Business Fire Drills

You open Facebook: disabled. Instagram: locked. LinkedIn: restricted. TikTok: nothing. Whether it was a hack, a bot, or a rule you never heard of, every door is locked at once. In this Business Fire Drill (Fire Drill 12: Before You Lose Access to Your Social Media Accounts), attorney Tamsen Horton walks you through what to do before it happens, including the "Log in with Facebook" ripple effect that can take down tools like Zoom right along with your account.

What you'll learn:

Take the free Smoke Detector (11 questions, about 3 minutes): https://www.tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

Explore the Business Fire Drills library: https://www.tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

General education, not legal advice. Platform rules and menus change often.

At 6:30 on a Monday morning, a sick dog, a crate full of puke, and a family out the door by 6:45. Attorney Tamsen Horton uses a very real morning to show why running a fire drill before the fire keeps a mess from becoming a crisis. In this Business Fire Drill (Fire Drill 11: Before You Lose Access to Your Email Platform), you'll learn how to make sure your email list is actually yours, even if your platform suspends you, an admin disappears, or a hire goes wrong.

What you'll learn:

Take the free Smoke Detector (11 questions, about 3 minutes, no email required): https://www.tamsenhorton.com/legal-infrastructure

Explore the Business Fire Drills library: https://www.tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

General education, not legal advice. Email platform rules vary by provider.

Your "site" is wherever you sell. For some businesses that's a website. For others it's an Instagram account, a Kajabi storefront, or a checkout page someone else built. In this Business Fire Drill (Fire Drill 10: Before You Lose Access to Your Website), attorney Tamsen Horton shows you how to make sure you can never be locked out of the place where your sales happen.

What you'll learn:

Take the free Smoke Detector (11 questions, about 3 minutes, no email required): https://www.tamsenhorton.com/legal-infrastructure

Explore the Business Fire Drills library: https://www.tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

General education, not legal advice. Recovery processes vary by platform.

You posted "biggest launch ever." Three weeks later, the refunds, affiliate commissions, and tax bill arrive, and the number in your account looks nothing like the number you announced. In this Business Fire Drill (Fire Drill 09: Before a Launch Creates Financial Chaos), attorney Tamsen Horton walks through how to decide where launch revenue goes before the first sale comes in.

What you'll learn:

Take the free Smoke Detector (11 questions, about 3 minutes): https://www.tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

Explore the Business Fire Drills library: https://www.tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

The numbers in this episode are illustrative only. General education, not legal or tax advice.

You sold a $1,500 program on six payments of $250. Payment three fails, and a week later they're still logging in. Do you shut off access, let it slide, or send an email you'll regret? Nothing shady happened. It's just a payment plan going sideways.

In this Business Fire Drill, attorney Tamsen Horton covers:

FIRST, go use your smoke detector: take the free Smoke Detector (11 questions, about 3 minutes, no email required) to see which three fires your business is most likely to have: https://www.tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

Free homework: open your checkout page, pretend you're a customer, and ask whether you could tell in 10 seconds how many payments there are and what happens if one fails. If not, fix that first.

Get the full library: https://www.tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

It's the Friday after your biggest launch ever. The sales are all there, but a chunk of your balance says "unavailable," and your ad bill and contractors get paid Monday. Nobody stole anything. Your payment processor just put a hold on your funds.

In this Business Fire Drill, attorney Tamsen Horton walks through what triggers a hold (launch spikes, new accounts, refund runs, business mismatches), how to respond instead of react, and the five things to build before the fire: a cash buffer, a clearly named document folder, a heads-up before big launches, clear purchase terms, and a second verified processor.

Free homework: find out what documents your processor would ask for if they held your funds tomorrow, and put copies in one folder.

Get the full library: https://www.tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

"I'd like a refund." Four words that can end as a closed email, a chargeback, or a letter from an attorney. In about five minutes, attorney Tamsen Horton runs the fire drill: what to do before you type a word, the three records to pull, how to spot the bigger signals, and the refund terms and protocol that keep every answer consistent, whether it comes from Team Human or Team Tech.

SHOW NOTES

A refund request is the one moment in a purchase dispute that comes to you first. A chargeback goes around you. A refund request gives you a chance to respond calmly, and to point to what the buyer actually agreed to. In this short episode, attorney Tamsen Horton walks through the drill.

The Alarm

- "I'd like a refund." Polite, flat, or furious

- "This isn't what I expected." "I never even got access." Or a request after your refund window closed

- The tone-change alarm: "unfair," "consumer protection," "my attorney"

- It can land at any point on the runway: right after purchase, halfway through delivery, or after they've used everything

Reacting or Responding?

- Instinct one: refund immediately to make the email go away. Instinct two: say no without checking your own policy. Both are reactions

- Responding starts with two questions: what did they agree to when they bought, and what did they actually receive?

The DRILL

- D: Don't react. No instant refund, no defensive reply. Close the email and go make coffee

- R: Record everything. The purchase terms they agreed to at the time they bought (not today's version), your delivery and access records, and the full message thread

- I: Identify the real risk. Ordinary "outside the window" conversation, or bigger signals: a chargeback threat, a public review, legal-sounding language? If so, get your own attorney's eyes on it before you reply again

- L: Lead with calm. Respond once, and point to the policy they actually agreed to

- L: Lock in the lesson. Does your policy clearly cover this exact situation? Would your records hold up? And never change or backdate your terms after the fact

The Fire Extinguisher

- Refund and cancellation terms inside your real purchase terms (the Purchase Terms Generator helps if yours need work)

- A one-page refund response protocol so anyone on your team answers the same way

- Delivery records you can pull in a minute

- One person who owns refund requests

- Team Tech note: AI employees work fast and will scale your mess or your success. Make sure what they've been trained on matches your actual refund policy

Your Next Right Decision

Three options: do nothing (your terms are clear, your records are clean, and Team Human and Team Tech answer the same way), put the drill in place this week, or send this to the friend who says "I just refund everyone, it's easier."

