As a small business owner, you are fully invested in the success of your endeavor. But what if the unthinkable happens and a natural disaster strikes? Is your business prepared to stay up and running in the event of a flood or tornado or hurricane? Planning ahead for disasters can be the difference between going out of business and running a successful one.
Sign up for a Ready Business Workshop and learn about the following ways to prepare:
Program Management
- Organize, develop and administer your preparedness program
- Identify regulations that establish minimum requirements for your program
Planning
- Gather information about hazards and assess risks
- Conduct a business impact analysis
- Examine ways to prevent hazards and reduce risks
Implementation
Your preparedness plan should include:
- Resource management
- Emergency response
- Crisis communications
- Business continuity
- Information technology
- Employee assistance
- Incident management
- Training
Testing and Exercises
- Test and evaluate your plan
- Define different types of exercises
- Learn how to conduct exercises
- Use exercise results to evaluate the effectiveness of the plan
Program Improvement
- Identify when the preparedness plan needs to be reviewed or updated
- Discover methods to evaluate your plan
- Utilize the review to make necessary changes and plan improvements
For more information on building out your program, review Ready.gov and check the Ready Business Pilot Program.
If You Have Recently Been Affected By Disaster
The Small Business Administration offers disaster loan assistance through two loan programs. One helps with the actual physical damages with interest rates not exceeding 4 percent and terms up to 30 years and the other one is for economic impacts, which cover expenses normally covered before the disaster struck. The loans are up to $2 million.
Also, be proactive and let your lender know about the situation. Most of the time they will work with you on deferring payments and waive fees while your business is recovering.
Sources: Ready.gov, Forbes.com