What's Your Plan B?

A buddy of mine left me a message on my cell phone on Friday. It concerned a letter he wanted me to write for him for an upcoming meeting on Monday night. Well here it is Tuesday morning and I just heard his plea for help. My phone had died and was being repaired so his call went unanswered. I feel terrible about it and just tried to call him back. I got his voicemail.

This exchange in communication, or lack thereof, brings up a critical point that I've thought a lot about lately. I wonder at what point my friend began thinking about a backup plan. Was it Saturday or Sunday? Maybe he thought I was away for the weekend. Was it Monday morning? Lunch time? I don't know but I'll find out when we speak.

More often than not our business communication is done by voicemail and e-mail. I'm just as guilty leaving messages requesting someone to send me a document or to call me back with an important detail. This is not a dialog but a monologue. And it can cause a lot of problems.

Of course we all love the trail that e-mail leave, "I asked you for the LMN file in my e-mail sent to you on May 25th but never received it."

To make matters worse, there's even a feature on my Verizon cell phone (I think it's #8) that will allow you to respond to a fellow Verizon customer's voicemail that will allow you to reply to their message without their phone even ringing. Talk about impersonal.

My point is this... you have to develop a fall-back strategy or Plan B as soon as you are forced to rely on someone else's actions. It's not losing faith in the abilities of others but a harsh reality. Even as professionals we have to grow up and become self-sufficient.

So what are the loose ends that have been hanging around your to-do list for more than a couple weeks? Is there something that YOU can do to get them completed rather than waiting for someone else?

Does Your Company Have a Backup Plan?

The AP is reporting that a deal has been made for New York City's vital financial institutions to set up a backup data center in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. The plan is for trading and financial operations to continue in the event of a wide-scale terrorist attack (or weather disaster, I suppose), because a backup system will be in operation to handle trades, etc.

This had me thinking that sometimes small or even large businesses don't think about backing up their important data ahead of time, before disaster strikes. This leaves them vulnerable to significant losses should something go awry.

Perhaps now is a good time to take a look at your backup plans and see if they need retooling. And then get back to marketing. :-)