that means I rely heavily on Jorge’s crew at LatAmConnect . Last week, Jorge was riding with a friend in his car, when someone was speeding and plowed right into the side of their car. Jorge went to the hospital, mainly badly shaken up with neck and back injuries. I’ll ask him to post some pictures of their car. It looks totalled.
We had a huge storm in Phoenix last week. It was our own little hurricane with 100 mph winds and the most rainfall ever in 24 hours in Phoenix. A tree fell on our house and we lost power for almost 2 days. It was over 100 degrees with high (for us) humidity of 70%, and no electricity. And in the middle of all of that we were moving.
This week is regrouping. But it was also a good chance to test the back-up procedures. Jorge has been the only contact for his US clients because he is bilingual. So, if he’s gone the business stopped. We brainstormed some solutions for that yesterday. I started etalking directly with his designer and had zero problems communicating, so that is one solution for me. We talked about having my son David help out with Jorge’s clients if something happens again because he is also bilingual.
My most critical items are appointments (which are known and set) and keeping up with the blogs and forum. Megan stepped in over at TaxLoopholes to keep watch on that and keep a daily blog going. I didn’t have a back-up plan for this blog, though. I notice that when I’m not regular with the blog, that the readership really drops off. It takes a daily, or more, blog to keep readership constant and growing. Miss a few days and it can take a month to regain the trust of your community again. (Note for the future)
I think there is a bigger question in all this. If you have a business or investments, you need a Plan B for when things don’t work out like you expected. It’s not a question of go/no go. You have a business, but now things have changed. What is your Plan B?










September 2nd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Wow.
What a crazy couple weeks for you all.
One person wrote about overcoming
language and concept issues by sending
lots of screen shots of what the new
site should look like.
There are IMers who were hit by the
hurricane. Talk about needing
a Plan B,C,D. Good things to be
thinking about!
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:09 am
It sounds as if you’ve had “Mr. Murphy” visiting you! He always pops up just when you think you’ve got your life under (somewhat!) control!
I’m glad Jorge is OK (and everyone at your house) but these events do serve as a potent reminder of planning for the worst. No one wants to do it, but it’s probably more important than a plain ‘ole business plan. You can wing success, but not disasters.
Interesting comments about readership here…I agree that the lack of current postings makes a difference. But why do you think the following at the FCL Forum at taxloopholes.com aren’t over here as well? Don’t know about it? Not enough “different” topics? Just can’t take the time to visit multiple blogs/forums?
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Thanks Mary!
Here’s the pictures:
The speeding guy:

The car I was in:

September 3rd, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Oh my gosh, Jorge!!!!
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Jorge, you are so lucky to have been able to walk away from that!