19: The one about the back-up plan

Holy shit, let's talk about backup plans! Because when life decides to throw you a curveball (or ten), you better have your ass covered. In this episode, we're getting real about the times everything went sideways - from family members landing in hospital to that moment your internet dies right before a client call (fuckin' NBN!).

We're spilling the tea on how we've managed to keep our businesses running when everything's going to hell, including the game-changing power of having ride-or-die people in your corner. Plus, we're sharing our no-bullshit guide to documenting your processes so someone can step in when you're down for the count.

From shareholder agreements (sexy, we know) to backing up your shit properly, we're covering all the boring-but-essential stuff that'll save your bacon when disaster strikes. Think of it as your business insurance policy against life's 'what the fuck' moments.

Get ready for some truth bombs about planning for the worst while hoping for the best. Because let's face it - shit happens, and you need to be ready when it does.

Number of fucks given in this episode: 19

Mentioned in this episode:
* Ready to Boss Legal for online business legal templates. Use code THEWOMENINBUSINESS10 to get 10% off!

Transcript

Emily: Welcome to the fuck around and find out podcast we're your host. It's Emily, Rah and Christine. We are three women who have built and run our businesses and are here to shoot the shit on everything about women in business and running your own business. Welcome ladies. We are here in the Bella Vista Hotel.

What's more? Hey Bella! Hey Bella! What's up?

Rah: Got my coffee. Got my coke. I'm all caffeined up, ready to go.

Emily: Yes, we're ready to rock and roll. Mm hmm.

Rah: I've eaten, I've

Christine: run out of drink, but nice muggy,

Emily: muggy day here today. Delightful. Um, we're going to kick this lovely episode off with a bit of a quick fun fact, cause we, we do dilly dally a little bit and we, you know, fast games, good game sometimes.

So we're going to do a speed round of fun facts and I'm going to go, Chris, go.

Christine: Oh my God. Okay. I don't like surprises. Yeah, cool. Um, so, um, I've had two surprise parties. given to me, um, in my life and, uh, personally, first one was a big failure for me and the second one I hurt some feelings for the person who was, uh, involved.

Oops. It's the nature of a surprise party. It can happen. Exactly. It's a high risk. That's right. My face fell and she was right in front of me. Um, anyway, so don't like surprises. Um, I'm, I don't think I'm a control freak. I just, you know, Don't like surprises. It's just the element of unknown. That's right.

That's

Rah: a good one. Yeah. Okay.

Christine: Alright, right, I'll go.

Emily: Fuck, I don't know. Can we cut to you first? I'm still thinking. Alright, cool. Yeah. Um, I, I don't know if it's a fun fact, but I'm very, it's kind of on the theme of Chris's one. Hmm. I am really anti opening presents in front of people. Same concept. Yep. Ooh.

Principles are the same. I don't like it with my children. That would have reduced so much anxiety for me as a kid. It's very anxiety inducing. Yeah. And it also, um, it really can hurt people's feelings. Yeah. And especially like, my kids at a young age too, when they're, you know, every kid's young, they can't control their facial expressions.

And it's just not nice when you pick, if your kid opens a present and they're like, Oh, this is shit. Yeah. And I hate it too. Mum already bought this for me. Yeah. And there's that too. And it's like, Oh, it's okay. It's fine. Like we'll have more than one. It's great. And you know, as an adult, sometimes too, like I've had times where people keep gifting me coffee candles and I don't even, I barely even drink coffee, nor do I like the smell of it.

So it's like.

Rah: Thanks. And just for the listeners at home, I'm drinking your coffee right next door. I love coffee. I don't like the smell.

Emily: I'm real funny with smell. It's probably not a fun fact. So I'm really particular about smell and candles especially. So I'm like, nah, I can't. I think we should rename

Christine: this segment Factoid.

Yeah, factoid. It's not fun facts. It can be either or. Yes. So, right. Have you thought about it?

Rah: Well, now that I'm thinking about coffee, you got me thinking about, I only started drinking coffee in 2008, which doesn't feel that long ago. I realized there are young people in the studio with us. And they weren't even born when I started drinking coffee.

And the only reason I started drinking coffee was a job that I, the job that I had back then was part of World Youth Day. Gazillion. Oh my God. People pilgrimage into Sydney. All the youth just made you

Emily: need to have coffee.

Rah: Yeah. And also the really good looking priests from Europe. Oh God. God. Europe, , we used to call them father water waste.

Emily: God, that's true.

Rah: Yeah, so true. The priests apparently in Europe. smoke. Oh yeah. And look hot. And I've got a calendar at home that is the hot priests of the Vatican. And it's always really like, they look like the hot priest from play bag.

Christine: All right. Well, first of all, I'm sorry. I'm bringing that in. I'll bring it in.

I'm going to be gifting

Emily: you guys the firefighter. No,

Christine: don't give me, I love a good firefighter, but not on your wall, not on the wall. No. And certainly not stroking a pussy on the bloody ones.

Rah: That's what I was going to get you. Oh, great. My husband will love it. I'll stick it in the bathroom at home. But yeah.

