Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Keith Erwood, Founder of Erwood Group, located in Sheridan, WY, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

My business is about protecting other people's businesses so they can stay in business despite disruptions and disasters. This includes helping businesses with everything from Business Continuity and Crisis Management planning to Data Backups and Cyber Security.

Our clients include small offices and professionals like medical spas, private doctors, dentists, attorneys, and plastic surgeons to large enterprises such as Sharp HealthCare and Illumina. We have specialized programs and systems in place where we quickly and efficiently put plans and programs in place for businesses of varying sizes and across numerous industries, such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and distribution.

Many industries have different regulatory and compliance mandates that dictate what types of planning and mitigation requirements a business should have in place. We also help these businesses manage and navigate various compliance requirements they have around this type of planning.

Tell us about yourself

Well, I have always had an interest in preparedness planning since I was very young. When I was a little boy, we'd go to the State Fair each year, and my first stop would always be at the Red Cross and Civil Defense pavilion and grab every piece of information and pamphlet I could get my hands on. I'd sit for hours just reading and studying through them.

When I was older, I worked as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) for the New York City Emergency Medical Service, which later became part of the Fire Department of New York. During that time, I also did some work on the side with a computer, mostly recovering data for people, and I was good enough at it that I had work from other consultants that would call me when they had a need. As I would recover data for people, they would often ask me to help them put things in place to prevent that from happening in the future.

I had plans to expand, but then September 11th happened. So, a lot of my plans were put on hold as I was working a huge number of hours on the recovery efforts going on during that time. It was during this time that I did a lot of reflecting and witnessed many businesses impacted by the disaster. Some went out of business forever; others held on only to close later, while others just kept going. This event basically showed me that business owners and managers needed help putting proper plans and programs in place to ensure they can keep their businesses running after and, ideally, during a catastrophe. While I was doing this on a small scale before these events, it was the outcome of that one event that made me take the leap into doing it full-time.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

I would have to say my ability to manage my time and run multiple important and different tasks simultaneously and see them through to the finish. For instance, while managing several client projects, internal software development turning some of our tools into software, and being a dad, I also wrote and published a book to help small and medium enterprises to increase their resilience.

That book reached the Best Seller List on Amazon and has also been called one of the top books to read for Business Continuity Directors. It's called 25 Ways to Increase Your Business Resilience A Simple Guide to Implementing Business Continuity and Contingency Planning for Businesses.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

Staying on task and managing all the distractions that come at you and keeping them at bay. As someone who has worked primarily from a home office for a few decades, along with being a dad, the number of distractions is high. A large part of that is managing expectations as well. This goes for myself, my family, and my clients. I do this largely by managing my time very well. In fact, as we do this interview, I just got back from my oldest son's Christmas Play. I make every effort not to miss the important things in my life, like taking time for my kids and family. I make sure that when I spend time with my family, it's quality time and that I am fully present, and they have my attention. This wasn't something that came easy, but I had to work at it and set ground rules for myself. Equally important is that when I work, I ask to be distraction-free. This is hard for my children, but it's easier to manage when you give them the other time they need as well.

For clients, I set responsible timeframes and deadlines as well as set expectations early on in the onboarding process. Depending on what we are doing, we have calls weekly, monthly, and quarterly with updates to ensure things are running smoothly and staying on track. Each client gets their own special dashboard on our site, which is updated daily as well.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Learn to manage your time and schedule. Schedule everything. Include time to take a walk, read, ideate, time to work on your business, and time to call clients and prospects. I use my schedule to manage my time, set goals, and take action to achieve the results I want.
  2. Write things down. I personally use the Inner Guide planners to set goals, take action, journal, and manage my time. It really doesn't matter what you use, but defiantly start writing things down and tracking them. And when I say write them down, I mean physically using pen and paper and use cursive writing. There is something visceral that happens when you take the time to put pen to paper and start writing things down. It will have an impact if you do it often.
  3. Most importantly, start taking action. No matter how small the action is, take the leap and start doing it. Keep doing and going until you see a small result. They celebrate that result. Share it with someone. Then do it again and again. It's time to stop thinking about it and time to start taking action. Remember. The Magic Happens When You Take Action.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.erwoodgroup.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/protect_er/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kerwood
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keitherwood/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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