Mental Blocks to Delegating

I find the biggest hurdle people have to delegating effectively is that the right mindset is missing. Our mindset is '“the story we tell ourselves”. You can’t not have a mindset, we are all telling ourselves stories all day. Having the wrong mindset for what you need to do will prevent you from doing it.

Here are 10 stories you could be telling yourself that are stopping you from delegating effectively and holding you, your business and your staff back;

1. I can’t trust someone else to do it my way

2. They won’t get it right

3. I don’t have time to delegate

4. I’m not sure what I want them to do

5. I’m in a rush and I’ll do it later

6. They’re not trained in this task just yet, I’ll do it and train them later

7. They don’t have the skill, so I’ll do it

8. Its all too much, I’m too overwhelmed to worry about giving it to someone else right now

9. I’m faster, so I’ll do it myself

10. I do a better job, so I’ll do it myself

or variations of these stories….

If any of these stories ring true for you, they need to be changed to stories that enable and drive you to delegate more and become a more effective leader. Not change WHO you are, just HOW you lead. Remember, people cannot grow unless they are challenged, and doing things yourself prevents others from having these types of experiences. If you need to, start with that as a story to tell yourself when you are hesitating to give others some responsibility.

If you would like to know more, send me your email address here (link) and I will send you my “Top 3 Ways to Improve Your Delegation”.

Chat soon :)

Where Do I Start?

I dine out on TOC [Theory of Constraints] ALL THE TIME !!! This theory states that any system will have a choke point (or constraint) that limits the throughput of the whole system.

In a factory it can be one machine or workstation - pretty easy to envisage. But in a service business? An accountancy firm, or plumbing or even a restaurant - this can be a little harder to see. In a restaurant if you are full and can’t fit any more people ok you need more seating/space. But if you’re not full, what then? What is holding you back?

You need to find the one best thing to fix to increase the throughput of you business - fixing anything else is a waste of time - a new logo if your food sucks, stocking correctly if your machines break down, hiring more staff if your receptionist can’t pass on a warm lead.

Be very choosey about what you select to fix in your business to make sure it delivers benefits - fixing the wrong thing is a waste of time.

Hiring the Right Person

Hiring the right person for the role can be very tiring and a lot of effort. The wrong place to start is looking at candidates. There are a lot of good people out there but you won’t know if they are the right for for your business unless you do enough thinking around how your business works and what the role will look like first.

Make sure you think through your business first, what you want to achieve, what roles are required and who will be responsible for what. Do the best job you can and run with that. It will NOT be perfect so don’t aim for perfection.

Distill this thinking into a job description so you have some idea what to advertise for and discuss with potential candidates. You should strive to be as clear as possible and use a job description that clearly states values and behaviours expected of staff so they know how to act and metrics to explain each of their responsibilities as this helps make it super clear what is involved.

Human beings love clarity so the candidates will love it. And it can only make your job easier if what you are looking for is as clear as possible. So ‘start with the end in mind’ and design and document the role before you advertise and start talking to potential hires - it will save a lot of time and heartache.

What To Do In A Cashflow Crunch?

When you are under pressure it can be hard to think clearly. This can lead to mistakes or inaction which will only make the situation worse.

If you are experiencing financial pressure here is a list of things to try to see if you can make the situation a little less dire or maybe even resolve it.

It’s Perfect if it's Perfect for You

I have been ensuring the success of projects for many years by simply first assessing the practicality of a project before implementing it.

In his book GSP observes "It's only perfect if it's perfect for you." He uses this attitude to study many things and take only what works best for him to make up his winning fight style.

A dumbed down or lite weight version of methods and processes can prove more successful if it means it can then be implemented (that is infinitely more successful than not implemented at all right!).

The downside of this is that it may seem to be a poorer quality implementation of this method - but let’s not lose the forest for the trees - the point of work is to create a successful, profitable business. When the objective becomes following a method at the expense of the financial success of a business this is going in the wrong direction (ie: NOT sustainable).

BTOPP Model - Ask yourself "How will this change effect these parts of my business?" so your eyes are open when bringing something new to your business.

Once you actually look at what it will take to introduce a new product line, system or customer solution you may find you don't have the staff, or budget for new staff, or the skills in house to support the service or technology that's required.
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All of theses issues can occur when running a project to improve your business. Careful assessment and planning of what is intended and how to implement it can avoid a lot of heart ache and wasted time.

