A little over a month ago, I started to get sick… really sick. One Sunday night, I started to experience severe abdominal pains, sweating, vomiting, and chest pain. My husband and I thought I was having a heart attack, and he rushed me to the ER. The ER doctors thought I was having a heart attack as well. Six hours, numerous tests and medications later, they determined it wasn’t a heart attack, and sent me home. This was the beginning of a three week nightmare.

After seeing endless doctors and enduring ultrasounds, CT Scans and an MRI, doctors finally determined that the problem was my gall bladder and decided that it needed to be removed. I spent four days in the hospital after initially being admitted to the hospital due to severe dehydration from not being able to keep food or even water in my system for over a week. I could barely walk let alone function to work or do anything else. Thank God they finally figured out the problem and fixed it!

If I was still working in a corporate job this could have caused some serious issues in my “j-o-b”. Luckily, I am a small business owner and as an online business owner, I am able to work the hours that suit me best.
So, what do you do when something like this happens to you? How do you keep your business moving and growing, while taking care of your clients/customers so that you don’t lose them in the process of trying to take care of yourself? You create systems!

You put systems in place for many reasons, including during times when you are incapacitated. These systems also come in handy when you want to take a vacation or get away for a day. When systems are in place, your business can continue to function and grow without you even being there.

The first and most important system to have in place, especially in case of emergencies is your communication system. You must KEEP THE LINES OF COMMUNICATIONS OPEN with everyone – your clients, your team and your colleagues!
When I started feeling sick, I let my clients know immediately what was happening. I have an amazing support team!
Each of them knew from the beginning what was going on. Each member knew what they had to do in order to keep my businesses running. My Virtual Assistant (VA) knew what each of my clients needed; she knew my schedule and what needed to be canceled or postponed. I was the one that kept my clients informed, not my VA. I felt it was very important for the communication in this situation to come directly from me to my clients, not from my VA. I notified my closest colleagues. They are, after all, a very important part of my support system. Each one of them jumped right in and offered help, in whatever capacity I needed. They were there for me, just as I would be for each of them.

Consider what would happen if you were admitted to the hospital without little warning or had a family emergency that required a quick response – leaving little to no time for communication to your clients or team. You need a system in place for that type of situation too. I’m a Plan B person. I always have a backup plan in my back pocket for every situation. I can come up with something on a moment’s notice.

You need to be upfront with your clients and discuss the system you have in place for “emergencies.” If you work virtually, as I do, you need an email and voicemail system. Your email signature should state your response time (within 24 or 48 hours, for example) and your voicemail should state when you check your voicemail and when people can expect a return phone call. This is just common courtesy and great customer service. If you are unavailable, your team will know to check your email and voicemail as specified by your system.

If you and your clients do not speak daily, your system and backup plan should specify who would be responsible for contacting your clients. I had asked my husband, for example, to let certain people know (via email) if I ended up in the hospital and didn’t have time to notify anyone. He had a list of names with email addresses and knows how to get into my laptop and send email from my email system. In this situation, he would have emailed my VA and she would have communicated the seriousness of the situation to my clients.

You don’t want your clients or customers to think you’ve just vanished from the face of the earth or that you’ve (for whatever reason) stopped communicating with them. This does not bode well for you. They may understand later on when they find out what happened, but during the situation they will not be happy and you don’t want that.
If you don’t have a VA or online business manager, then you need someone you can rely on to notify your clients.

So, keep the lines of communication open as much as possible and always have a Plan B in the works – you never know when you will need it!

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