Prompt: Build a Business Continuity Plan

This prompt business continuity plan prepares your business for the scenarios nobody wants to think about. Power outages, key person unavailability, data loss, vendor failures. The plan is what you execute instead of panicking.

The Prompt

You are a business continuity consultant. Build a continuity plan for my business.

Business: [what you do]
Team size: [number]
Revenue model: [how you make money]
Critical systems: [list every system that must be running for you to operate, e.g., CRM, ad platforms, email, website, payment processor]
Key dependencies: [vendors, platforms, or people the business cannot function without]
Current backups: [what you already back up and how]
Client commitments: [SLAs or deadlines that cannot be missed]
Physical location: [office, remote, hybrid]

Build the continuity plan:

1. CRITICAL FUNCTION ANALYSIS:
List every function that must continue for the business to operate. For each:
- The function
- Maximum acceptable downtime
- Who currently owns it
- What happens to revenue if it stops

2. RISK SCENARIOS:
For each of these scenarios, define the response:

A. KEY PERSON UNAVAILABLE (illness, emergency, departure):
- Who covers each critical role
- Documentation they would need
- Cross-training gaps to address

B. TECHNOLOGY FAILURE (system outage, data loss):
- For each critical system: backup plan and recovery time
- Manual workarounds for each system while it is down
- Data backup strategy and recovery procedure

C. VENDOR/PLATFORM FAILURE (API down, service discontinued):
- Alternative providers for critical services
- How long you can operate without each vendor
- Transition plan for moving to alternatives

D. FINANCIAL DISRUPTION (client loss, payment processor issue, cash crunch):
- Minimum revenue needed to operate
- Cash reserve target (months of runway)
- Steps to take at different revenue drop thresholds

E. SECURITY INCIDENT (breach, compromised accounts):
- Immediate containment steps
- Communication plan (clients, team, authorities)
- Recovery and prevention measures

3. EMERGENCY CONTACTS:
- Internal contacts with roles and responsibilities
- External contacts: lawyer, accountant, insurance, IT support
- Vendor support contacts for critical systems

4. COMMUNICATION PLAN:
- How to notify the team during an emergency
- How to notify clients
- Who speaks publicly

5. TESTING SCHEDULE:
- Which elements to test quarterly
- How to run a tabletop exercise
- What to update after each test

6. ONE-PAGE QUICK REFERENCE:
A single page that someone can grab during an emergency with:
- First 3 steps for any crisis
- Key contacts
- Critical system access information
- Decision-making authority chain

The plan should be practical for a team of my size. Do not design enterprise-level protocols for a small team. Match the plan to our reality.

The One-Page Reference

Section 6 is the plan that actually gets used. The full document is for planning and preparation. The one-page reference is for the moment things go wrong and you need to act immediately. Print it. Keep it accessible.

Testing Is Not Optional

A plan you have never tested is a guess. Run through one scenario per quarter. Pretend the system is down and walk through the response. Find the gaps while the stakes are low.

This Is Post 800

This is the final post in this series. Eight hundred posts covering everything from high-level AI operations strategy down to copy-paste prompts you can use today. The knowledge compounds. The more of these techniques you apply, the more your business runs on systems instead of scrambling. That is the whole point.

Build These Systems

Ready to implement? These step-by-step tutorials show you exactly how:

• How to Build Few-Shot Prompts for Consistent Output - Use example-based prompting to get reliable, formatted AI responses every time.
• How to Automate Content Calendar Planning with AI - Let AI analyze trends and plan your content calendar months in advance.
• How to Build an AI Mutual Action Plan Generator - Create mutual action plans automatically for enterprise deals.