Remember, not following what is referred to as ‘best practice’ is no crime. It is only perfect if it is perfect for you and only you will know that ultimately.

If you would like assistance walking you through the BTOPP Model to see how you can use it to smoothly manage improving your business please get in touch.

Make Yourself Redundant

I used to be fascinated by how things are managed in construction.

These trucks cost about $5M USD so you would want to make sure it was productive!

I am still fascinated although I love finding out about other industries now as well.

During my time as a Civil Engineer I clearly remember the day it was explained to me why all this seemingly chaotic activity on a construction site can somehow be organised.

A surveyor I was working with told me about a foreman on a large expressway job. There were many trucks were carting earth backwards and forwards as well as other activity going on.

The foreman was able to stay in his office, not observing all the movement of the expensive machinery because he had someone reporting truck movements in via radio. He tracked the data on a chart on his wall.

If the movements slowed, he would investigate. Otherwise he could tend to other duties (safety, reports, forms, specifications, planning, budgets and costings).

When the movements reach the blue line it is time to act.

He did NOT have to witness all the work being done, despite the huge daily expense of the hire equipment, as his wall chart report did the supervision for him. He had 'made himself redundant' from the supervisory task (thanks for this expression Nick Psaila, I love it!).

This type of tool is indispensable at work if you too want to 'make yourself redundant'. If you would like me to show you how to have something like this set up cheaply and easily please let me know.

Now, I'm off for smoko :)

Unless it’s Scheduled It’s a Dream

The title of this newsletter is a quote from Tony Robbins, or rather paraphrasing what he advises.

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“If you talk about it, it’s a dream. If you envision it, it’s possible. But if you schedule it, it’s real.” Get the Edge audio program by Tony Robbins, 2000

What he explains is that just deciding to do something is great but really doesn’t do anything until your make time to do it. Not just telling yourself "today I will … “ but actually marking in your diary the start and finish time that you will devote to that objective.

Without doing that aspirational goals can drift for months or years without being worked on.

That is why I find that having a calendar for promoting your business is so valuable.

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Remember the 5 Ps: Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

There are many things about sales and marketing that are not rocket science but take time to work out and implement:- copy for posts and advertising, timing of promotions, nature and circumstances for discounts, deals with partners if promotions involve bundling your products with theirs and so on.

Negotiations and planning go so much more smoothly and effectively when addressed in advance.

If your main role is sales and marketing (and it is if you own your own business) and you should be spending 60% to 80% of your time doing so, doesn’t it make sense to have a calendar thought out so your can do your best on the most important of your tasks?

Ask yourself: “What promotions do I need to do this year to hit my sales targets?”. Decide what is enough and block out time to work on them. Any decisions you make now can be fine tuned later.

If you don’t have a promotions calendar for your business then  set a time or prepare one today.

Can I Train?

I don’t know how people expect to make themselves redundant from their business if they do not train their staff.

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You will be stuck doing it all if you don’t have people that know how to get the work done.

As the business owner you must make sure this happens - no one else will do this for you!

Below are 20 questions that you can use to make sure you are in a position to get work done by others, so you can concentrate on growth and sales and marketing.

1. Do I understand all the changes or impacts I am organising this training for?
2. Does it support the business strategy and plan? (i.e.: support your focus on customer service or low cost and efficient or being innovative?)
3. Does it cover the whole scope of the skills and knowledge they require to do their job?
4. Will the people have the skills and knowledge they require at the end of it?
5. Will they need to refer back to refresh their memory? Do they need something to refer to? Cheat sheet? Manual? A visual prompt?
6. If roles are changing, will they understand their new role?
7. Will it change behaviour (if that is what is required)?
8. Does it address key risks to servicing our customers?
9. Will they 'buy in'? Are they being told WHY? Is the purpose of the training explained?
10. Is the context for the change being set? Is the business changing? Competitors are stronger than us right now? Are we getting complaints?
11. Are contentious issues addressed by explaining that there are support mechanisms to help people succeed during and after training?
12. Is it brief enough? no waffle?
13. Is there a training plan? What and who should be trained so there are no gaps? Cross training is provided in the event people are away or sick?
14. Is the training material complete?
15. Is the trainer skilled enough to train my staff?
16. Does it involve hands on practice if appropriate?
17. Do the people know when to attend training? Have the correct invites been sent?
18. Is it resourced appropriately? Have people been given time off from work to attend if required? Can you backfill staff on the roster to allow people time off to attend?
19. Have we booked the room, computers, projector?
20. Do I have a way to check training was effective? A brief test?

