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Musings - 
If the Power Goes Out
What happens to your business if the power goes out? Do you have to turn away business because your registers don't work? How many potential new customers are you losing because they don't have the patience to wait for you to be up and running again? Patience is one of those virtues that has been corrupted by today's fast paced, instant gratification society.
Your best defense is to have a portable generator gassed up and ready to go so you are not down for more than a few minutes. Unfortunately, very few businesses have these preparations in place so you need a plan B.
The circumstances of not being prepared can be monumental. Today's computer technology allows you to have everything automated; your inventory, your sales figures, your employee records and your cash registers; if the power goes out you are temporarily out of business. And, can you afford to pay employees to sit around in the dark?
Of course it is inconvenient, but your second line of defense is to train your employees to write sales bills manually. You can enter the information into your system  later when it becomes available, but at least you won't lose sales from an unavoidable glitch. Business can proceed the way it did "in the old days" before we all got so dependent on computers. Some of your younger employees may be caught off guard, but with good training they should be able to handle anything that comes their way.
It is also important to cross train your employees so that they can step into someone else's job if necessary. Without a team to back you up your business is in danger of catastrophic results as a result of no fault of your own, except for being unprepared
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may be having a not so positive day. If you see something in the newspaper or a magazine that made you think of someone clip it and pop it in a note card 
