Back up or risk losing all

Sometime ago a colleague in BNI gave the audience a useful fact in a 60 second presentation that he gave that really struck a chord with me.

He said research showed that 90% of small businesses that suffered a massive loss of data due to an IT system failure, go out of business within two years. A frightening thought that had me urgently schedule an appointment to further understand the risks and more importantly, implement a process that mitigated against the risks.

The irony is that the simplest and very cheap solutions are available and I was delighted to get something in place for less than the cost of a night out with the family.

This last weekend I was merrily working away when my laptop crashed. It turned out that the hard drive was completely dead and the data on it was lost. Imagine how I would have felt, not to mention the potential impact on business, had I lost 20+ years of research, training material, manuals, seminar audio programmes, video presentations, coaching notes, family pictures, music etc etc.

Thankfully I listened to my BNI colleague that day and apart from the few days of inconvenience without a laptop, we were up and running very quickly. In fact, I got to spend a little more time on the phone, much of which in the sunshine and peace and quiet of my garden. There's always an upside!