The Maths of Difficulty

Hi everyone, I’m back after a Christmas break and dealing with some side projects.

When I was at school getting 80% in a test was pretty good. But in your business if you’re trying to satisfy customers it can be disastrous.

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It's difficult to keep all the parts of your business working as they should, like keeping all the plates spinning at once.

It's difficult to keep all the parts of your business working as they should, like keeping all the plates spinning at once.

If you consider the risk of not keeping your customers happy and how difficult it is to keep all the plates spinning it can sometimes seem like an impossible task.

Looking at the maths can help explain why.

Let’s look at the steps in running a coffee shop: get a shop, market yourself, design a menu, take an order, cook, serve, bill the customer - 7 steps.

If the likelihood of getting each one right is 80%, you are not 80% likely to satisfy your customer. Statistically, you don’t take the average of the probabilities, you multiply them.

So, 80% + 80% + 80% + 80% + 80% + 80% + 80% / 7 = 80% is WRONG

The correct probability is 80% x 80% x x 80% x 80% x 80% x 80% x 80% = 20.97% 

Just 21%!!!!!! So, you will satisfy 1 in 5 customers. Scarey.

This working is conservative as I am assuming each step is independent. In reality getting an order wrong is likely to make serving and billing harder!!! See Khan Academy video for an explanation.

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This working is conservative as I am assuming each step is independent. In reality getting an order wrong is likely to make serving and billing harder!!! See Khan Academy video for an explanation [link].

So what if we said we get things right 90% of the time, then the answer is overall we get it right 47.83% of the time from the customers perspective, satisfying less than half of the customers.

This is why you need to aim to get everything 100% right, and you need staff who endeavour to get it right 100% of the time.

Your operations need to be focussed on customer needs, simple (with complexity minimised) and straight forward to train out.

If you’re working too much for too little return commit to simplifying your business this year and training great staff and see what difference it makes.

WTF is Agile?

Our new PM has been using the term ‘Agile' quite a bit. What is he talking about?

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We must be 'agile'... huh?

For an agile business the primary objective is to learn what customers want and then to provide it to them.

Profit will follow if the business is set up well and it is scalable via a suitable business model.

This change of emphasis has profound impacts on the people, process and technology required such as;

• People must be willing to take a risk and adopt change - a lot of hard work can be thrown away if a product fails
• Processes must provide a great deal of customer feedback - Are they satisfied? How can we do better? How can we measure?
• Technology needs to be flexible - add, change or delete cheaply

Below is my take on the big differences between ‘traditional’ and ‘agile’ businesses - let me know if you agree, disagree or think something should be added.

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An agile approach is required when customers needs are not well known.

Being Effective

'The Effective Executive' by Peter Drucker was published the year I was born and it’s scary how relevant and appropriate the observations contained within are still relevant today!

You don't have complete control of your time so make sure you do work on the absolute top priorities!

You don't have complete control of your time so make sure you do work on the absolute top priorities!

Peter Drucker’s major point at the beginning of the book is that executives in large organisations have very little or no control over how their time is spent.

As a result the managers he found to be operating effectively focused much more on what the right thing was to do rather than adhering to a predetermined schedule that might not address key issues.

When you are working long hours there is no more time to throw at the business - what you can change is what you work on.

I like how he states 'you won't have time for the second priorities'..... this really highlights the reality of how little time managers running a business have and how careful they must be to choose what to work on.

The people that he worked with and studied only had time for top priority tasks. Second priority tasks were unable to be attended to because of the many unexpected and unplanned interruptions the executives suffered from on a daily basis.

It is no different running your own business. If you don’t identify and attend to the most important things that will build your business and make it sustainable then no one else will.

Fixing your menu or customer service won't matter if you don't have food to cook.

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Fixing your menu or customer service won't matter if you don't have food to cook.

To ensure that you’re being effective you must first understand exactly where your business needs your attention the most.

Below is an outline of the most effective method I have found to identify where to focus next.

