Please read my orginal #FollowFriday post to understand how this works (more…)

Btb Guest Author

Miriam Ahern

SOLE-TRADERS and smaller businesses are the most vulnerable potential victims of the expected swine-flu pandemic.

There’s a lot of information about at the moment on how enterprises should prepare themselves to weather a global swine flu outbreak should the current situation worsen. Most of this is aimed at large organisations rather than the sole-trader who could suffer much more.

Among the challenges all businesses may face, in addition to high rates of absenteeism, are; disruption to supply chains and business travel; infection control amongst employees; sudden drops or increases in supply of and demand for goods and services; as well as strain on human resources, insurance and cash flow.

Here are key steps that sole-traders and micro-business leaders can take right now so they are not caught off their guard.

Be Cautious

Let’s face it –sole-traders just don’t have the resources that medium and larger companies have at their disposal if there’s a flu pandemic. If they catch swine-flu, the impact on their business will be significant and immediate. What they can do, however, is to take every precaution they can against catching flu in the first case. Here are some guidelines:

Do:

• Carry your own personal dispenser of hand sanitizer in your pocket. Use it frequently when you are out and about and immediately before entering and upon leaving clients’ premises.
• Bring your own pens or calculators with you for your personal use at appointments and meetings.
• Keep your own workspace, belongings and car hygienically clean (i.e. regularly disinfected). Keep a pack of antiseptic wipes in your car.
• Limit your personal appearances to when it’s mission-critical. Avoid any unnecessary business travel and meetings.
• Be subtle but maintain adequate personal space around you at public gatherings and at meetings.
• Talk to other sole-traders or small business owners who have already dealt with the effects of swine flu and learn from their experience.
• Organise to get swine and winter flu vaccinations from your GP as soon as they are available.

Don’t:

• Travel on public transport during rush hour when trains, busses and trams are packed.
• Handle objects, books, papers and brochures in public waiting areas.
• Panic or over-react. Keep yourself informed so that you can tell the difference between someone with seasonal hay-fever and someone with real flu-symptoms!
• Keep working if you think you have swine flu. You have a responsibility to those around you to act sensibly.

Be Prepared

What if your prevention efforts fail and you fall victim to the dreaded swine flu? First of all, let’s get this whole issue into context. The chances are that, unless you are extremely unlucky, you will only be unable to work for 1-2 weeks maximum. Once you get over your flu, that’s it for your business. You are unlikely to catch a second dose: unlike larger organizations, which will probably have to weather ‘waves’ of outbreaks throughout the winter.

The aims of your contingency planning should be that while you are tending to your own welfare, your business continues; your assets are secure; and your cash-flow is protected. The key is to identify your main vulnerabilities. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What are the core functions that are critical to your business continuity?
• What supplies or materials are essential to producing your goods or delivering your services?
• What can you do if there is a sudden increase or decrease in demand for your products or services during a pandemic?
• What are the fundamental roles or processes that you alone execute?
• What’s your economic exposure to swine flu?
• What will be the impact if you are out of action for a couple of weeks?
• How can you reduce the risk of critical business functions being interrupted?

Here are just some contingencies that you might consider:

Buddy-up with a few trusted business colleagues. Explore and plan ways in which you could keep each-others’ businesses ticking over in the event of a temporary incapacity. Each should keep a copy of the others’ contingency plans.

Set up an emergency file. Keep a list of key business contact details. Keep accurate process notes for any business-critical procedures or functions.

If you have a service or customer-facing business, explore the possibility of increasing the amount of online transactions as well as self-service options for customers.

Review your IT setup and if possible enhance it so that you can control your amount of face-to-face contact. Use video-links and tele-conferencing to maintain essential contact with your business community.

If you and your partner are both working and you have childcare arrangements that could break down in a pandemic, work out a plan (in advance) with a few other parents whereby one parent stays home one day with all the children so each parent misses only a single day each week.

Let your customers and suppliers know that you are prepared and what your contingency arrangements are.

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Miriam Ahern is the founder and managing partner of Align Management Solutions – a consultancy specialising in organisational change and development. She also manages LINK! - Dublin City Enterprise Board’s Network for Start-up Businesses. Miriam is a regular contributor in the national media on issues relating to business management and human resources. She is a Certified Management Consultant and a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants and Advisers.

Mobile: + 353 86 234 2789

Office:  + 353 1 412 5890

Follow Miriam on Twitter

LinkedIn

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Today’s News:

I would like to add my voice to Jonathan’s and the rest of the TSE team in extending my very best wishes to TSE colleague, Steve Martinez. Steve is recovering after seven and half hours of “aorti dissection” surgery. Our thoughts are with Steve, his wife Sally, and his family, may he make a full and speeedy recovery.