So as part of all of that, amongst other things, we were working massive hours. I was an official photographer for the event and it meant that we were doing such long hours and you weren't often able to get to energy drinks because I was a big V drinker back Huh. So was I. And wasn't always possible. And then I, um, discovered the only way I was going to get a caffeine fix was by drinking coffee.

No, I can completely understand that. Here's what you need to do. So now have coffee machine at home. Yep. Drink several coffees a day. Yes. I've only just started like this year. You're fresh. You're fresh.

Christine: I think next episode we record, I will talk to you about my coffee standards. Oh, yes. Chris has got high standards.

I've got very high standards. I love a good standard. So that can be my factoid next time. Wait, so you only started drinking coffee after I met you guys? Yeah. Me? No, I've been.

Emily: Well, no, but this one. Oh, yeah. I met them over here. And I only started because they changed the flavor of V. And it's like a subtle change, but it's enough that I fucking hate it.

Again, I'm a bit ADHD. And so the textures and the tastes and smells are very, very big on me for me. And I just, it's probably cheaper

Rah: flavoring.

Emily: Yeah.

Rah: So I'm teaching myself coffee. Sponsor us though. Cause I fucking love V. Blue V in a bottle. All right. Yeah, it's too

Emily: sweet for me. I can't do it. No,

Rah: no such thing.

Emily: Anyway, we digress. So

Rah: we do. You can know we're all interested. We're all very interesting now. We

Emily: we're here today to talk about, um, the backup plan is what we've actually named this one. Um, I suggested this topic for us when, uh, Chris was dying from COVID and Rah had so much crap going on in her personal life.

So much drama to call it,

Rah: dying from COVID. I was dying. She was dying from

Emily: COVID. And we had a conference to run and I was like, Ooh, thank, thank God guys, one of us is still standing. This is why we're a trio. It is why we're a trio. And also there's the, you know, that is the power of having a backup plan and we are each other's backup plans.

And, you know, this is where it came from because. You as a sole trader.

Rah: Yes, exactly. Sorry. Can we just go back? Can we refer to ourselves as a threesome? It's

Emily: much

Rah: more fun that way.

Emily: We'll tell the hotel booking we've got coming up in a week. We've got a threesome. We're a threesome.

Rah: Oh my God. Could you imagine the hotel staff?

They'd be like, I'll do more. Three

Christine: bathrobes in

Emily: this three star hotel. Especially when they look at you, rock up with your purple hair. I'm covered in tattoos. They'll be like, what the fuck's going on? Um, but we are each other's backup plan. Correct. And it's really important. Chris and I have been talking a lot about it this year.

Cause we. Admittedly, we have not done it very well in these last two years by not relinquishing things we should have and we needed to. And also, you need to live and breathe and be sick. And, you know, we both got kids. We need to do things, we need to be able to back each other up. Yeah, that's right. And it's been a real running theme I think, for us this year.

And it's also like interesting to hear your take on it as someone who is on your own and when shit does hit the fan 'cause and you know, life kicks in the balls, which is my favorite saying. Yes, it does constantly. It really does what you do.

Rah: Yeah. And so mine was happening, it was around about the same time that you had Covid, wasn't it Chris?

So we were getting into the very frantic stage of. planning our conference and finalizing everything. And my darling husband was violently ill for three weeks straight to the point where I was not able to actually get anything done for some of those days. And you can't like, it's that stuff. It's the hit by bus theory.

You can't, what do

Emily: you do? Yeah.

Christine: You

Emily: can't do exercise. You can't be sick right now. I've got to do some

Christine: work and organize a conference. So you just die over in the corner. And I have

Rah: done work. Yeah. Literally at my mother's bedside as she was dying. I was like, I really need to get this shit done. It's a really hard thing.

Which I didn't feel bad about. Cause we were, she was, we knew what time was coming. And so we knew we were just there to be companion. So it didn't, and she wasn't aware that I was working. So it was fine. But you know, but now I would not do it in the way that I have set myself up. As an employee I was doing it because I felt so guilty and wanted to make sure I was doing my job properly.

Whereas now, so as soon as this was happening and it was like a constant needing to be available, couldn't really do much more than five minutes of work at a time. And it really highlighted that hit by a bus. Like I've been literally using that term for years and everyone at my old jobs would give me shit for using that terminology.

But you just have to be prepared. You do. And

Emily: it's, It's really hard, you know, at least with Chris and I, we have each other so we can make sure that like one of us will step up when the other cannot step up. We've also got a team by the nature of our business so that we have, we are working on a plan to make sure certain people are upskilled in what we need them to cover when we need them to cover it.

Um, so we have a built in backup plan by our nature of how we've set our business up. Um, but it's different when it's you.

Rah: Yes. But this is where randomly meeting people who you end up starting a podcast and conference and community with

Emily: that you

Rah: can start to sort of build that in while maintaining my fierce independence that I seem to be unable to let go of, um, but also realizing that as lovely as my clients were when I was saying to them, I just can't get this done and I wasn't missing deadlines thankfully, but it was just, I wasn't at my.

full strength.