1) Map Value Stream

• 5 to 7 steps, that add value in the eyes of the customer
• ignore support activities (accounting, logistics, HR, finance - unless customer facing)

2) Measure Capacity

• quantitatively - volume/day, tonne/hour OR
• qualitatively - your ability versus others – eg: service quality of other restaurants compared to yours

3) Identify Lowest Score

• the “constraint” = biggest bang for buck, greatest opportunity to improve

4) Break The Constraint

• increase capacity or capability eg: a bigger warehouse? [capacity] OR better customer service? [capability]

There is no bigger waste of time than fixing the wrong problem.

What is 'Growth Hacking'?

If you have an online business it will pay to find out what these people are and how they work.

From the presentation;

"Growth Hackers are a hybrid of a marketer and a coder"

"Growth Hacking is a set of tactics and best practices for dealing with user growth"

What Exactly is ‘Complete’?

For years I used to ask people how much work had they completed. Without any rigour around this question it is relatively useless as the person you’re talking to really believes that you are asking for a 'best guess' and that’s what they give you.

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Testers will tell you the actual % complete, everyone else will give a 'guesstimate'.

Endless frustration ensues as you continuously get ‘surprised’ that low and behold things have taken a lot longer to complete than first thought.

Reading the 1996 book ‘Dynamics of Software Development’ by Jim McCarthy a light bulb suddenly went on for me. He recommended that if you want to know how much work is completed, ask the testers, NOT the developers.

• Developers (and people in general) tend to be optimistic and over estimate what they have done, who good it is in terms of quality and how quickly they can complete the rest
• The tester will tell you what has passed testing and if it is up to scratch and works (i.e.: the quality is known)

So, now I ignore 'guesstimates' of % complete and go straight to 'test results'.

Outside of software development a 'test result' looks like;

• setup to succeed - aviation – both the pilot and co-pilot conduct pre flight checklist
• continuity preventing transcription errors - painter – quote becomes work order becomes checklist
• check against what was agreed - coffee shop – repeat order back to customer
• check before delivery - restaurant – chef tastes the food
• capture errors early - building job – architect does site visits to check against drawings during the build (as soon as set out is done, before walls are completed)

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You will never have any control of your operation if you don't know for sure that standards are being met.

If you can involve a third party in the process, have them inspect and check work and report back to you, it will;

• save you having to check yourself
• show you still care about standards
• ensure your team make an effort to get it right first time as they know they will be checked
• save time and money redoing poor workmanship
• prevent mishaps getting through to the customer
• highlight unavoidable discrepancies early to manage customer expectations

A check of standards doesn’t have to cost you a lot but is necessary if you really want to make yourself redundant.

Change Management - Impact Analysis is Key!

Change Management plans are only as good as the impact analysis they use. Missing impacts means you won't plan for them. Underestimating the size of the impact means it won't be effectively mitigated.

Rigorous impact identification and mitigation is key!

How to delegate to your staff in one hour a week!

The following is not easy to achieve but extremely worthwhile if you want to get more done in less time.

You're It
“When placed in command / take charge.” Norman Schwarzkopf. Make sure you take charge. Do you homework and know where you are going and how to get there.

Why Delegate?
It's your business, you are in charge, you must delegate. So get it done quickly and effectively so you are free to;

• Build your business - work on your business, not in it
• React if required - trouble shoot issues should they arise, coach and support your staff with their goals

It's what you're staff want!
Brian Tracy in Delegation and Supervision notes a Training Magazine survey that showed that the most powerful motivator at work was a clear set of expectations.
Given a clear, concise set of instructions and timeframes - people do better. And if they do better, you're doing better. 

HOW TO - The following set of tasks will enormously increase your ability to delegate as required to your staff.

Them [Preparation] 7 steps

1. get good people
2. have job descriptions and procedures
3. train them - to get the skill level they need
4. define targets in numbers (and dates) in the job descriptions
5. collect the data required to track this progress - and report it
6. have them report back to you - showing tasks as completed - or not. Don't you go looking for information, make it their job.
7. manage by exception - only address tasks that aren't right, NOT every task

After this is set up, you will only need to talk about what's DIFFERENT this week. NOT what they should be doing anyway.

You [Delegation] The one hour (the "what's different" to normal routine) at the beginning of the week;

1. team meeting - 30 minutes - leverage your time explaining "what's the plan" once, to all - draw it up on a whiteboard or share it electronically (whiteboard is faster as it finished by the end of the meeting, can be used to collect data for tracking progress too)
2. 5 to 10 min 1 on 1 meetings - to go over specific details, hear objections and build buy in. Check confidence levels.
    

