(03) 9020 2905When you’re flying high and your life is moving like it’s in a slipstream, sometimes you don’t learn a lesson until it’s too late.
Often, the faster your jet is travelling, the harsher the consequences.
Take golfer Jack Newton’s lesson about disembarking propeller-driven planes after having a few drinks. Or Colorado crooner John Denver’s ultimate lesson about flying experimental aircraft.
Newton lost an arm, an eye and a career. Denver, who in hindsight should have stuck to “Country Roads”, lost his life.
Two weeks ago, I became the victim of new-age high-tech crime. I haven’t lost appendages (actually, yes I have! Appendicitis. Separate issue) but I’m scarred.
My business got caught up in the Distribute.IT hacking scandal, possibly the biggest hacking crime in Australian history. May anti-hacker laws see the miserable buggers hang at The Hague.
Nearly 5000 businesses are in varying degrees of disarray. Many lost a lifetime’s work. Others lost entire websites. I lost two weeks of business email. All unrecoverable.
Since, I’ve been working overtime in recovery mode. New email addresses, new websites, contacting clients and desperately trying to get things back on track.
It’s painful. Something a bit like the acute appendicitis I enjoyed in recent weeks. In hindsight, appendicitis was an easy fix. Hospital for 24 hours, keyhole surgery, hasta la vista one useless appendage.
At the end of week one in headless chicken mode, late on Friday night with beer in hand, I sat back and thought: “Hey, Debt Man you idiot, where was your backup plan for THAT?”
I’ve got backup plans coming out my ears. I’ve got more backup plans than Maxwell Smart and Agent 99, more than Q has installed up James Bond’s sleeve or on the dashboards of his awesome cars.
I’m insured to the eyeballs, I back up data (well, the data that gets through to me, I do), I regularly consider personal and business disaster situations and how to then react.
I made mistakes that first week. Some people who didn’t deserve it copped bollockings. But then I instigated Plan B.
I’d never contemplated that email could implode with no chance of recovery. I had always banked on email getting through … eventually.
Could I have had a disaster plan for the Distribute.IT eventuality? Sure, but you can’t have backup plans for everything.
Many affected by this hacking scandal will lose their homes and their livelihoods. And something similar could happen to you.
So, as usual, today I’ve got some financial planning advice today for disasters. Have two disaster plans.
Plan A: Identify your biggest risks and have back up plans. That includes insurance, saving your data, having a rainy day cash account, some liquid investments, etc.
Plan B: When Plan A fails, call The A-Team – B.A. Baracus, Face Man, Murdock and Hannibal. Except mine were called Joe, Pieter, Rick and Sammy.
“If you have a problem, and no-one else can help and if you can find them, maybe you can hire … the A-Team”.
Where do you find an A-Team to stop damage becoming irreparable? If you don’t have friends, open the Yellow Pages.
And don’t tell me you don’t know what financial disasters you need to plan for. You do. You think about them regularly. Some of them keep you awake at night.
If you live in a bushfire zone … if your partner dies … if you have an accident and can’t work … if you haven’t got your car/house insured … if your business relies on one major supplier … if you’ve over-invested in one wobbly asset … if your employer is looking a bit shaky … if the stock market crashes …
The risks you face will be different to mine, different to your best mate’s, your neighbour’s, your brother’s or sister’s.
While my business’s email dramas (the predominant communications we have with clients and suppliers) were essentially electronic, the damage was financial – money and time (and time is simply money anyway).
I’ll put my hand up. I didn’t foresee that risk. And some of my actions in the following week were, in hindsight, costly errors.
Plan for disasters. They will happen. And then when disaster strikes, be ready to call in professionals.
And with my A-Team implementing solutions, I can now say: “I love it when a plan comes together”.
Bruce Brammall is the author of Debt Man Walking (www.debtman.com.au) and a licensed financial adviser. bruce@debtman.com.au .