Christine: No. So the communication piece is really important, especially when you're facing challenges, uh, fulfilling, you know, the services that you need to be providing someone, whether it's, you know, in a contract to capacity or it's direct client sort of work, you know, and, and often if you're.

Honest and saying, hang, can't do it. You can come up with some solutions together or bring half a solution and then you can can together with a client. Workshop something. Workshop it. Absolutely.

Rah: Um, and it's a lesson that the, the communication throughout the working relationship means that when shit does go wrong.

And it will means that you're in a much better position because they appreciate you being honest.

Christine: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I have looked after this one particular client and it's, you know, four years now and I've come through the flu. I've come through back injury and surgery and I have come through COVID.

And when I got sick with COVID, I just sent in an email to say, I'm dead. I've got COVID. I can't come to today's meeting. Um, and, and things just, rolled around and I did bare minimum that couple of weeks, but you know what they knew and they just put some stuff aside.

Emily: Yeah. Yeah. But also life happens, like people need to be able to be sick and we usually get sick every winter or whatever it might be.

We've all, you've had COVID, I've had pneumonia, we've all been sick. Yeah. And then, but also shit happened, like my grandfather passed away this year and. Yep. You know, that is a massive curveball when that happens, you can't predict that it happens.

Christine: No, and just because we own our own businesses doesn't mean that we can't be impacted by the human stuff.

Emily: No, we are still human and life still happens and we are lucky that we do have wonderful clients that understand that. Yeah. Uh, like, of course, you obviously do what you do, but we, they also know that we've got plans in place to, to allow for this. Like we have people that can step in and, and take care of things and go from there and that they have that reassurance that we'll always have that coverage in place.

But it's, again, it's a tricky one. And I think one of the things that I think you're really good with Rah is, uh, When you are a sole trader and you're on your own, the concept of collaborating with another business can be a bit intimidating. And I think I know it's also probably beneficial because we've got such a wonderful relationship.

Well, that's the thing. It's it's, but it's also speaks to how important it is to have that business bestie or business buddy to have someone who you trust implicably to be able to just step in for you and take care of it knowing that when you come back, it's like, here you go. Yeah, we've looked after the baby in the bundle and here it is.

Yeah, I've taken it on as if there are your own. Yeah, it's like me handing you my daughter. Yeah, keep her safe and alive, please. And maybe I'll take her back. Yes. Um, it's the same concept. Well, you're taking her back. Yeah. She's too cute. I do cry a lot. Yeah. You'll be fine. She'll be sick of me before too long.

Are you kidding? She'd be in heaven in your way with all the, with all the colors and rainbows and fluffy skirts and, and all that stuff. And the cats, we've got those two, she loves them.

Christine: Yep. So having, um, and having a biz buddy or someone you can collaborate with that you can potentially, yes, pass the, uh, the client baby over to for a period of time, um, is, you know, all my, I almost want to say it's that.

Um, insurance, it's related to insurance. You know, we all have insurance and we don't question insurance in our lives. In business, most important, I, I don't question it. Cars insured and you know, the health insured and, and all of that. But it's just another form of insurance. You can have your backup plan, which, and I know that's the topic here, but I feel like Being able to collaborate or feeling, um, close enough to somebody as a biz buddy.

to be able to entrust them with something so precious.

Emily: It's actually how Chris and I like started because we were definitely biz buddies trying to support each other before we went, why the fuck are we just doing this together? It's not easy also going into business with someone as we've spoken about before, but having someone like that is so important.

So important. Yeah. To the point where we've now roped you into business. Yes. Hello.

Rah: Yes. Hello. We've been in business, but that's where I'm really lucky that Yes. I had a couple of friends who have got their own businesses that I was able to be inspired by at least like seeing their model and going, yeah, yeah.

Right. Okay. But now through all the networking, how I found you two, how I found other people, some of them have been on the podcast already and building that sort of collegiality. Yes. And, you know, I might go to people for different things. Um, but even like I've got a Monday morning at 1111, have an accountability group and whoever's available, which is as many of them as possible.

We all jump on and talk about what's great, what's not, and what are we working on and how are we going with our 90 day goal of what we're trying to get done. And it just makes such a difference when you're getting involved. Doing it solo. Yeah,

Emily: I know. I thought I have seen you do that. And I've thought, God, I just don't have time to do something like that.

But I'm like, I, I haven't built in naturally with Chris. Yeah. Like the amount of times we, it's probably sometimes detrimental when I actually go into the office with Chris. Cause I'm like, what about this? What about that? And then we just talk and don't do the work. But I actually found this

Christine: week was quite beneficial.

Look, I think at the end of the day, it's all beneficial. It just, it just fucks up. up at a particular day's product. Well, no, I don't even want to just shift

Rah: things around. Well, that's what it

Christine: is. And I don't even want to say it fucks up productivity because we're actually problem solving something. Well, you know, and this week

Emily: we went in and we, we managed to catch our accountant.