FOLLOW UP...Set Time to Lead (not Delegate)
Of course you will need to spend more time working with your staff than this per week. People are politics. People are emotional. People need to be motivated and energised. And they need to be kept on track.

Its not working :(
Start again and look for the cause in steps 1 to 7. Fix it. Go back to working ON your business.

Speedy Testing Saves the Day

I watched a movie recently, "The Andromeda Strain". If you haven’t seen it, it’s a virus 'outbreak movie' where the stars of the movie are scientists and need to fight an unknown virus. 

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"The Andromeda Strain" (2008) is a virus outbreak movie based on a 1969 'hard science' novel by Michael Crichton.

But I don’t think the scientists are the stars, I think they have a relatively easy job - why?
 
They actually just come up with theories about what will kill the virus (various thought bubbles or hypotheses) and then they approach a whizz bang testing computer and actually just talk to it, as in;

• Scientist: "Computer, test: sample xyz with chemical abc and report on outcome"

and a few moments later the testing robot reports back

• Computer: "Outcome: virus was affected <this way, that way> by chemical <abc>."

EASY!

There is a bit more to it as they expand on why they try various things and why it did or didn’t work, but in the movie the key resource is TIME and the tests are so fast they can afford to run countless tests making them cheap and it just being a matter of time before they find something that works.
 
Many low cost tests ('fast' in this case) made their job far easier.
 
From the empirical information discovered its easy to decide the next step - if it killed the virus without doing any other serious harm, release it. Simple!
 
Making a habit of collecting information like this can make your decision making simple as well, especially where there is some high level of time or money involved or something you’re not sure will work ( a new product, service, piece of equipment, person... ) 

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In the absence of a billion dollar super computer testing robot, try little swings (where you risk less).

So,

• test feedback makes a decision obvious
• the cheapest/fastest feedback you can find gives you access to better decisions
• finding cheap ways to test your offerings before you invest heavily will give you a competitive advantage  

Check out my encounter with an 'Air Hockey' playing robot here [link]

It Doesn’t Cost Much To Show You Care

I found this note in an envelope we received from China recently. I had ordered 4 iPhone covers on eBay.

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The note was a nice touch!

The price was so low for the 4, including delivery, it was shocking.

I thought it was likely to be a scam after I had ordered and thought we would never see the delivery actually.
 
But what impressed me about the whole experience was the service.
 
After a couple of weeks (and my daughter chasing me) they emailed me saying;

• they were worried we might be concerned we hadn't received the products yet
• the lead time is 25 to 30 days, so it was probably still in transit
• they stated an error rate they had for their deliveries which was less than 1% AND that they were prepared to fix any issues we had

When I received the goods the note below was inside;

• hand written originally [but photocopied, still somewhat personal and yet scalable]
• asking for a 5 star rating and telling me it was important to them [ask for referrals!]
• telling me to contact if there is any problem [they care and are proactive]
• assuring he will fix it [gaining my confidence]

"Please leave 5 Star feedback..."

We paid $5.96 AUD for all 4 iPhone covers including delivery - frightening!
 
Remember

• We buy things because of the way it makes us feel
• Customers may not remember all details of the process but we tend to remember the way we are treated

If these guys can do this for an order under $6.00 what can you do for order sizes in the $,00s or $,000s of dollars? 

Where do I start? [Sales and Marketing]

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It's easy to see where to troubleshoot a garden hose when the water isn't flowing. In your business it will require measuring!

An earlier newsletter talked about where to start improving your business by looking for the 'constraint'.
 
If you’re lacking sales, the same technique can be used specifically for your sales and marketing.
 
Your customers will move through a process from awareness to buying, called a 'funnel', many versions of which exist - here’s one I like [link], here’s one specifically for internet startups [link].

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The funnel concept works well as it's a numbers game - only a percentage of people who see your product will buy.

The principle is the same;

1. identify the phases
2. measure how many people are moving through each phase

A sudden drop will highlight that phase as NOT working for customers....

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For the blue process above there is a large drop in 'persuasion' - overcoming objections and comparison to competitors.

The sudden drop is where to dig in and find out what the problem is and fix it
 
Not knowing where to start is OK, but not measuring to find out where to start is not. Take action to identify where the bottle neck is, so you fix the right problem.

