Why Don't I Backup My Business Systems

Why Don't I Backup My Business Systems

I was reading Jennifer Mackay's post My upgrade woes and that got me to thinking about what I would do were I to find myself in the same situation. So I asked myself a question, do I backup all my systems? I'm very good at backing some of my computers but not others. If my desktop were to crash I would probably be OK and most likely be able to recover all the lost data. If my iPhone fell into the dogs water bowl (don't laugh, this really did happen, and yes I consider my phone one of my systems), I would probably be ok. Or if my iPad was dropped and shattered, I would probably also be ok.

But what about my other systems? I have a contact management system, hosted at Top Producer. I have a website, hosted at Verio. I have an accounting system. I have a lead capture system. I have systems for just about every aspect of my real estate business. I do think that systems are now so reliable I don't have to think about backing them up. That's not entirely true. Computer systems for the most part are very reliable today (unless they get wet). And, I trust that the companies were I run my on systems are making backups of their systems and have business continuation plans so if something happened to their systems, I wouldn't be out of business.

Back to Jennifer's problem. Like Jennifer, I regularly make changes to my website. Some changes are minor, like adding a blog post (yes, that's a change people!). And, some are pretty major, like replacing a Wordpress theme. I'm pretty savvy about systems (having spent 20-plus years in the information systems and technology business before becoming a real estate agent) but perhaps not savvy enough. Wordpress, the platform upon which I'm run my website, seems pretty reliable (when hacker aren't trying to break in). There are sometimes updates and often upgrades, especially to plugins. I don't often manually backup my site and the underlying database before I install a new plugin, update one, or add a new post. What I rely upon is that someone else is taking care of the backup for me. I'm relying upon my ISP to backup my VPN where my website and database are hosted, and, if there is a problem, I'll get them to restore it back to an earlier state. This sounds good in theory and has worked in the past when I've had minor problems.

What really struck a cord with me when reading Jennifer's post was this - as a real estate agent I run a small business and I don't have a business continuation plan for catastrophes large or small. While Jennifer's problem didn't put her out of business, her sites up and running and looks pretty sharp. I hope that the companies running my systems have a business continuation plan. And, I probably should have one to, a least a basic one.

It must be my nature not to want to think about bad things happening to me, but, bad things do happen to me from time to time (phone falls into dogs water bowl and ceases to work). A tornado, hurricane, earthquake, or lightening strike hasn't happen to me yet nor have any companies I rely upon gone out of business but they could. I think it would be appropriate for me to consider what I would do if one of my systems stopped working as a result of either a natural disaster or business failure. Would I be able to pick up my business and move it somewhere else (to another company) and resume business afterwards? As a small business owner it's almost too much for me to think about.

Where do I start making plans for business continuation? I think I will start by answering the question why don't I backup my business systems.