Who runs your business when you are down?

On Tuesday one of my clients (and good friend) suddenly lost her life partner.

This showed how short and fragile life can be. We should treat every day with respect, and enjoy it to the fullest. And most of all - tell the important people how much they mean to us.

I spoke to my friend right after she found out about his passing. One thing she said will haunt me for a long time: He didn’t even say goodbye.

I don’t know how I can make sure to always say goodbye where it is needed. But I do know I will make an effort to not let people hanging.

That was one thing I was pondering, and also this: Are we allowed to be happy when others are hurting?

Because I have been happy. I also have been crying over this. And in the happy moments I felt a tiny pang of guilt. Is this ok?

But we serve no one by drowning with them. I kept my spirits up, walked towards the realization of my goals. As I did, I was also able to keep my client’s business somewhat afloat.

Because this is the biggest question I sit with this week:

How do we as solopreneurs and creators attend to our businesses when tragedy strikes and we can barely function for a few days or maybe even weeks?

Not only are we losing money (if we are service based) every day we are not working, we might also jeopardize the entire business by losing all clients and important contracts.

I know that I need a strategy. I do not have the fortune to have people working with me in my business. When I fall away, no one does any work. Heck, no one is even reading any emails and responding in a civilized matter.

So what to do? Here is what I see as a possible strategy:

Write your SOPs

SOP = Standard Operational Procedure

It’s a description of your workflow from A to Z. What happens when, and how? The more detailed your SOP, the easier is it for someone else to step in and fill your shoes.

This should be your aim. Anyone should be able to do your work following your SOP.

Detailed SOPs take time to write. They should include every tiny step and there should be no room for questioning what to do next.

You can either have them in written form, or as videos. Simply record yourself working through your process, and tell someone what you are doing.

Having these videos or written procedures are not only helpful if someone needs to take over. If you have them ready you can also easily hand them over the day you hire an assistant.

SOPs require constant maintanance as well. They need to be updated as soon as something changes. Maybe the tool you are using changes interface. Or there is suddenly an extra step that needs to be taken, or one less.

For you doing these tasks every day it makes still perfect sense, but for someone who has never done it before it will feel daunting. And you don’t want to keep them guessing.

But I also think a 90% accurate SOP is still better than no SOP, so I will not freak out over this right now.

Find a person to take over

I don’t mean hiring someone you need to pay regularly.

No, this would be someone (or several people) that get access to your SOPs, maybe get a run through at some point and then you know they can step in when it is absolutely necessary.

Share your Master Passwords with a person you trust, and give that person’s contact details to the people that can take over the operation of your business.

If you are a service-based business:

Have someone manage your emails and calendar. Your clients need to know that you are unavailable and for how long. Maybe you should even have an email prepared in your voice that someone else then can send out.

All appointments need to be rescheduled. Nothing is worse than having a client show up on Zoom and you are not there.

If you are a product-based business:

If you sell digital products you are in luck. Sales will still come in.

You need someone to attend to your customer service, addressing possible technical issues your customers might experience.

If you are a content creator:

Ideally you have content created and ready to be published for a month or two ahead.

If not find someone to access your social media accounts and ask them to re-post 3 or 6 months old content. It will still be new for your latest followers.

As critical as posting content is someone attending to comments and DMs that come in. Be transparent for DMs and let the other know that someone else is communicating on your behalf.

If you are a solopreneur or digital creator, do you have a strategy for your business in case of a personal crisis?

What would you add to the above list? What if we could cooperate on a checklist and make it available for other creators?

I would love to hear from you. Never before has it occured to me how vulnerable our businesses are in case we face some real hardship.

Take care, I immensely appreciate you being here!

Goodbye - for this time.

Yvonne