We had a fucking good conversation of stuff. that was building up for him. We then made some big decisions on how we want to do some of the back end stuff. We really kind of got it all laid out on paper. And yeah, I got, I went home being like, I feel a bit more organized now. And like, I feel like, Oh yeah, we're getting this shit.

We're like, we've got, you know, a bit more realignment. Like it's, I don't know. It was really good. Yeah. But I mean, it does have that point of, oops, we need to do the work, you know, you just

Christine: catch it up on the other side. But business administration is, is, is necessary. So in a day to day job,

Rah: when I was working for other people in all sorts of jobs, I would refer to my procrastinate work time, which looked like I was doing jack shit because I was reorganizing a cupboard or moving furniture or

Emily: tidying

Rah: up files.

But it was that thinking time. Exactly. To work out what a solution would be. Thinking time is like fucking paramount. It's underrated. Yeah. And

Emily: I am the worst. Like, you guys cop the brood of it from me because I'll go for a walk and then I'll be Famous two hour phone calls. Yes. Or I'll come back from a weekend away and be like, I've got ideas, things to do.

So like, but I, it is also really important. to do that too though, because it kind of brings some clarity and it just clicks some stuff into place. And I'm the worst at it. Chris cops it so much when I'm driving. I'll call her and be like, I noticed on Slack when you taught a

Rah: huddle and I'm like, Oh, this has been going a while.

Yeah. Is it work or is it world domination? Yeah.

Emily: It's a bit of all of it. Yeah. Like it's all of that stuff. And it's just that. You know, I kind of go, I'm very much a soundboarding human as well. So I need to, I need to soundboard myself off people. And that's where you guys got to look, but honestly, but that's actually

Rah: what's been good because very early on, I was too nervous and self conscious to be talking to people too much about what my plans were Yeah.

Can I have a picture of you like that? Oh, I'm still that person, but I'm getting, um, that sounded French, sorry.

I want to be like, I want to do the voice like that snail that eat the wagon wheel. I love it. Do I get a snail for that? Anything wagon wheel? No, clearly not. Em's got no idea. I

Christine: am a wagon wheel. A wagon wheel. Oh, are you? Okay. I just remember

Rah: the ad. Oh yeah, no, no, no. We'll find you the YouTube link, Em. Love good wagon wheel.

But

Christine: anyway,

Rah: we so totally digress. Yes.

Emily: Once more.

Rah: Uh, yes. We're feeling. But all of those, all of those discussions we've just filtered into. Yeah. It's all part of having a backup plan because then you've got your trusted network

Emily: and you're not losing your business is not going to suffer and that's the thing like it's a hard enough slog just to keep running at any point in any time.

The work we put in, you know, is astronomical hard. It's, it's. The hardest thing you'll do, I think people underestimate, uh, having a salary and what they can do with it. I mean, we all did, but then it's kind of what you're giving up, what you gain and what you can do. And it, the functionality of a business is so big.

Um, you have to have a plan in place. You can't just. Nope. You know, what happens if something happens and you know, the world ends and, and like, as we've heard again from our lovely accountant friend, um, in the conference, David, he talked about the three days and it's also even having those kinds of plans in place.

What, you know, we've spoken about this before, if Chris dies, At this point in time, I know, the world will end, shit got dark real quick, but you know, but it's the three Ds, it's the death, divorce, and what? Who's gonna make my dried apples? Toffee? You know, this, this is the real thing, right? If, if something was to happen to Chris or if something was to happen to me, both of our husbands have an entitlement to our business.

Um, and that's, you know, we wanted it to strictly be just us, no one else, not our husband. Um, yeah, but you know, that, that's something that I remember you seeing at the conference being like, Oh fuck.

Christine: Oh yeah. No, there's something else I need to do because it's like, and that came from, um, Dave's presentation.

Um, and it's like, Oh, yeah. Need to get that sorted. And, and it's because we go into business with some entrepreneurial minds and my husband's not an entrepreneurial mind and that's nothing against him. No, it's just that all the business was for us. It's not our baby and I won't

Emily: love it if he tries to come.

I'm

Christine: not wanting to adopt it out. You know,

Emily: it's stuff that I think I know as Dave was giving us an example during the conference and I think a lot of people in the crowd were like, Oh, shit. Fuck. You could legit feel it. Like better. You could, yeah, the whole room just kind of went, Oh yeah, shit. And he gave us a really good example of when it was a bit chaotic as well.

So, but it's little, that's, it's a backup plan. That's a plan. You need to have all these boxes ticked to make sure that you are secured. Yeah. You know, Chris and I had a backup plan or just, yeah, it's a fail safe really for when we've got a shareholder agreement in place for when we joined into business, even though we are obviously like family at this point.

Christine: If Emily says I have to have, you know, a specific, you know, tattoo put on my body and I say, no, I don't want to, I don't want to play anymore. We've got the, you know, the agreement in place that we can

Rah: break up. Yeah. But it's, Also, the same that if you suddenly wake up and forget what the, what the rules are, you know,

Christine: what

Rah: the verbal

Christine: agreement is.

