As has been mentioned before, much of your risk management can be isolated into four major groups. Your first three categories are inherently manageable for you and your small business. They can range from anything like your printer breaking down to risks you can manage through insurance.

There is that fourth category, however, that you and your risk management advisor must pay attention to at all times. That is the category of risk that will, ultimately, destroy your business or entrepreneurial dream if not continuously monitored and managed. Those are those risks you have identified as the ones that are most likely to happen and those which will cause irreparable damage to you.

• The risk from competitors is one of those deadly risks. Everyone from the entrepreneur working out of a home office, to a Fortune 1000 company has competitors who are looking to destroy them at every turn. Business is business, the saying goes and many of your rivals are likely to do everything they can to see you destroyed and eliminated from the marketplace. They will steal your ideas. They will steal your customers. They will bad mouth you to ruin your reputation. You and your risk management advisor must know where both your strengths and weaknesses lie. Only then, will you be able to create a proper defensive strategy.
• How is your cash flow? How substantial are your reserves? One of the major risks that will kill you and your company is being undercapitalized or, worse, running out of money altogether. You may smile, but this happens all of the time. This is a huge challenge to your risk management strategy. As an entrepreneur looking to launch a startup, it is unlikely you will find any financing anywhere. If this is the case, what are you risking personally? A maxed out credit card? A maxed out line of credit? A second, or third, mortgage? Sound risk and financial planning can help you avoid disaster.
• Your employees and your advisors are critical to the success of your small business or entrepreneurial endeavor. So many times an entrepreneur has hired all the wrong people and paid for it with a failed venture. You can mitigate this challenge by taking the time to figure out exactly what sort of person you need to make your company successful. You and your risk management advisor can lay out a plan whereby you can select those people with the right mindset, the right skill sets, and the right experience.

In the end, it will come down to you being able to identify those risks that threaten the survival of your business and to implementing a risk management strategy to mitigate, or even eliminate, them.