Btb Guest Author

Miriam Ahern

Face-to-face business networking is a much cheaper way to promote your business than advertising or PR. It is a low-cost activity where the pressure is on your time rather than on your pocket. It’s more effective than on-line networking as you build important personal relationships more quickly.

Nevertheless, meeting someone just once is unlikely to bring you new business. The key lies in repeat-encounters. However, the old maxim still holds – time is money. Here’s how to spend that time wisely:

Step # 1 - Determine why you need to network and set clear networking objectives for yourself

Action - List the main (important and urgent) objectives for your networking activities for the next twelve months. These objectives might be aligned to a personal or business plan that you have developed. Be very specific in terms of what you need to

do and why and when you need to do it. Use the SMART principle so that your networking objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.

Step # 2 - Audit your existing networks

Action - Make a ‘master list’ of your existing networks on one sheet of paper. Then, for each of those networks, take a blank sheet of paper and brain-storm that network. What you want to end up with is a set of individual lists of all of your active contacts within in each of your current networks. An active contact is someone with whom you have interacted during the last three months or so. If you are used to ‘mind-mapping’, that method makes this step really easy.

Step # 3 – Align your ‘master list’ to your new networking objectives

Action – Ask yourself this question. Are there other relevant groups of people that I need to network with to achieve my current networking objectives? If the answer is yes, your immediate mission is to identify, locate and engage with these new groups or individuals. Different networking objectives may require you to interact within different networking groups.

Step # 4 – Galvanise your existing networks into action

Action – In the context of your new networking objectives, review the names on each of the sheets that you have prepared for each of your networks. Are there other people available to you through those existing networks that you have not included in your list? For example, are there wider family members, ex-colleagues, or co-professionals with whom it would benefit you to acquaint yourself? Plan to connect with these additional people at your earliest opportunity.

Step # 5 –Re-educate your existing contacts

Action – Make sure that your introduction, or ‘elevator pitch’, is up to date. For many of us, the way in which we introduce ourselves may depend on which network we are interacting within. Make sure that if you have a ‘set’ of introductions that they are all freshly aligned to your networking goals. Do this in advance of any networking activities. Don’t get caught on the spot at events or meetings where you might get tangled in a long explanation about how or why you have changed your slant.

Step # 6 – Encourage your contacts to be your ambassadors and your sales reps!

Action – Make yourself memorable. One extremely good networker that I know carries a stunningly beautiful pair of diamond earrings in his pocket. Not so strange, really. He’s a master jeweller and a diamond grader. You should see people flocking around him when he’s in action. No-one ever forgets having met him either!

Use every available opportunity when you are networking to become involved in the event itself. Here are some suggestions:

Get to know your network organisers or facilitators

Volunteer to ‘buddy-up’ with newcomers at formal networking events

Become a connector, introduce your acquaintances to each-other

Offer to present a short talk on your subject(s) of expertise

Extend a special discount to fellow-networkers

Offer to be a table facilitator or host during round-table networking activities or exercises

Follow up a promising chance encounter with a one-to-one meeting over coffee or lunch

Relationships + Reputation = Referrals

Miriam Ahern is the founder and managing partner of Align Management Solutions – a consultancy specialising in organisational change and development. She also manages LINK! - Dublin City Enterprise Board’s Network for Start-up Businesses. Miriam is a regular contributor in the national media on issues relating to business management and human resources. She is a Certified Management Consultant and a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants and Advisers.

Mobile: + 353 86 234 2789

Office:  + 353 1 412 5890

www.twitter.com/MiriamAhern

www.linkedIn.com/in/miriamahern

Over at TSE

I am really looking forward to tomorrow’s roundtable “Harness the Power of Referrals”

Do you know what it takes to build a referral business?

Join five Top Sales Experts share their techniques that turn up the heat in prospecting by harnessing the power of referrals.

Joanne Black, Jonathan Farrington, Paul McCord, Steve Martinez and Nancy D. Solomon present this 60-minute roundtable on Tuesday May 26th.

Your current clients are your most under-leveraged referral source. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Learn where traditional referral training falls short, why it is so essential to understand your ideal client profile and recognize your ideal referral source, how to overcome referral roadblocks and how to develop a process that does “what it takes” to build a referral business.

The investment? $25.00  or $99.50.

HUH? You can become a VIP member of Top Sales Experts (at $25.00 for the entire year) and the Roundtables are FREE. If you’re not ready to become a VIP member then they are $99.50.