Too often I hear the age old sayings of “I don’t have time”, “I’m too busy”, “Not right now”. All of the procrastination statements.
Here are a few things your business needs to jump on now, not when you are ready or have a problem. Being proactivity increases profit, efficiency and your company security.
1. Not Having Support – If you’re like many small businesses, you probably don’t want to pay someone full time to support your company, and many managed service providers can eat into the budget. When you’re trying to do everything and don’t have someone to fall back on and delegate to, efficiency gets hit. Purchasing a support plan before an issue happens, will ensure you’re not down and out of the game too long if something happens.
2. Not Having Adequate Backups – I’ve written about data backups before, multiple times. If you’re not backing up to three sources, at least one offsite, you’re doing it wrong. And let me remind you, Dropbox, Google Drive. These aren’t backups. They sync your files. If you get hit with ransomware, so do they. You need to be very proactive with your data to ensure mission critical data isn’t lost.
3. Running on old equipment – Technology advances fast. Running on out of date equipment puts your company at risk. Both in terms of security and in terms of hurting efficiency. The simple difference between an SSD and HDD (spinning drive vs solid state) can make a world of difference in terms of hardware.
4. Not patching software – The latest software update can be the difference between continuing business or getting sued for a data leak. Look at Equifax for this example. It’s important to stay up to date and keep your security holes patched.
5. Not taking help when it’s offered – There’s always something that can be done with an extra set of hands. It’s better to take help when it’s offered and save your business money, than to wait until you really need help and have to get out of a hole first. Utilize as much help as you can. Delegate delegate delegate!
6. Not taking advantage of many free services or tools – Did you know that there are tons of tools out there that can help your business in one way or another, and they’re free! Whether free forever or just a free trial or offer, could be a night and day difference. The specifics would vary in what you need. But a simple example would be using Cloudflare for web server and website protection and performance.
Your business, specifically when discussing tech, is similar to the maintenance you perform on your vehicle. You need to be proactive with it or in the long run it costs you more.
Worry not! We can help! And you can even get the consult at no cost to you!
