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Who cares about which side of the toast hits the floor first? If it's your
toast, and your floor, then the answer is probably you. But fate may have a
lot more than a dirty breakfast in store for you, especially when it comes to
your business.
The disturbing fact is that those of us who run our own small businesses are
more at risk than our corporate comrades. They can enjoy the luxury of choosing
whether to put all their eggs in one basket, but most of us only have the one
egg, and there's no shortage of ways to break it.
Chances are that your business is reliant on one single person in one single
office. So taking precautions shouldn't just be a habit, it should be a way
of life.
What If Something Happened To You?
Let's look at the first link in the chain. You. If your business relies almost
completely on your name, knowledge and capabilities, have you considered what
might happen if something were to happen to you? If you catch a cold, you'll
probably be able to keep things ticking over. But what if you need to go away
unexpectedly for a few days? Or need some kind of longer break? Is your system
setup in a way that your partner can keep things ticking over? Or is most of
it in your head? If you have a lot of time-based commitments, and rely on your
business as your main source of income, then it might be worthwhile showing
someone how things work now, before it becomes vital to do so. Try to imagine
explaining to someone on the phone how to create a mail-merge from your database
and word processor. Nasty.
As with most things in life, an hour or two of preparation could be a sound
move, and time well spent. Showing your assistant or spouse how your email client
works, where you store your client list, and how to process an order might take
you an hour. But this could well save you a great deal of time, stress and money
at some point in the future. Think ahead, and plan for the worst. Caution is
not paranoia.
Your Equipment Is Vulnerable
The next link in the chain is your equipment. 99% of the work that I do is
carried out on a computer. To describe a PC as vulnerable is something of an
understatement. Viruses, power-surges, hardware breakdowns, lightning, idiocy,
coffee, bad-software, dog-fur, theft … the list of potential enemies is
endless. No-one likes computer problems, but when they can grind your business
to a halt, they're a whole lot more important.
And let's face it. Call me superstitious if you wish, but you know as well
as I do that these problems always happen at the worst time. When's the last
time you had a system crash when you just wanted to browse the newsgroups, fire-off
a letter to a friend, or test your skill behind the (virtual) controls of a
Concorde? It doesn't happen. The problems strike when you're working. The night
before I had to hand in a business proposal for funding was the first (and only)
time that my Windows 2000 went belly-up. I couldn't get it going - not through
safe mode, using start-up disks, emergency repair - nothing worked.
So take precautions. A basic UPS device can protect your computer from a power
surge or power-cut, and as such might well save your data one day. If you haven't
yet got one, my advice would be to put it at the very top of your list, especially
if your area is prone to power fluctuations or electrical storms. Weigh up the
cost of buying one against the cost of losing your data. Worth it?
Backups Are your Best Friends
Backups have become a way of life for me. I backup my critical data every night
onto a ZIP disk, and use a set of three in rotation. I have never and will never
miss a backup. While I've only had to use them four or five times in as many
years, they've been a real life saver each time. Make it a habit. Slapping your
forehead saying "I wish, I wish" after the event is no good; trust
me!
On top of that I make a more thorough backup once a week onto a CD-R. Other
options include FTP storage and backing-up over a network. Look into all of
them. Off-site storage is also a good idea. If you're ever unlucky enough to
experience either a fire or theft, you may realise the pointlessness of keeping
your backups in the same room. Sending or mailing a CD once a month to someone
in your family takes minutes and costs almost nothing. If you never use the
backups, what have you lost? If the day comes when you do need them, you'll
be grateful.
In terms of what to backup, it couldn't be simpler. Imagine that your hard
drive has just died, right now, and you can't access any of the information
on it. What do you wish you'd backed up? Now's the time to do so. Setting up
a good backup system and routine shouldn't take longer than an hour or so. Doing
so could save you days of work, chaos and lost income in the future.
If something critical happens to your main machine, and you can't fix it yourself
in minutes or hours, what then? Having a separate "spare" machine
might be worth looking into. It doesn't have to be a top of the range powerhorse;
an old 486 will be enough to at least deal with emails and process orders, while
your main machine gets fixed. If you already have one or more in use, then you
might want to look into how usable they are as a spare machine. Do you have
some way of transferring your backup data into them for instance? A parallel-port
ZIP drive is an odd shaped lifesaver, but it does the trick. A little forethought
can make the difference between an inconvenience and a full-blown disaster.
There's also no shortage of software to make your life easier. Personally I
swear by PowerQuest's Drive Image, which allows me to make a complete image
of the whole of my hard drive. If my system dies unexpectedly and can't be fixed,
I can use it to restore either a just-installed fresh Windows 2000, or my system
as it was one or two months ago. This should take no more than half an hour
- think how long it takes to format your hard drive, install the operating system,
then all your software. Time and money well spent.
Is Your Web Connection Reliable?
The next link in the chain is your web connection. Almost all my work involves
some use of the web. Take away my internet connection and I'm blind, deaf and
soon to be broke! Because of this I have a permanent high-speed connection with
one of the main phone companies in Finland. I also have a separate account with
a different server, that can use my old 56 modem on a regular phone line. It
costs me all of $9 a month, but if/when my permanent connection goes down, I
can still work - a little slower, but it's certainly usable. I look at it as
a very cheap form of insurance.
A few months ago I experienced a real-life nightmare. My website went down
one morning; the site was unavailable, and email was getting swallowed-up. That's
right - not bouncing, but somehow vanishing. So anyone writing to me assumed
I'd received the email but never replied. My server assured me that the problem
would be fixed within a few hours. It wasn't, in fact it still wasn't fixed
a week later. This problem cost me dearly in time and income. It won't happen
again.
I now have a backup site, on a different server. My main site is at www.sharewarepromotions.com,
but if this ever goes down for any length of time, a letter will go out to all
my clients, and everyone who has ever contacted me, telling them to use the
www.shareware-promotions.com site and email addresses. The site itself isn't
yet finished but a basic version is already in place, and the email is fully
functional. If I ever need it in an emergency it's there, and I even have the
letter ready to go out. I pay around $4 a month for the web space, taking advantage
of the low price and reliability available from SWREG.ORG. If I never have to
use it, I'll be happy. If my main site goes down, it'll be business as usual,
and this time I won't lose any income. Again, a very cheap form of insurance.
Be prepared.
A few final common-sense tips. If you have a large number of downloads each
day, don't rely on one single location for your files. If they go down, you
go down. Also make sure you have the contact details for your server. If your
server's site also become unavailable, you won't be able to find their emergency
phone number on their site either. Keep these details somewhere safe.
Think through every single problem that could happen, and work out exactly
what you'd do if each should actually occur. While the chances of your office
being hijacked are fairly remote, the chance of you experiencing some sort of
server or hardware problem are high. If the website is a critical component
of your business, and your business a main source of your income, then you don't
want to wait until the server goes down before looking for a new host and registering
a domain name. Be seen, be sold.
About the Author:
Dave Collins is the CEO of SharewarePromotions Ltd., a well established UK-based
company working with software and shareware marketing activities, utilising
all aspects of the internet. http://www.sharewarepromotions.com and http://www.davetalks.com
Additional articles available for publication available at http://www.davetalks.com |
