You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

I was at a coffee shop today to meet a client and discuss a business situation. We chose this particular coffee shop because it had free WiFi. I still don't understand why every coffee shop doesn't offer free WiFi yet. You'd think they would pick up on the point it could bring in more business. I digress.

My laptop was low on juice so I searched around to find a table that had an outlet nearby to plug in. After not finding any, I inquired to the barista behind the desk and she pointed straight up. The outlets were in the ceiling! You can't make this stuff up! Are you kidding me?

The only way to plug in my lap top was to climb on top of a chair, haul up the cord, and plug it into the ceiling.

Outside of being non-customer friendly, it's a HUGE liability issue. People like me, who don't want to pack up and search for another location will be climbing chairs every day to plug in their computers. Can you imagine a 63-year old executive teetering on a flimsy chair? Can you spell L-A-W-S-U-I-T? This is a liability claim waiting to happen.

Before you scoff this off as stupidity (which it is), take a close look around your office or business location. What potential hazards do you see? What may seem to us as routine, may be a teetering business man on a chair to someone else. Make sure you're taking care of your risk management issues before someone takes care of it for you.

Bottoms up!

Dan

I'm BACK!!!

I know it's been a full month since my last post on this blog. My apologies. In fact, not only will you see more blogging in the future, but you will see a new format. Like my Dan Weedin Presents blog for presentation skills - According to Dan - this blog will soon move to Word Press. You can expect this change within the month and I will be doing a much more thorough job of blogging.

To kick-off my return, you need to know some important information. The teleconference interview with Chris Madison has a time change. The date (May 14) is still the same, but the time will now be 10:00am Pacific. This is very important for the Toro Insiders who get this conference call for FREE, and to those who want to join. Chris will share strategies with you on how to better manage your life, disability, and long-term care insurance needs. This is important for all business owners and professionals. Don't miss it. To register, go to my web site store and sign up by clicking here...

Please keep checking back for more information about the changes I'm making.

Dan

P.S. Want to know more about how you can become a Toro Insider, click here...

What's Your Identity Worth?

If you missed today's teleconference with Brenda Wall from PrePaid Legal Services you missed a good one. Brenda gave her strategies to protecting your good name and your business' liability exposure.

One statistic really caught my attention, though. Did you know that only 28% of identity theft comes from the financial arena? Over 70% of identity theft comes from stolen social security numbers, drivers license information, medical records, and criminal records. For instance, if you lose your drivers license, someone can steal your identity and the next thing you know you have three DUI's on your record. Scary. You need to be vigilant with any personal information you have because the more the bad guys know about you, the more they can steal from you.

Education is the best way to arm yourself in this fight. I will soon have this audio available in my Toro store. Keep an eye out for it.

Dan

What's your income worth?

If you're like most business owners, you are making sure you have adequate coverage for your property, your liability, and your fleet of autos. You may take great care and effort to make sure you aren't underinsured.

Do you take that same care and concern with what might be most important to you...your loss of income?

I recently reviewed a policy where my client was expecting to make about $10,000,000 in sales but his Business Income limit was under $2,000,000. My question is, how long can you actually last in the event of a catastrophic loss?

Your Business Income coverage will pay for ordinary payroll, continuing expenses (like rent and advertising), AND loss of income. This is sometimes made to be a more complicated method than it should be.

Do this - figure out how much money you will need to cover those three areas if your business was unable to work for a month. Then figure out how long you could potentially be out of business. For instance, if you need $100,000 for a month and you think you could be out of business for 6 months due to a disaster like a fire, at the minimum you would consider a $600,000 limit. Now, you may be able to resume operations to some extent and may not need that much, but it's better to have too much instead of not enough, especially if your claim lasts longer than 6 months.

Take the time to discuss Business Income at length with your agent. make sure your income is protected.

Dan

What's on your inside?

Last night, my wife and I took our 17-year old daughter shopping for work clothes for her trip to Mexico on an Interact project to help a school be rebuilt. We decided to go to Goodwill to pick up some inexpensive clothes that she could feel free to ruin.

As they were shopping, I decided to browse around the men's clothes. To my shock, I found two suits that were as good as new on the rack. They were both beautiful and made by high end clothiers - Jos. A Banks and Tommy Hilfiger. The cost - $20 each! I tried them on, I looked for the "red dot" (remember that infamous Seinfeld episode), or anything that would make me not want to purchase them. Nothing!

The bottom line, the cost of the suits plus a little tailoring will come to less than half what I would pay anywhere else. The moral of the story? Don't always accept that what you see on the outside isn't very different inside. My original thought that this was just Goodwill, turned into an opportunity to buy quality products for virtually nothing.

What about your insurance policy? It comes in a neat, beautiful binder with your name handsomely stated on the front. It looks good; your agent says its good; and for all you know it's the perfect fit. But what's going on inside? You need to make sure that what you are actually paying for is what you need in a disaster.

Just like me taking the outside of Goodwill for granted, you can do the same with your insurance. Make sure that the inside of your policy, not the shiny cover is what really fits your business.

Dan

Agility Recovery Solutions

You have probably heard me warn about the dangers of not having a business continuation plan in place. If you haven't, now is a time to take notice. Regardless of your size, if you don't have a plan to keep your business alive in the hours and days after a devastating loss, you may not be able to get back in business even with insurance.

I'm proud to be associated with Agility Recovery Solutions because unlike insurance, if you have a disaster, they will be there without worrying about whether it's a covered peril like earthquake or flood.

There is an excellent webinar coming up on April 3 to help you understand the program more. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Here is the information on the webinar...

INSURANCE JOURNAL WEBCAST WITH AGILITY RECOVERY

Join us for: "Business Continuity and the Independent Agent. Lessons learned from real world recoveries."

Date: April 3, 2008
Time: 10:00AM PT / 1:00PM ET

How to avoid a disaster, after a disaster. Get real-world insight into disaster recovery and business continuity. Bob Boyd, CEO of Agility Recovery, and several independent agents will dispel the myths about business continuity and disaster recovery.Agility will outline a few simple steps your agency and your clients can take today to prepare for tomorrow.

Click here to register: http://www.insurancejournal.com/webcasts/register.php?w=46

You've worked too hard to build your business. Make sure you've taken the time to protect it and yourself.

Dan

Ergonomics - Don't be a pian in the neck!

First of all, my apologies for my lack of blogging lately...I will be more consistent.

Yesterday, one of my associates, Tim Longley from e-Office Innovations, gave a great presentation on ergonomics. If you have employees that spend most of their day sitting behind a computer, you have a serious exposure to workers compensation issues. Here's why:

• 50% of all workers compensation claims in the United States come from computer-related injuries. Does that scare you? It should. Especially with more and more workers being able to do their jobs from home on laptops, this statistic may even go up.
  
• Employees who are in pain from sitting behind a desk improperly are not as efficient as you would hope. Productivity goes down when people are hurt and can't work to their optimum output. You may say, "They don't act like their hurting." No, but you can imagine with the amount of repetitive strain, i.e. typing sitting, scrolling, etc., that they may be damaging themselves and not even know it.
• You may be required by some governmental agency to get your act together or else. That can be very costly.

Look - the bottom line is that you want your employees to be safe and injury free. You want them to produce at their best capability and have fun at work. You also don't want to pay exorbinent workers compensation premiums. You need to develop a game plan for ergonomics.

If you need help, please feel free to contact Tim Longley at 206-842-4840 or visit his web site by clicking here.

Dan

P.S. Next week, my teleconference will feature Jon Newman from Agility Recovery Solutions. You will learn strategies to stay in business after a disaster hits. This call may just save your business! To register, click here now.