There's a saying that I was fond of in the Army and I think it's widespread throughout the entire military: "2 is 1, 1 is none".

Quite simply this means that if you have 2 ways of accomplishing a task (communicating, moving, getting resupplied) then you will probably be able to do those things consistently. If you only have 1 way of doing any of those things, then you can rest assurred that it won't happen. In every task there were always a series of smaller things that needed to be done. If at any point there was a task that only had 1 way of being completed then it became very likely that your mission would fail, possibly costing lives.

In the business world we usually aren't dealing with life or death issues, but we do need to look at the health of our business - for most of you 1 person shows out there reading this it's: What happens if I get sick or injured and can't work?
For most of you the answer is the business stops and cash flow stops - not a great situation. It occurs because you are necessary for the output of most of your business systems.

If you're puzzling over what I might mean by business system here are some examples.

• Writing blog posts
• Writing articles
• Submitting articles
• Commenting on other's blogs
• Managing social media
• Producing new products
• Researching new markets
• Writing copy
• Collecting payments
• Producing, packing and delivering products
• Hosting web sites

Some of these are things that we have taken on our own shoulders and are performing for our business solely. And that might be okay in the beginning, but as our business grows and time passes - it gets more and more likely that our human bodies will falter or that you will need to take a break or outside systems will be replaced or break down. And then what?

Now this doesn't mean that I'm recommending that you hire 2 people to start writing redundant blog posts or do any of the other things that need to happen in your business. You can be the second way to do things for the time being. The key is to make there be a system that is doing it by default before you need to step in.  And as your business gets larger you should look to make yourself the 2nd backup (2 systems in front of you). For example you can 'rely' on interns for the output of some of your business systems and you act at the backup for now but in the future pay contractors to pick up the slack instead.

As an example - you may have noticed that I have 2 Kunaki integration scripts for sale over on the right. I use both of them in my business. I didn't produce them because I thought that would be amazing sellers. They're up there because they were sitting around and I thought that others might be able to use them too. Seth Godin recently had his PayPal account frozen - Seth Godin!  I don't want any single entity to be holding my money and refusing to pay me and I doubt you do either. You don't want to scramble to make the business work because of someone else's 'rules'.

I'm looking into another way of getting items manufactured and sent out because I don't want to depend wholely on Kunaki (just for the record - I am exquisitely happy with them doing my manufacturing, packaging and shipping so far). I have two web hosting accounts with different companies. I'm putting in systems to generate articles and send them out for me. Nothing will be without 2 backups.  Rest assured, as I put them in place and iron out the bugs, you will see more recommendations and products.

My suggestion: start the mantra - '2 is 1, 1 is None'. Build a little bit of redundancy into your business every day and take the risk out of being a lone entrepreneur.

BTW: This way of insuring that your business continues without you also has some happy benefits. You can just as easily CHOOSE when you want to step away from your business! Now isn't that a lovely thought!

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