Last Updated on November 29, 2018 by Jessica Adams
Very few small business owners can imagine anything worse than becoming the victim of a crime. And with good reason. In a single moment, years of hard work that goes into creating a successful business can be undone.
Small businesses are especially vulnerable in this way. They often don’t have the contingencies in place that larger companies do. This makes security that much more of an important factor and one that no small business owner can afford to ignore.
Fortunately, there are a lot of simple ways that you can make your business more secure. Here are just a few things that you can do to secure your small business.
How to Secure Your
Small Business
Using Digital Security
Considering just how much most of us spend of our lives online, it only makes sense that the Internet has become the home of a lot of businesses. However, this means that cyber crime has been on the rise pretty drastically over the last decade.
You need to make sure that you’re protecting your businesses data and online presence as much as possible. This means that things like firewalls and anti-virus software are essential, as well as password protecting everything.
Since you’ll be updating all of your passwords that are practically all a computer generated sequence, it’s crucial that you not forget those passwords, right?! Lastpass is a web/cloud-based ‘vault’ that stores all of your passwords, both personal and professional.zzz
The app integrates with nearly every platform you can think of, so you’ll find all your passwords easily accessible, right where you are.
However, you can also protect your business’s data against things like fraud, with something like a prepaid virtual credit card. Sure, there’s always going to be cyber criminals trying to get past your firewall.
As long as you stay up to date and focus on keeping your digital security measures as strong as possible, your business is going to be a lot safer for it.
Securing Your Physical Shop
It might sometimes feel like all the danger to your business is coming from online but that’s not the only possibility. If you work out of brick and mortar shop, any physical space really, there’s quite a list of things you’ll need to go over each night before closing up shop.
You should make sure that your premises are securely closed down each night, cameras rolling a LIVE feed, sent directly your smartphone (yep, there’s an app for that too!). This closing ritual really all begins in the most simple place you can imagine: the locks.
Make sure that you have all of your store’s locks professionally installed by a commercial locksmith. The last thing you want is to spend all your time and energy setting up cameras and alarms only to, literally, leave the back door open to thieves.
Educating Your Staff
Fortunately, you don’t need to run out and start purchasing high-tech video equipment just yet. All the security systems in the world won’t do a thing unless they’re being implemented across the board.
Every single employee should be fully aware of the importance of security and be responsible for maintaining it. That means from top to bottom. From the receptionist to the CEO, everyone needs to make sure that they’re following the same procedures to the letter.
It’s your responsibility to provide the best possible training. You need to make sure that everyone fully understands what is expected of them.
The truth is that you’re never going to be able to predict and protect against every problem that your business comes up against. Everything that you can do to safeguard your business is going to help keep it running smoothly and efficiently.
Edited by Jessica Rosa Adams
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