Page 33 - GS230802
P. 33
Education
sibility. Perhaps a piece of the business? J. Profit/Loss
Coach or mentor Business continuity plan
This plan addresses the unthinkable. How will your
You will need a coach. Everyone does their best work business continue if disaster strikes? Wildfires,
when they are being coached. The most capable, highest tornadoes, blackouts, civil unrest, pandemics—if you
paid athletes in the world work with coaches. A coach can watch the news, you see these things happen to other
see what you're not seeing. A coach will hold you account- people. Could they happen to you? Quite possibly. What
able for your performance. Without a coach it's too easy to is your plan for your business to continue working
let things slip. when you can't continue working?
A great coach will not be inexpensive. Two questions for
you: What are you willing to invest to become a top sales Business continuity plans are an iterative process.
performer? What will it feel like to be a star? They need to be reviewed and refreshed each year.
Backers, investors or a banker Every business continuation plan contains at least the
following:
Eventually, you will need financial backing. You may not A. Planning and prevention – Risk analysis and risk
need funds now, but as your business grows, you will. mitigation
Most people tap their immediate circle of contacts (what
some people have cynically called "friends, family and B. Preparations – Analysis of key business activities
and how they could be impacted
fools."). Anyone who invests in your company will proba-
bly want a seat on your board and a say in how the compa- C. Actions – Plans for how to immediately respond to
ny is run. You will need an agreement that spells out what threats and incidents
their investment gets them and how they may participate. D. Recovery – How to recover from an incident to
Your board of directors resume service
Taken together, this team of people should function The important part of business continuity planning is
as a board of directors for your business. You should that you put it in place now and keep it updated. If you
pledge to be fully transparent to your board and have put it off and a crisis occurs, it may be too late.
regular board meetings. Customer relationship management tool
No. 2–System When you are looking at ISOs to sign up with,
investigate the tools the ISO provides you to manage
Every business requires a system to succeed long term. your business. Many ISOs have a customer relationship
Here are components you'll need for yours. management (CRM) tool you can use, such as IrisCRM.
Business development plan Or you could use HubSpot, Salesforce or another CRM.
What's your vision for your business? How will it de- In any case, you should be able to enter data or update
accounts easily from your smartphone, tablet or laptop.
velop this year and in the next three years? How will
you accomplish your goals? You need to articulate your A CRM is critical to managing your pipeline of
business plan. You also need a pipeline of prospects. merchant prospects and your contacts with existing
How will you fill the pipeline? The biggest challenge to merchant clients.
most payments sales agents is finding and qualifying Backup system
merchant prospects. You need new approaches because
many of the old methods don't work anymore. It would Backing up the CRM and your business data is critical.
be wise to put together a proforma on a spreadsheet Store your data securely in a cloud-based backup
that shows the following projections by month: system that is very secure. Your tech resource person
(see Team above) should be able to design a regular
A. Sales by product/service type backup plan for your data files.
B. New merchant deals Accounting
C. Basis points profitability goal I covered this, but it bears repeating. Don't think you
D. Merchant attrition can ever sell what you're building unless you can pro-
E. Gross revenues duce good financials.
F. Residual revenues Agreements, documents vault
G. Other revenues I have taken to scanning all my documents using iS-
canner and storing them in a secure, cloud-based re-
H. Residuals and commissions paid out to sub- pository. You should be able to find one easily with an
agents online search. Store originals in a fire-proof safe or safe
I. Expenses by type deposit box.
33