And again, it's just that other piece of, um, insurance. And

Emily: also, I mean, in our instance, when you are, um, going into business with someone, we've obviously spoken about, one of our early guests was, um, the beautiful Mel from Salon Mayor who touched on an experience she had prior to starting her own salon where she was in a business partnership with someone else, and it didn't end well.

And it's having that protection in place, watching what she'd gone through and knowing like, you know, me being in the same instance almost, but obviously in a much better relationship with you. Thanks babe. Um, but we had taken those extra steps to be safeguarded, but they hadn't. Yeah. And it caused so much toxicity so quickly within them.

Um, and then the husbands got involved and then it just became a bit of a, bit of a bigger bent than bent her type of deal. Um, so it's like having those elements in place to stop any of that repercussions happening when on the occasion that it may go sour, which also leads to the whole really, really, really make sure you've got a good person with you that is literally like you'd cut an arm off or, or hand a child to if, if anything was to happen before you go into business with them.

Yep.

Rah: 100%. But

Emily: super important. Super important, nonetheless.

Rah: And even, um, regardless of how many people you've got in your team, team of one, um, it's also about having your documentation covered. So your SOPs, standard operating procedures, um, because I was even on a, Um, onboarding call yesterday with a new client and I said, I document things and I save them on your drives and your Dropboxes or whatever file system they end up using.

Yep. So that if I do get hit by a bus, I literally said it like I was joking earlier about how often I've said it, but I did say yesterday saying I will document everything and it will be in your drive so that if I become non communicator,

Emily: you

Rah: know what to do.

Emily: Yeah, the world's not hindering around me.

Yeah, but it's funny. That mindset, a lot of, like in some of my early days, the people that would prefer to be solely people reliant on them because they'd see it as power or they'd see it as being too threatened to let it be anywhere else. It also biting themselves in the feet because it's like, well, now you can't have a break, you can't be sick, you can't have any of this happen because you've made everyone so reliant on you that they cannot function without you.

It's like it's moving past the ego that's built into that. And yeah,

Rah: there's the ego, but then there's also the circumstances that you're working amongst because sometimes it's, they just don't want to admit that they're too scared to have to do it themselves someday for whatever reason, either because they're just not that type of person or they're just a dick.

Um, you've got to push through it and sometimes I've learned that the hard way. Oh yeah. The really hard way. Yeah. Um, because when, you know, when there's been a death in the family, it's like, all of a sudden I'm not there.

Emily: Mm hmm. Yeah. And there will be things like that. And that's what, you know, life kicks you in the balls.

Yep. Just as you think everything's going smoothly, something like this does come along and throws Sometimes it's hard enough that it does reach the ovaries. Yeah, the way into the lady

Rah: balls. Yeah. It really does. Yeah. And

Emily: it's just the end of the world, really. Yeah. Um, and it's really hard. It's really, really hard.

And what you got to be careful what you do then, and you got to have your plans in place. Mm. Yep, that's right.

Rah: And the, um, the other thing that I've been paying more attention to lately, 'cause I've seen a couple of clients get a bit caught up with these sorts of things, but like legals, like terms and conditions.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've had a conversation

Emily: about this lately too. Didn't, haven't we? The contracts and the, yeah. That kind of stuff too, like it's important to cover your bum with that stuff as well. Like, I think I, I think I gave the example on our first take of this episode, possibly it was, that we're now re recording for various reasons, um, I had a, uh, a friend of mine give us, give me an example that they specialize in contracts.

And like, um, commercial management for major, um, trades and, and construction companies and stuff like that. And, uh, they review, they review contracts for people and make sure that all of those minute detail are in there. And there was an instance where a contract crossed the desk and had to kind of point out being that you do realize that, you know, said to the client, you do realize that in this contract, if you're one day late, you are going to be.

Expected to pay 40, 000 and then it was 40, 000 per day. And the client's like, Oh, no, I didn't know that was there. It's like, well, you fucking well signed it, mate. Yeah. Like, and it's like, well, now you're liable for this. Like you need to have this stuff reviewed before you sign it because you don't know what you're signing.

But it also, as the person who sends out contracts, this is protecting you. You know, we, we've had our client, one of our clients who had stuff happen on their end, which happens because life and followed the, we, what we've got laid out in our contracts about giving us ample notice, followed it to a T and it was like, well, yeah, okay.

It hurt us as well. Cause that's just the nature of what it is, but we were ready for it. And we were aware of what was, well, that's right. And, and

Christine: she's comfortable knowing that she is giving the right. Amount of notice because of reviewing her copy of the contract. Um, and it just covers everybody and gives clear understanding.

And, um, so, you know, it's not only important to have, you know, really good agreements and terms and conditions in place, but also to do a bit of review because what, what was correct in law or arrangements five years ago is not actually going to be essentially correct now. Laws change, amend, whatever. I'm not a legal person, so I don't know what I'm talking about really, but, um, But, you know, there is, um, you know, places that we refer to.

So, you know, I'm going to reference Ready to Boss Legal because they are a legal firm who provide contracts depending on different industries or uses, um, for them. So it's really important to make sure that. Your tool, your contract is up to date. Is it tall?

