EP13: Could Your Business Survive If You Couldn't Show Up Tomorrow?
Why every small business owner needs an emergency succession plan
She thought she was just tired, but one day she needed an emergency blood transfusion. Turns out she wasn't just tired. She literally almost worked herself to death.
What Would Actually Happen to Your Business If You Couldn't Show Up Tomorrow?
Not next month, tomorrow.
Who gets the schedule ready in the morning? Who answers the phone when a client calls upset? Who runs payroll on Friday? Who knows the login to your bank account?
If the answer to most of those is "me," your business isn't just depending on you, it's depending on you never having a bad day, and none of us get that promise.
Who Is the Business Owner From the Opening Story?
Her name is Nikki Thompson, and she opened Sweet Encounter Bakery and Cafe in Michigan in February 2022, an allergy-friendly, made-from-scratch operation where one wrong ingredient can genuinely make a customer sick.
For a long time, she was the whole system, while also being a mom and a life coach.
She shared in a local Michigan magazine this past summer that about a year in, she was exhausted but kept telling herself she was just tired, just working too much.
In 2023 it caught up with her, and she ended up in the hospital needing an emergency blood transfusion. That woke her up to the fact that the business couldn't run without her.
What Did She Actually Do About It?
She wrote down every repeated task and made her standards clear enough that her team knew what good looked like without asking her.
She started using a question I love: if someone new started tomorrow, could they do this task without coming to me?
If the answer was no, that's where she built the next system.
She tested it with a two-week vacation, which she said felt like stepping off a cliff. A few months later she had to take six weeks of medical leave, and this time the business was ready.
Orders went out, customers were served, money kept coming in. Her business didn't just survive, it thrived.
She said the real measure of success is how well your business runs when you're not there.
Why Does This Matter Beyond Just You?
When we put off building SOPs, we usually think it only affects us.
But think about your team, a cleaning technician who's a single mom, someone who just signed a new lease, someone who's been with you for years. They're all counting on that paycheck showing up on Friday.
If you're the only one who knows how to run payroll and you end up in a hospital bed, that paycheck doesn't show up, not because anyone did anything wrong, but because those steps only ever lived in your head.
Your clients don't know you're in the hospital, they just know nobody showed up.
And your own family is counting on this business too.
Every week you put off SOPs, you're quietly betting your team's paycheck on the fact that you won't get sick.
What Happened to the Business Owner Who Didn't Have Systems in Place?
His name is John Anderson, and he owns an electrical business called Jam Group.
He knew he needed systems and kept putting them off, telling himself he'd get to it after the next fire, after the next hire, when life slowed down.
Then he broke his femur and spent nine days in the hospital with no systems, no structure, no plan for running the business without him.
That experience is what finally pushed him to build real systems and get his team standing on their own.
His business ended up doubling its revenue and profits because it became more efficient and could handle more work.
He went from doing invoices on weekends to taking flying lessons.
What's the Actual Difference Between These Two Stories?
Nikki had her systems in place before her six weeks away, and her business thrived.
John didn't, and while he came out okay, he had to build everything from a hospital bed instead of focusing on recovery.
You don't have to wait for an accident to wake you up to this.
What Should You Actually Put in Place, Without Writing a 40-Page Plan?
Start with what would break first.
Ask yourself who's in charge when you're not there, and actually name that person, your spouse, a trusted friend, a contractor like your bookkeeper.
Tell them, and tell your team.
Ask whether they can actually get into what they need: your bank account to transfer payroll, your scheduling software, your email, your business phone.
Put every login into a password manager and give your backup person access.
Write down, step by step, exactly how payroll runs, since that's usually what hurts the most if it stops.
Figure out how tomorrow's schedule still happens if a technician or cleaner can't make it.
And make a list, with phone numbers, of who you can't afford to lose touch with: top clients, key vendors, your insurance agent, your accountant.
What If You Don't Have Time to Write All of This Down?
You don't have to.
The next time you're doing something on your computer that someone else needs to learn, hit record on your screen, do the task like you normally would, and talk out loud as you go.
No script, no fancy camera, nothing needs to be perfect.
Save it somewhere your backup person can find it and watch it.
This week, grab a notepad and write down every task you did that day that nobody else on your team knows how to do.
By Friday, circle the one that would hurt your team the most if it didn't happen.
For most owners, that's payroll or invoicing.
Record yourself doing it next time.
Nobody gets to pick the day life interrupts, but you do get to decide whether your business is ready when it does.
If you want a simple way to create and organize your SOPs, check out Sophie at sophiehq.com
Resources & Links
Visit: https://bit.ly/JhonLeBaron
Download the free resource: https://bit.ly/Jhons5Reasons
Facebook: https://bit.ly/JhonLeBaronFacebook
Instagram: https://bit.ly/JhonLeBaronInstagram