As a retired franchisor founder I do a little business consulting now and again, and one thing I have found is that business security should be at the top of the list of every small business person. You could be making lots of money, but if you have inventory going out the back door without being paid for due to employee pilferage, or friends of their friends stealing from you then it is going to be difficult to make a profit. Of course, this is the only type of thievery that entrepreneurial business owners have to deal with, it just happens to be the most common. Let’s talk about the other for a moment if we might.
If you are to maintain a secure business location then you need to be concerned with police response times. If the criminals know that the police can’t get there very quickly, you might find yourself the victim of an armed robbery, loading cash into a paper or plastic bag and handing to a criminal who may find you easy pickings for the future. Perhaps the trick is to delay the robbery or the suspects just long enough for the police to respond. If the criminal is caught, you have just saved yourself from a future robbery. As well as other businesses in your area.
If you have a warehouse, or if you have equipment and vehicles stored out in a locked gated area. You may wish to get a silent alarm that only rings at the Police Department. This gives the police the advantage because the criminal is not running away. As they don’t even know they’ve been caughtt yet. This helps solve the police response time realities giving you the advantage. Some say it’s better to have high definition cameras, letting the thieves come in and take what they will. And get enough pictures of them to hunt them down and track them later.
Yes, that is another strategy and you will catch the dumb criminals. But the smart ones will be wearing dark clothes, masks, and they will have already thought of those things. Even if you have a silent alarm, you might need two of them from different companies. Sometimes there are insiders that give information from the alarm companies to their criminal friends.
Lastly,don’t ever put a sign out telling the criminals or warning them of what kind of security system you have. Chances are the criminals have been doing this a long enough they know how each of these systems work. And are able to get around their best features. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.