Emily: So childish, bandit.

Christine: Um, and so that's, that's an important, you know, backup is to have it all the checks and balances

Emily: there.

Yeah. And it's also, um, you know, With, you know, Ready to Buzz Legal, I'll throw out the fact that we do have an affiliate code. If anyone is interested, it will be listed on our website. So go and use that. Get yourself a little bit of a discount, but worth having a look at because we were quite impressed with the suite of, um, contracts that were available there.

It was heaps. Yeah. Really detailed list. Really, really good. Um, worth having a look at, but it's so important and there are other places you can also get contracts done for you if you need to. I mean, and if you need

Rah: the bespoke, then obviously you can go the full suite and get an actual personalized contract written up,

Emily: you

Rah: know, there's so many things to think of, but

Emily: there is, yeah.

But it is worth, worth making sure you've done the due diligence to have this sorted because you don't want to get into that worst case scenario where life kicks you so fucking hard the balls that you don't know what's going on and you don't want to jeopardize your business. It's worth it. Especially if you have staff, you've still got people to pay.

People whose livelihoods are depending on you as well. It's something you cannot be jeopardising and fucking around with. Yep. Yeah. Very, very important in every aspect of life is the gold key to make sure that you have your backup plan prepared. Don't fuck around with this stuff, guys. It's really important.

Definitely not a fuck around and find out moment. And then there's backup

Christine: plans relating to, you know, the tools of the trade more than the contracts and whatnot, but it's the hardware, you know, so. Um, absolutely. Oh my God. We had

Emily: one of those this week. Yeah. Christ. You know,

Christine: so we've um. Which one? God,

Emily: you've had multiples

Christine: haven't you?

I've had multiples. Well, we've had, we've had a lot of trouble with the um, internet at the, where we, we, we lease an office. Yeah. So there's been a lot of. Literally kicked me

Emily: off the webinar we were running. That's right. The live. Like halfway through that I was also recording on my computer. Thank God, uh, Chris didn't get kicked off at the same time and was able to just slide to the side so I could slide in.

Yes. Um, so there's that, and,

Christine: and I know that, you know, okay, well, other people, can't, they get Starlink, for example, an expensive alternative to internet, but it's actually a little bit, you know, it's better, um, you know, I mean, I, you know, you sort of think what comes with a building is going to be okay, and generally is, but also weather has something in place.

But, but what do you got in place? So, yeah, you, okay, sometimes you can't find an immediate solution for your internet if If hot spotting off your phone is not going to help you at all, but there are out to the local McDonald's. Yeah, absolutely. You know, head somewhere. Um, but yeah, so what happens when the internet goes down or the platforms go down, you know, we know that there's been password manager who have been

Emily: also like talk, but we've had this conversation about Facebook pages and Facebook pages, not having multiple administrations.

Yeah. And the amount of people that lost their pages because they haven't got double admins on it, is you'd get a double admin on it. You need someone on there. And you were talking about setting up a secondary account so you could have double admins. Yeah, so

Rah: something I've been stewing on a, because I showed em the list of Facebook pages I have on my meta business suite and it's ridiculous.

And then I get notified of all about all of them. And then the ones that I actually need to focus on and get the notifications about, I don't notice. Yes. 'cause I get so many things. Yeah. Um. So I'm looking at actually creating a second account. So second personal profile for Facebook with some variation of my name.

So at least it's still recognizable, but is not the primary personal account. So that as I'm onboarding, yeah. So that, so I, that means I've got access to two personal profiles that can be added to my own pages and my own, you know, God forbid if I ever lose access to my Hamilton Facebook group or my music, general musicals, she says saluting generals.

Um, but my general musicals group. You know, that's already got something like 7, 000 members or something. Like I don't want to lose it. Not that I'm using it as a, it's not a business thing for me, but it's something that I've crafted it and built

Christine: it. And there's been blood, sweat, tears and tantrums and everything into it, but that's actually a really good, it's a really good idea.

Also a

Emily: bit tricky because Facebook get a bit funny about, um, setting up dummy accounts, like they will really, really make it hard if you, if they think it's a potential spam account, because so many people. have their accounts stolen and have their passwords hacked and all that and lose their accounts or just have dummy accounts made for them.

Like my poor grandfather has got about six dummy accounts made of him all with his same profile photo and everything. People have just stolen imagery and stuff. And now that he's not here anymore, it's like, what do we do with this? It's kind of a bit creepy when you get message requests or friend requests from your grandfather that's not alive anymore.

And it's, but it happens so often. And it's like, so it's trying to legitimize it. So it looks legitimate and um, all of that. Um, we're going to have a quick radio break for the little daughter that wants to say hi. Hi. Hi Arabella. Office manager. Studio manager. Yes. What's a studio manager? It means you're telling us quick, quick, hurry up.

Stop talking too much. We're sitting in a

Christine: studio right now Arabella and you will tell us what to do. You're in charge. Yeah. Hashtag mum life. Yes. Kids not going to school today. You need a manager. Yes, exactly right. Yes. Well, you know what it's, and that's a backup plan really isn't it when you've got to juggle kids or something and it could just be something as simple as Arabella's managing us in the podcast studio today because that's the backup plan.

