Sounds a bit crazy I know particularly if you are a one person band, but when you get sick how does your business cope? How do you manage your customers? How do you manage your recovery? If you are like me and many other business owners out there, we don’t have time to get sick and we usually take preventative measures to avoid sickness. So when we do get an illness it often takes us by surprise and can throw ourselves and our business into panic. The dilemma is if we don’t work – we can lose business, but if we do work – we can lose customers!
To avoid this, I have developed a sickness policy for myself so that I can protect my business and focus on getting better. This really becomes part of my marketing strategy.
- Early detection that my brain is fuzzy. This is really important to identify that I’m not performing at my peak.
- Cancel any meetings scheduled for the next 48 hours.
- Notify all current customers as soon as possible and advise of illness and potential delays to projects.
- Set a time to reconnect with customers to update them on return to work date and deadlines.
- Go to bed and get well.
- Reconnect with customers at agreed time and advise.
- Continue process until better.
Reasons to stay away from customers and NOT work when unwell.
* Your brain doesn’t work as well and you might miss important information or forget crucial details.
* Your work won’t be of the same quality as when you are well – this may impact on your brand.
* You may be grumpy with your customers.
* You may make poor decisions.
* You will delay your recovery.
What do you do to handle things when you get sick?