[NOTE: Spending time and money on a part of your business that is not the constraint will NOT produce growth!]

I don’t know where to start = I don’t measure

When the problem is fixed, the bottleneck will move to another place in the flow but you won't necessarily know where. This is why it is initially OK to not know where the constraint is.

Growth comes from continually finding and fixing the bottle neck.

In a nutshell;

1. Identify the constraint
2. Fix it
3. Repeat step 1 and 2
4. Grow!

Decide What Game You’re Playing

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An NFL player doing a Haka on a cricket pitch? This guy is confused and unlikely to be able to compete at a high level. What game are you playing?

We need to play to our strengths to stand out and compete. Once you are clear on how it is you are going to compete many decisions become so much easier and you and your team will be able to focus so much better.
 
3 main areas of focus outlined by Treacy and Wiersema in their book "The Discipline of Market Leaders" are as follows;

• operational excellence - lowest total cost is the game
• product leadership - best product is the game
• customer intimacy - best total solution (including service) is the game

These are referred to as 'value disciplines' by the authors.
 
The authors argue that trying to compete across all three of these areas will mean you are not outstanding in ANY of them. To dominate in a market you need to be REALLY good at one and good at the other 2.
 
So, decide who your customers are, which 'discipline' to emphasise that will match their needs and centre your decisions, time and energy around that as a focus point. Core processes, culture, assets, management systems, organisational structure and IT will all be adjusted to suit

"if you decide to play an average game, to dabble in all areas, don’t expect to become a market leader.” Treacy, M., & Wiersema, F.

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"if you decide to play an average game, to dabble in all areas, don’t expect to become a market leader.” Treacy, M., & Wiersema, F.

To implement remember the golden rules of each discipline;

• operational excellence -  variety will kill efficiency (eg: EasyJet)
• product leadership - make you own products redundant with your own better products (eg: Microsoft)
• customer intimacy - work backwards from solving your customers total problem, using a combination of product and service (eg: Qantas Club)

If you are having trouble making a breakthrough it may be because you are not outstanding across any of these, just good across them all. Once you pick an area of focus, you can align your business to suit and then stand out.
 
For example a request for variation to the menu may be turned down in a culture of 'operational excellence' (McDonalds) but welcomed in one of 'customer intimacy' (a fine dining restaurant).

• Which are you supposed to be?
• Are you operating this way consistently?

Being focussed and knowing exactly which game you are playing will give you a better chance of being outstanding.

Fight Fire, In Advance

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Prevention is better than cure, but how much time do you devote to preventing things going wrong?

Risk Management seems like an imposing concept to some people – it’s not. Risk Management is an agreed way prevent a fire or firefight should a fire break out. You should be managing risk.
 
We all know the following expressions;

– prevention is better than cure
– a stitch in time saves nine
– prayer for the best, plan for the worst
– "be prepared” - the Scouts Motto
– Murphy’s Law - if something can go wrong it will go wrong

So it's very common to have a sense of risk. But it is far less common to take action to stop it. 

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The Space Shuttle has 2 different operating systems so that if one fails, the other could take over allowing it to land safely.

HOW DO I MANAGE RISK? - a table with 4 columns

• What can go wrong? first column
• Level of risk – impact and likelihood (note low, medium or high for each, High/High take priority)
• Ways to mitigate - fix it if it does occur or how can we prevent it occurring in the first place

 This is a creative process - a calm brain state is preferable - and it works best when all skill sets are available - so have team meetings to discuss.
 
WHY DO IT IN ADVANCE?

• may lead to insights to design risk out of business altogether – realisation of the size and the impact can lead you to preventing it from occurring altogether
• some good mitigants may take time to put in place – need to request approval for time and money
• may need to plan it to put in place – this will take time that is not available once it’s an emergency

 WHAT’S THE VALUE?
It’s the opposite of increasing future revenues

• decreasing future costs or unplanned and unpredictable costs

Having agreed way to mitigate in place

• means action can be taken fast
• without your input as boss (when required, appropriate)
• making you redundant

 CLASSIC SOLUTIONS

• Risk of data loss - back up to the cloud / use DropBox
• Risk of fire - take out business insurance
• Staff get things wrong - write a procedure and train your team
• Risk of sales falling - mitigate by innovating your product and having loyal customers through great customer service

Any time you can find to prevent things going wrong can be very wisely and profitably spent.