This episode is the first part of a three-part series based on a study I conducted about how the security levels of your business depend on your business cycle stage.

You probably though that this episode is about me telling you to buy services and products but that is by far not the case because I am committed to giving you real and immediately applicable advice in regard to security. So, I would like to address your security planning in another way for 2019. You get to decide what you need based on which stage your business is in its life cycle.

A disclaimer here. Obviously, your business cycle stage is not the only factor that affects your security needs and requirements and in fact, I have published another episode going through the dynamics and powers behind a successful protection pillar. However, today I would like to address one of those dynamics that you probably never considered thus far which is the cycle stage your business currently is in.

But let me first introduce you to the 10 stages of the life cycle of business I was taught during the Business Mastery Course I took with the Giant Tony Robbins. No matter which stage your business is currently in I would recommend listening to all the episodes of this series as each one is building on the previous.

This is the stage at which you conserve the idea of creating your own business. You may or may not have a business background but no matter the case you take a huge risk at this stage. You are basically the worker and the manager, and you are just making a salary or part of a salary and you might have another job for constant income if you do not have enough clients yet to fully cover your personal expenses.

The most important problem at this stage is how certain you are that you can achieve this and build a successful business so, in terms of security at this stage you need a way to maintain your certainty at high levels otherwise you will back off your dreams. Passing through this stage myself I would say that you need to maintain your mindset at a positive level as much as you can as you are mostly vulnerable from all the tough lessons you are getting day by day while you feel that there are so much to learn and experience. The last thing you need is a cyber-attack or even a mistake or fault to make you lose most of your progress, so my advice for you is to have the bare minimum.

What would these be?

• 3 backups of your data
• A separate computer for business and pleasure or even a mobile phone if you are handling your business’ social media through a phone as well
• Investing in your own WIFI
• A good antivirus and VPN
• Separate online social media accounts and emails for your business and you personally and finally,
• some basic security habits like password creation, how to minimize your online footprint, the etiquette for online secure communication and ways to protect yourself physically from the dangers of the online world.

Want a little help?

I was going to introduce this stage based on my experience as the mother giving birth to a child. Even though I do not have children of my own this stage really felt like an infant. It is the stage in which your business is in a race of survival. Think of waking up to feed it with milk, change its diapers and worry if it is breathing. Literally worrying if is breathing. Well almost literally. The workload is so high that you cannot even get a cold without the business being affected, you go for a coffee with a friend and you have a countdown timer to make sure you get back to working on your business in time and oh the best one of them all, you do not even have free time which in case you got into this idea of creating your own business for freedom in time and more money you start realizing that it is not going to happen any time soon.

At this stage your vision and mission feeds more than just the “salary” your only part time or full-time employee because the “salary” is not going to. If you are a good inspiration you might get some free support as well. Oh, and let me not forget the best part. You work for FREE! The external pressure starts to build up especially if you have landed high ranking and well-paid jobs in the past before you “gave in to this craziness” and your parents seem to be able to remind you about it all the time. But by this stage you have already given so much and the baby has to survive.

Establish the following principles:

• the people you collaborate with must have written contracts about the nature of your collaboration
• get them to sign privacy policies especially if they are coming in contact with your intellectual property
• make sure you have control over your online accounts by having the highest levels of access rights
• have distinct passwords for your accounts and never share your passwords with your collaborators. Better safe than sorry.
• Share data with your free or paid collaborators on a need to know basis and make sure that they do not retain your business data after they complete their assigned work.
• As soon as you stop collaborating or working with someone make sure that they have no access to any of your business accounts
• Participate in business events like Business Mastery in order to learn how to help your business succeed

I mean it is free right? I am not asking you for money here. Just for intelligence and clear boundaries which will protect you in the long run. And I do not want to hear the excuse contracts and privacy policies cost when you can find so many resources online and you can do the prep work by yourself and just ask a lawyer to have a look for way less than their initial cost. You could even make a deal to pay later if you just ask if they can give you a longer payment window.

I would like to leave you with a tweetable:

I am now turning it over to you. If you found this article useful share it with others. 

1. Was this article helpful to identify how to proceed with your business planning for 2019?

I cannot wait to hear your comments so leave them below and let’s continue the conversation.

That’s all for today. Stay tuned for the second episode of the series where I am analyzing more business stages and the security levels you need to establish in order to plan correctly for 2019.

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