If Another Katrina--or a Dirty Bomb--Hits
September 2005 By Denny Hatch
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Business interruption--are you prepared?
Sept. 15, 2005--Vol. 1, Issue #31
One of the great men of direct marketing is Robert L. Hemmings. Proprietor of the Hemmings IV agency in Pasadena, Calif., Hemmings is in his 80s and is constantly in motion traveling the country to see clients and conducting day-long seminars. Short and compact with a natty Adolf Menjou mustache and a vice-like handshake, Hemmings's enthusiasm and energy seem boundless.
One of Hemmings's first jobs was working for a jeweler on New York's West 47th Street diamond district where the merchants rent counters and window space in a kind of giant co-op.
Every evening all the jewelers would dutifully take their diamonds out of the showcases and lock them in the safe until the next morning.
All the jewelers, that is, except for Hemmings's boss who would leave his diamonds out all night and put his customer list in the safe. "If I lose the diamonds, the insurance company will pay," he told Hemmings. "If I lose my customer list, I am out of business."
Within 24 hours, thousands of businesses along the Gulf Coast were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The Small Business Administration expects more than 100,000 applications for business loans.
What would it take to totally destroy your business?
And what can you do about it?
Consider the Possibilities--and Dangers
Every business is different, from a mom-and-pop operation at the kitchen table on up to Time Warner with 80,000 employees and offices spanning the globe.
Catastrophes are also different. The effects can range from temporary inconveniences to serious interruptions to total wipeout.
Sept. 15, 2005--Vol. 1, Issue #31
IN THE NEWS
Jose Suescun, who ran the one-man operation in Metairie, La., picking up the items from New Orleans merchants and shipping them out of his home, was forced to flee Hurricane Katrina in his pewter Hummer and can only wonder what became of his old neighborhood. From what he could glean from news accounts soon after, he concluded it was badly flooded.
"My whole business went down the drain," Mr. Suescun said, speaking on his cellphone late last week from Houston, where he found temporary refuge. "You can't buy anything from New Orleans because New Orleans is gone. I didn't prepare for this, and I didn't take anything with me, not even my laptop. I didn't think I was going to lose everything in one day."
--Eve Tahmincioglu
"Surviving the Worst of Times"
The New York Times, Sept. 8, 2005
One of the great men of direct marketing is Robert L. Hemmings. Proprietor of the Hemmings IV agency in Pasadena, Calif., Hemmings is in his 80s and is constantly in motion traveling the country to see clients and conducting day-long seminars. Short and compact with a natty Adolf Menjou mustache and a vice-like handshake, Hemmings's enthusiasm and energy seem boundless.
One of Hemmings's first jobs was working for a jeweler on New York's West 47th Street diamond district where the merchants rent counters and window space in a kind of giant co-op.
Every evening all the jewelers would dutifully take their diamonds out of the showcases and lock them in the safe until the next morning.
All the jewelers, that is, except for Hemmings's boss who would leave his diamonds out all night and put his customer list in the safe. "If I lose the diamonds, the insurance company will pay," he told Hemmings. "If I lose my customer list, I am out of business."
Within 24 hours, thousands of businesses along the Gulf Coast were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The Small Business Administration expects more than 100,000 applications for business loans.
What would it take to totally destroy your business?
And what can you do about it?
Consider the Possibilities--and Dangers
Every business is different, from a mom-and-pop operation at the kitchen table on up to Time Warner with 80,000 employees and offices spanning the globe.
Catastrophes are also different. The effects can range from temporary inconveniences to serious interruptions to total wipeout.
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