Always Have Two or More of Everything!

According to Dan Kennedy, one is the worst number in any business.  And according to Three Dog Night (another tireless source of business and direct marketing advice), one is the loneliest number that could ever do. For this reason I don't really recommend having one person or one anything in your business.

Fact: people get busy! There are people that you rely on, people that you need who provide services. They're a member of your team and you can't do it without them. You are dependent on them. This is a necessary evil of being in business and being dependent on someone is never good. Your world can be spun out of orbit by them whether through their fault or not. I'll give you some examples.

Don't Let Anyone Hold Your Business Hostage

As I said, people get busy. Sometimes people disappear -- who knows where they go. They just disappear for a while. Sometimes their quality starts to go down or their price goes up. There are any number of reasons why someone that you're using may need to be replaced permanently or at least temporarily. What if they're on vacation or something and you need them every day?

You can't allow your business to come to a grinding halt just because they happen to be gone. Imagine if that happened seven times a year for seven different people. You would be stuck high and dry so first, get the initial service provider (realtor, attorney, title company, contractor, etc) -- just get someone at first.  If you can find two providers at a time, that's great. However, the first priority is just to get one so that you can do business. Use their services to make sure that they work well.

Get a Backup Person BEFORE You Need Them

The second part is harder because it has to be done in advance and takes a little bit of time to do. It's not human nature to do things in advance that take time.

It's human nature to put things off until it's too late or until there's a crisis. Then it takes even longer to do or your life becomes really stressful. I don't recommend this. Once you have that first person providing services for you and they're doing a great job, go ahead and get a second person to do a small job, a small project or task for you.

So if you rely on one company, such as a title company to close your deals, use another one for a closing or two. Then, at the same time, test another title company for your third closing. If they work well too, you may want to alternate between these providers for each deal. You can primarily use the first one, but keep the second and third ones on the back burner ready to use at any time.

This is called cross-training in the employee world. A boss will have two employees or two groups of employees that perform different functions. He will also train them to perform the tasks of the other employees. Therefore, if the other employees ever leave, your business won't shut down as the second group of employees will take up the slack of the first one or at least get the job done for a while.  It also helps different groups to understand each other and keeps work from getting too boring.  I know that's different because we're talking about using other independent contractors' and companies' services, but you can understand the principle behind it.

One Last Example From My Business

One last example is I have a Web guy that I use to create my websites and do web programming. I also have a full time administrative assistant doing research, marketing online, and other kinds of admin-related tasks. I then have a third person who can do both. I use him when the other two are busy.

If I were smart, maybe I would train this third person to do everything that my virtual assistant does so if that assistant ever leaves, I'd have another person ready to go right away. However, since it doesn't take that much time to find and replace a virtual assistant, I haven't bothered to do this yet.

I hope that these things help you to understand the principles behind never being dependent on one person and always having two, three or even more service providers ready at any given time to help you out because this is your life and your business. You can't afford to have things put on hold while someone else is out to lunch.