Episode #396: Is Your Business Prepared For A Personal Disaster?

  What would you do if life suddenly pulled you away from your business? Ever thought about what might happen if an urgent personal crisis hit you out of nowhere? Could your business survive—let alone thrive—without you? In this week's episode of Bella In Your Business, Bella Vasta shares her personal, heart-wrenching story of being abruptly pulled from her thriving pet sitting business due to a medical emergency. She dives deep into the essential strategies every business owner needs to ensure their enterprise can run seamlessly in their absence. Learn actionable steps to automate payroll, conduct effective scheduling, manage marketing, and ensure smooth hiring processes. Whether you're going through a personal crisis or simply planning for the unplanned, this episode equips you with the knowledge to secure your business's future. Tune in now to discover how demonstrating that your business can operate independently not only ensures its survival but also significantly increases its value. Your future self will thank you for listening. Timestamps: [00:00] Intro and Personal Story [00:40] The Unexpected Hospitalization [01:59] Running a Business During Crisis [03:51] Preparing for the Unexpected [06:57] Key Business Operations to Consider [14:46] The Importance of Business Continuity [19:39] Final Thoughts and Reflections Notable Quotes: "Imagine you just received an urgent call and your immediate presence is required somewhere else. Is your business going to thrive, just survive, or end up dead?" "I’m a firm believer that something in your life, if you're in business long enough, is going to require your full attention—your business needs to be ready for that moment." "If you can prove that this business can work without you in it, you have just increased the value of your business." Resources: FREE 20-min consult with Bella Mastermind Did you love this episode? Make sure you never miss an episode! Head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify to subscribe to Bella In Your Business. Transcript: Welcome to another episode of Bella in your business. My name is Bella Vasta. Today, we're going to talk about something that literally happened in my life about 10 years ago now. And it's something that I've spoken from stage about multiple times, but I'm not sure it's something that we've talked about on this podcast that I can remember in the past, almost 400 episodes. But it is something that I need to plant seeds in your head to make sure that if and when this happens to you, you are prepared. So let's go. Alright, so about a little over 10 years ago, I was sitting in a parking lot and I was pregnant, and I thought that I was going to be a yoga yogi when I was pregnant. So I was just getting out of prenatal yoga and I got a call from my doctor and she was like, you need to get to the hospital. And I'm like, what? Nah, I'd never been hospitalized. Thankfully, I've never broken a bone. You know, I've never been in the hospital. That was a big, scary place. I was like, I don't have to go to the hospital. She's like, yeah, your blood pressure levels are not healthy and you'd be hurting your baby. And so I went to the hospital and very long story short, it was right over Memorial Day weekend. And I was there for five days. And when I was done with that, I was ordered to be on bed rest at home. And you guys know me. Bed rest? What? I was in bed for so long that when I would get up to take a shower, just putting my arms over my head to wash my hair was like lifting weights. Because my muscles were deteriorated. It was gross. I mean, not gross, but it was very disheartening. I tell you this to say that I was running a six-figure pet sitting company. We were mostly pet sitting with a little bit of dog walking. I had about 10 employees and I did have an office manager. It was very fluid. It wasn't as maybe solid as what some of you guys do today. I was very lax because I'm organized chaos by nature. I would pay her like $20 a day to have the phone and then commissions on whatever she sold. And that's kind of how we worked it. And when I said we have the phone, it was the phone and email and scheduling. But I did have everything streamlined. I had my software really working for me, but I had to give my business to her because I couldn't do anything more. My doctor did not want me working, did not want any extra stress in my life. So I unexpectedly had to be yanked out of my business and I couldn't work it. If it was just me in that business, first of all, I probably wouldn't have a business to come back to. Because once I did have my daughter in July, after being on bed rest, we were in the hospital with her for 182 days, for 6 months. She was born at 12 ounces. And every day I was at NICU for eight to 10 hours. So I definitely couldn't do any work. I do remember pumping milk and being in the pump room that they had, maybe answering a couple emails or talking to my office manager occasionally. But generally speaking, you can't sit in baby ICU, NICU with a laptop or phone and like beyond that, it's a critical situation. I was literally pulled from my business. But guys, as I have been coaching, I have talked to so many people over the years where they have had cancer, gone through chemo, and all that comes with it. Chemo brain and being lethargic, not feeling well, throwing up. You can't even think straight, let alone run a business. I've had people with ailing family members, whether it's kids, parents, cousins, sisters, or brothers, that they've had to care for because they're their caretaker, taking them away from their business. I'm a firm believer that as gloom and doom as this is, something in your life, if you're in business long enough, is going to require your attention, your full attention, and not in a way that you can still run your business and do that. God forbid it's something bad. It could also be something good, like all of a sudden you have an opportunity to go be in Europe for a month. There's so many different things that this beautiful life gives us. But I wanted to come to you today to just really ask you: What's your plan? What's your plan if all of a sudden you can't get out of bed or you cannot get to work? Is your business going to thrive, just survive, or end up dead? And I know that's really, you know, but I'm, I'm being real here because every day is not going to be rainbows and sunshine and roses. I want you to really think about it. I really want you to think about it. It's really crucial. Imagine you just received an urgent call and your immediate presence is required somewhere else. Maybe it's a family emergency, maybe it's time off for health reasons. Do you have systems and processes in place to ensure that your business continues to run seamlessly and grows? If your answer is no or not quite sure, then today's episode is definitely beneficial for you. I'm gonna give you some things to think about to consider, not to add any more anxiety to your life, but rather the opposite to decrease that and make you feel so solid. Guys, I want to talk about the stuff that matters for you. I want to talk about the stuff that's going to move the dial or keep your business afloat. And today's episode is just that. So, let's talk about some—I'll put like four general things that everyone has to do in their company, right? First one, payroll. How do you keep your staff being paid? Who knows what your payroll company is, how to access it, who your payroll processor person is or how you process it? Is there, you might have SOPs for like how to schedule a client or how to schedule a sitter or how to handle a complaint. Do you have an SOP on how to do payroll? Would anyone be able to just go into your stuff and know how to do it? At the very high level, I'm even thinking right now, it's like, you know how our cell phones have an emergency contact number, right? So, God forbid you're in an accident. They can, you know, call your emergency contact. Does your business have an emergency contact, whether that's a person or maybe a one-page document that gets them into everything else, the keys to the kingdom, is there something that is written down or on video or something that can keep it going? So, is your payroll system automated? Do you have someone that can do that payroll? What about scheduling? This probably is a little bit easier than most of it, but like, you know, depending on how big or small your team is, how does one know how to schedule? Not just how to actually schedule Suzy for Fido's visit, but how to critically think of why is it that Suzy gets to go to Fido's visit? Why not Molly or Jack or Joe? Right? So, the thought process behind how to make those decisions, in addition to specifically how to do it, is going to be important to have. A lot of you guys are probably thinking, okay, my spouse or my partner can do this, right? But these are things that you want to make sure that there, you might even want to do a trial run day just to make sure that if something were to happen, someone easily could step in. Or maybe you have a business bestie that you say, "Hey girl, if anything ever happens to me, I'm gonna have my partner call you and I'm gonna need you to take over my business." Because I already know that you know what's going on, right? These are things that I want you guys to think about. I hope that you never have to use it, but I want you to think about it. What about hiring? I mean, okay, so someone's running your business, but the wheels still need to go. How do they know when to hire? How do they know how to hire? How do they know what to hire for? What your hiring process is like? You might have your hiring process written out for you, maybe a training manager or something on like steps. This is what we do: step one, step two, step three.