And now mummy's

Rah: managing

Christine: a cough

Rah: that's being stifled.

Christine: Exactly. You know, and there's some things that you can't plan for and you just have to go with the flow. Yep. But. But going with the flow in attitude and other people being empathetic around you is part of the back out plan. And I think,

Emily: you know, most people, moms will understand, like I've, I've very much gotten to the point with my kids that I'm like, I just don't care if you think I'm a mess.

This is, you don't know what's going on in my life. This is the best I've got right now. And that's the best it's going to be right now. Yeah, absolutely. So you just kind of take me as I am. If you don't like me. You're in, you're in like as a,

Rah: I'm getting too old for that shit. Oh, so much. So,

Emily: and I also like, I'm off that.

I've one of those people that I don't have family here. I don't have support that I can call on that easily. I have like 800 mum, grandma, please come to me. No, they live in Tasmania. They're not hurt. No help to me. So, you know, I've got a wonderful tribe of people around me, um, who I can lean on, but I don't feel as available to do that because they are not my direct family and I don't want to inconvenience them too much.

But I do have a tribe. And I've got mates who have family who don't do anything and that's a huge part. It's a huge part as well. Yeah. You

Rah: know.

Emily: And it's really, I think it's hard and you got to, I mean, I am my, my, uh, my siblings are privileged to have me as their sibling, if they ever listened to this, they'll roll the rights.

Um, but I, you know, I had, I've had some situations this year where my little brother needed some help and he had a brand new baby who was, Oh God, barely even six months old, maybe six months old. And I had to mind her for a day unexpectedly. And I was there trying to run training sessions with a baby in my arms feeding her.

And I was lucky that the women I was training. One or more women for one. I think they're a bit more lenient, but they're all like, Oh, cute baby. Yeah, absolutely. And we're completely fine with it, which thankfully I think COVID has fixed that attitude thing. But you know, I just sat there and went, sorry, this is just what's happened to me.

I'm rolling with it right now. I can still talk to you. Yeah. It's like, I'm trying to like click buttons with one hand and stuff, but I'm like, I can still figure this out. It's better

Rah: than not turning up at all. Exactly. Exactly. Right. So

Emily: you just work with what you got.

Rah: Yep. And that's, that's the thing.

Another part of the backup plans, because it's not necessarily, well, it's not just family having needs that you need to jump in on and internet failing. It's like this year, my laptops had to go into Apple for a week at a time. Yes. And that was a big lesson.

Christine: So how did you manage that?

Rah: With crying.

Christine: No, not quite.

After you stopped crying. Was the crying

Rah: stopped? Yes. And handed over the credit card? Yes. Actually, no. To Apple's credit, I didn't pay both times for the repairs. That's pretty good. Yeah. That's good. Um, even though I said, please take my money, they were like, no, it's fine. Okay. Well, that's good. Um, previous experience has taught me that There's any chance that something's going to die on a computer, it's going to die when you need it the most.

And so that's why everything except my downloads folder is synced to a cloud device of some kind. So I've got Google, I've got Dropbox, I've got iPhotos, I don't know, I've got shit everywhere. Some things, my photos from my phone get synced to both Google and cloud because I'm paranoid. Um, and I don't want to lose photos of the cats, um, super important totes the, so that was the biggest savior was having all of that.

The one piece that was missing that I rectified, which I was then able to test successfully was that I didn't have an external hard drive connected to my laptop to do what are they called the time machine backup on, on an Apple. That's what they call them. And now that I've got that every time it's connected to my computer monitor at home, The hard drive is connected to that.

So then I can just plug it in. And so every couple of days, whenever I'm back at my desk at home, AKA the dining table, it's running a backup so that if I ever need to, I can just go back to my old laptop because I I'm lucky because. Tech nerds at home, we have, we have, we have backups, which worked because I had a newer laptop not being used that I was going to bring back into the ranks.

It stopped working and it wouldn't boot. So now I've returned it to Apple and that they're going to, you know, resell it for parts like it's C3PO and Star Wars. But the second time around I was far more organized and you know, and this is where things like password managers, like obviously LastPass has had issues with security things, but they're not the only password manager.

using Chrome profiles that are saved so that you can sync them across multiple devices.

Emily: Sitting here working on a Chrome profile right now. Yes.

Rah: Um, but also means that short term, let's say I've, and this actually happened. I was, um, staying with my friend after her husband had died really tragically and unexpectedly.

And Dan accidentally went home back to Sydney with my laptop because I left it in the car. Cause I was running the PowerPoint presentation at the wake. And so he drove it home. And then I was like, fuck, how am I going to do my job? Cause I was lucky that my boss was letting, was flexible enough. And I was like, I can jump in and do work in drips and drives and I'll, you know, try and keep up.

But thankfully I was able to log into my Chrome browser on a laptop that was not mine and get on with my job and it synced everything. I was able to get to my Google drive, my emails, my calendar.

