Washington, D.C.—Many entrepreneurs may believe they do not need a disaster plan due to the smaller size of their business. The truth is, any business can experience a crisis, such as hardware failures, theft, accidents or natural disasters.

SCORE “Counselors to America’s Small Business” offers five tips to help you prepare for potential disasters to ease the impact on your business.

• List any emergency your business could possibly experience. Include internal, external, natural, man-made and product or personnel issues. Your plan needs to be general enough to cover all of these categories, yet specific enough to provide guidelines for each.
  
  
• Develop a disaster plan. This should include phone numbers and email addresses of all employees; bank, insurance and leasing information; your customer information; back-up data; and any information vital for running your business.
  
  
• Familiarize staff with the plan. Share the disaster plan with business partners and employees, and make sure they know their role in an emergency.
  
  
• Make copies of the plan. Store a copy that is easily accessible at your business, as well as at least one copy elsewhere. If something happens at your business location, you need to be able to access your plan off-site.
  
  
• Keep your plan up-to-date. When any changes occur, such as account numbers or addresses, make the changes to your disaster plan. Review your plan periodically to make sure it remains viable and current.

Many SCORE counselors have disaster planning experience, and they are willing to share their knowledge. More than 50 SCORE online counselors have disaster preparedness and recovery expertise at www.score.org. You also can enter your ZIP code to locate the SCORE office nearest you.

Since 1964, SCORE “Counselors to America’s Small Business” has helped more than 7.6 million aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners through counseling and business workshops. More than 10,500 volunteer business counselors in 389 chapters serve their communities through entrepreneur education dedicated to the formation, growth and success of small businesses.

For more information about starting or operating a small business, call 1-800/634-0245 for the SCORE chapter nearest you. Visit SCORE on the Web at www.score.org.

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Disaster Planning Resources

• U.S. Small Business Administration
  Small Business Disaster Preparedness
  http://www.sba.gov/localresources/disasteroffices/disaster_recov/index.html
  
  
• FEMA
  Emergency Management Guide for Business and Industry
  http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=1689
  
  
• U.S. Department of Labor
  Evacuation Plans and Procedures - eTool
  http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/evacuation/index.html
  
  
• Ready Business
  Prepare. Plan. Stay Informed.
  http://www.ready.gov/business/
  
  
• Business.gov
  Emergency & Disaster Planning
  http://www.business.gov/topic/Emergency_and_Disaster_Planning
  
  
• American Red Cross
  Business & Industry Guide
  http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/0,1082,0_606_,00.html
  
  
• Microsoft Small Business Center
  Is your business disaster-ready?
  http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/technology/communications/
  is_your_business_disaster_ready.mspx
  

Credit:http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/07-27_sbprimer.pdf

U.S. Small Business Administration
Contact: Cecelia Taylor
(202) 401 3059
Release Date: April 30, 2007
Release Number: 07-27

Related Information:

NBA Strategic Partner - U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)

NBA Resource Article - National Celebration of Small Business Week:

NBA Resource Article - Small Business Week, 2007

Reprint of this article does not constitute an endorsement by the National Business Association; the article is for informational purposes for our members and viewers of our Web site.