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The Small Business Owner's Guide to a Good Night's Sleep

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The Small Business Owner's Guide to a Good Night's Sleep

Preventing and Solving Chronic and Costly Problems

Bloomberg Press,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

How can you make an unmitigated disaster even worse? By failing to be prepared.

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Debra Koontz Traverso is out to save your business. Her book lives up to its billing as the first practical guide for small business owners who want to know how to manage a crisis like the big guys, or even better. Traverso tells you how to prepare for a crisis, prevent a crisis and manage a crisis if one happens. She’s written a thorough manual imbued with her understanding of the mindset and circumstances affecting small business owners. Traverso’s well-written book is jam-packed with insights, valuable lists, ideas and examples, and it never skims the surface of an issue. Come wind, sleet, hail or dark of night, if you are in a small business, getabstract.com recommends this essential book. Even if you work for a large organization, this book might be worth your time, since many big companies are strictly small-time when it comes to planning ahead.

Summary

Risky Business

Companies of all sizes must develop on-going crisis-management strategies that protect their images and prevent, prepare for and manage a worst-case scenario. Planning for a potential crisis is time-consuming, but in the face of situations that could wreck your company, the benefits of being prepared are obvious. Think of crisis management as your company’s first-aid kit, always well stocked and ready if needed.

Every business is potentially a risky business. A risk is anything that threatens your plans for your business, from simple, yet annoying things that merely waste your time, to major destructive calamities. Major corporations have risk-management departments that plan for the possible problems that can develop while building a company, introducing a new product, entering a new market or bringing on more employees. What kind of crises could befall companies of any size? Well, for instance:

  • A disgruntled former employee assaults a former colleague at your workplace.
  • A whistle-blower says your company is the site of drug use, theft, racial discrimination, sexual harassment, pollution or criminal misconduct - even though it isn...

About the Author

Debra Koontz Traverso teaches crisis management and prevention as an adjunct professor at Harvard University. She is a small business consultant who serves as the small-business expert for WorkingWoman.com. She is also the author of Outsmarting Goliath , and co-president of WriteDirections.com, which offers consulting and tele-classes in business and personal writing. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area.

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