Emily: Absolute favorite thing about Chrome is how well it is to just be able to jump in.

Rah: Although, and to think everything, I never thought I would say this.

You can do it with Microsoft as well with Edge, hate. Edge. I hate Edge too, personally. I'm using it for clients. Yeah. A single client who uses everything Microsoft, just to keep it.

Christine: And I, and I totally get that. Um, but even old, there are some dicky things

Rah: about it. I'm like, why? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's.

Christine: It's funny because, you know, I, um, use a PC product and everything and it edge comes with it.

And it's like, Oh, I don't want that as my, I love growing. Yep. Absolutely. Yes. Well, um, we're not long from getting a backup plan laptop for me. Yeah. We are very close to that. Yeah. I started looking at that and it's like, Oh my God. Yeah. Look at all the specs and. And it's not because, you know, this laptop is past its use by date.

It's just that it's a, it's part of that backup plan. It's also going to become a solution for managing. One of our clients is to keep the laptop separate for their work, uh, because there's specific things that need to be installed, um, because some of the stuff they use is not. In the cloud. Yes. No, and

Emily: that's also something you get in a backup plan.

We got caught off guard with that. And, um, to be fair, he also, I don't think was fully aware that it was going to require physical hardware being installed. So we got caught with that too. Um, but. It's something that's become a problem for us and it's hard and we've, we really need to um, like we've been working on how to manage that and that this solution is going to probably help solve it all.

Christine: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. After I sell my 74th kidney or whatever. So good that you could just pop those out. I know, I know, it's amazing. And they regrow, you just keep producing them, more and more. Absolutely. So, yes. So, um, yeah. So, I mean, we've talked, uh, you know, a bit about contracts and agreements and, um, There's a lot of backup

Emily: versions.

There are. There

Christine: are. Absolutely. I think it's just the most important thing is to get one. Um, and, and if you have to sort out your backup plan because all of a sudden you need it and you didn't have one, And doesn't matter as long as you at some point have a backup plan because people don't think about it till they need it.

Yeah, it's what, you know, it's

Emily: when life kicks in the balls and then you're suddenly like, oh, fuck,

Christine: what

Emily: am I going to do now?

Christine: It's, it's, it's almost like you get a situation and it becomes a mistake. Um, and not in the traditional sort of like, um, sense, thank you, that word, um, sense of a mistake, but you know, when you make a mistake, you need to own up to it and you need to learn from it and you need to move on from it.

And so not having a backup plan and hitting a situation where you need one, if you don't have one, is it, it's the same as a mistake. Yep.

Rah: Yeah. Yep. It really is. Yes. And. You can get lost in the weeds of just how much you need to land for and it's never going to be perfect because there's always going to be something that will

Christine: change what happened in, you know, with Christine Brokerback two years ago, it's different to the next situation and will happen, you know, in two years time when I've won the lottery.

And now you're stopping answering our phone calls. That's right. What are we going

Emily: to do?

Christine: Just get started. Yeah, absolutely real thing. Yeah, just pick a scenario in your business and get sorted. Yep.

Emily: Well, I think we better wrap it up Yeah,

Rah: the boozy people outside again getting on the turps and

Christine: moving furniture around They're all

Emily: like Uh, they're all young and they're literally in, we have to walk past them to tell.

Christine: Oh, this is going to be fun. Well, I will check them out right now. I've got the reflection through the dark glass, so I can't really have a good perv. They all look like they're in a uniform. They're a bit too young to be pervs. They are a bit too young. Okay, well then, you know, we'll just pack up. Um, thank you for listening to us again, go on and on because we do, but we love it.

And there's so much to share. Yeah. Um, get your backup plans in place, people. Absolutely. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Rah: And we'll put links to all of the things that we've referenced, all the different types of apps and services that can help with backup plans. We will shall

Emily: put them in the show notes. Absolutely. And if you haven't yet gone and seen our lovely, the Women in Business, um, community group, please jump on board and like our Instagram pages, like all our pages, find your relevant content.

State, uh, based Facebook group, join that. We are trying to run some regular webinars and we've got a whole bunch of event plans and stuff coming up to get this, uh, lovely community pumping. But we have a brand spanking new website for that one too. So if anyone is interested in that, it is www.

thewomeninbusiness. com. au. Uh, we'll link it all in the show notes, but go and take a look. We are loving it. If you've got any ideas of any webinars or anything you'd like to learn more about or hear more about, please also let us know. Yeah, absolutely. Um, we're really in the kind of phase at the moment where we want to just make sure we're providing what you guys would be interested in seeing and hearing.

And

Rah: feedback will help with decision making because decisions are freaking hard. We have to make too many. Absolutely. Too many.

Christine: Alright, ladies, as always, an absolute pleasure to spend this last bit of

Rah: time with you. Love your guts, let's go walk past the Gent 7 to maybe check out. They look

Emily: like they're 12 but clearly 18 if they're drinking here.

Yeah,

Christine: absolutely. Not aging at all. Nah, not at all. Thank you to the Bella Vista. Peace out! Thanks Bella! Bye!