Wednesday, August 13, 2008

What Happens If You Go Down?

Yesterday brought about a very strong realization to me. I had gotten sick to the point of not wanting to move with the exception of the bi-hourly trip to the restroom to empty my stomach. Knowing I had to take time to recover I sent out my workers to their jobs and called each of my clients to let them know I would be indisposed and unavailable. Today as I turned my cell back on, I had 48 new voice mails with almost every one being these same clients bringing various emergencies my way. Several of them had left multiple voice mails.

This taught me 2 things. The first is that as 50 cent says "These industry niggas ain't friends, they know how to pretend" meaning that they could care less if you are on your last breath as long as you use it to do something for them.

The second thing I learned is the need to have a contingency plan in effect for my business should something severe happen to me. I don't miss many days and this was rare but if I were to be out a few weeks,things would have went from bad to worse perhaps pushing me to a point of no recovery business wise. I have been running things so long and making 100% of the big decisions that I had never seen the need for things to be different. Now I do. I'm currently operating at about 50% health wise and even though I should really stay out a few more days, I have nobody trained to do what I do.

That brings me to the point of this post, always have another person that can step in and make stuff happen in the event you go down. That is a lesson I should have known from my days as a Marine when every man had to know everyone elses job and it is something I will be implementing into my business post haste.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Those of us in the Internet business, frequently do so much of our own work that we find ourselves in this situation.

I'm glad you are feeling better and that you learned that you have to delegate some of what you do.

You could have learned this lesson in a much more costly way.