Free homework

Find the refund wording on your checkout page and read it out loud. If you can't tell what it says, neither can your customer.

Tell me: what's the strangest refund request you've ever gotten? No names, just the situation.

Business moments are predictable. Panic is optional.

Run this drill in full inside Business Fire Drills, Drill 05: Before a Refund Request Turns Into a Bigger Problem.

https://www.tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

A high-ticket offer can go sideways from either side of the agreement: the seller who wants out, wants to change the deal, or can't deliver, and the buyer whose calls, tickets, or deliverables stop matching what was promised. Attorney Tamsen Horton runs the fire drill from both seats: the DRILL, how to tell a breach of contract from misrepresentation or fraud, and the written agreement that keeps both sides calm.

SHOW NOTES:

You just signed your dream client, or you just bought the biggest offer you've ever spent money on. And then something shifts. The seller doesn't want to run the thing anymore. Or the buyer's calls keep getting dropped and the deliverables stop matching what they paid for. In this episode, attorney Tamsen Horton runs the fire drill from both sides of the agreement, because every agreement has two parties and both of them need a plan.

The Alarm

- "Agreement" and "contract" mean the same thing, and it always takes two parties

- The seller's alarm is often quiet and internal: you promised too much (ten calls when it should have been two), you don't want to run it anymore, or the business is moving in a different direction

- The buyer's alarm: calls get canceled or rescheduled, deliverables shift, two event tickets become one. What you're getting stops matching what you bought

- Strip away the drama and find the core: someone isn't delivering what was originally promised (or life happened)

The DRILL

- D — Don't react. Sellers: don't send the "this program has ended" email or cancel calls in a frenzy. Buyers: don't take to social media. Side PSA: if social media is blowing up over someone else's situation, keep your profile out of the thread until you know the full story.

- R — Record everything. Get your hands on the written agreement (or document that there isn't one, or that it's murky and contradictory). Build a filing system. Tamsen shares the Fire Drill Kit Map, which plugs into wherever you store files. Save screenshots, sales pages, DMs, and emails.

- I — Identify the real risk. Sellers: did you decide you don't want to do it anymore, or did something catastrophic happen that means you truly can't deliver? Buyers' expectations are very different in each case. Buyers: is this a breach of contract, or are you moving into misrepresentation or fraud? Very different risks. Stand on concrete, not in sinking quicksand.

- L — Lead with calm. Sellers: communicate clearly what needs to be communicated, and if the facts are unusual, get an attorney's eyes on them first, because everything you communicate becomes a record. Buyers: reach out with your evidence and name the specific deliverables and expectations.

- L — Lock in the lesson. What let this fire start? Get a written agreement before you sell or buy anything: purchase terms that spell out what I provide, what you receive, what you pay, how we handle disagreements, and how we end things. Plan for the worst case, with protocols and email templates written ahead of time.

The Fire Extinguisher

- Clear purchase terms in place before the sale, on both sides of the agreement

- A written protocol for each "if this happens" scenario, with the emails and templates already drafted

- A filing system ready to go (the Fire Drill Kit Map)

Your Next Right Decision

Three options: do nothing (you've already run the drill and your terms and exit plan are in place), run the drill (nobody figures out the exit when the building is on fire; do it on a calm Tuesday morning), or send this to a friend who is excited about a new high-ticket offer or just bought one.

Business moments are predictable. Panic is optional. Run this drill in full inside Business Fire Drills — Drill 04: Before a High-Ticket Client Agreement Goes Sideways.

→ tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

A contractor complaint can mean two very different fires — a payment dispute, or a misclassification claim that pulls in the IRS or Department of Labor. Attorney Tamsen Horton breaks down how to tell which one you're facing, the DRILL to run the moment it lands, and the fire extinguisher (a real signed contractor agreement) that keeps most of these from ever starting.

Show notes:

Bringing on a contractor feels like growth — until a message shows up weeks or months later saying they weren't paid, that they think they should've been an employee, or that they're owed something you didn't expect. In this episode, attorney Tamsen Horton walks through exactly what's happening in that moment and what to do next.

The Alarm

The DRILL

The Fire Extinguisher

Your Next Right Decision

Business moments are predictable. Panic is optional. Run this drill in full inside Business Fire Drills — Drill 03: Before a Contractor Complaint Arrives.

→ tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills

That cease-and-desist email in your inbox feels like an emergency — but it's a completely predictable business moment, and your panic is optional. Attorney Tamsen Horton walks through what a cease and desist actually is (using trademark infringement as the clearest example), the DRILL to run the second one lands, and the fire extinguisher to have ready before it ever happens.

Show Notes:

That cease-and-desist email feels like it hits you out of nowhere — but it's one of the most predictable fires in business, and running the drill before it happens is what keeps it from burning down your week. In this episode, attorney Tamsen Horton breaks down exactly what's going on the moment that email lands, and what to do about it.

The Alarm

The DRILL

The Fire Extinguisher

Your Next Right Decision

Business moments are predictable. Panic is optional. Run this drill in full inside Business Fire Drills — Drill 02: Before a Cease-and-Desist Arrives → tamsenhorton.com/business-fire-drills