Now stop. And wiggle with it.
Kidding. Unless you want to have an impromptu dance party a la Sandra Bullock & Betty White, then, by all means, have at it. The backing up I’m referring to is not of your derrière, but of your files. All of them.
Every.
Single.
One.
Backed up your files last week? Do it anyway. Keep most of your files on a hard drive so it won’t matter if you lose the ones online? Yes, it will.
Even though we have been drilled on the importance of backing up our files time and time again, we don’t. Until we lose them all and then it’s save save save every 2 seconds.
About a decade or so ago I had thousands of pictures stored on my mom’s desktop. Vacations, firsts, deceased relatives, birthdays. All gone when her computer crashed. I mourned those photos for months and swore I would never let that happen again. Last month I forgot to turn on the auto-renew feature for my hosting. It lapsed. I kept reminding myself to pay my hosting fees so I wouldn’t lose anything. I forgot and then my site went down. Two weeks ago I was updating a clients’ site. Hadn’t been updated in yeeeeaaaaars so when I tried to update a few files, her site became unresponsive. Not only her site but the 10 or so others that were on her shared hosting account.
The last two scares were fixed in a matter of minutes. The pictures, however, are gone forever and I’m still pretty salty about it.
I bring this up because even with my first-hand experience of losing important documents, even though I back up my own and clients sites weekly, anything can happen.
Even though I knew I could fix both mine and my clients’ site, I still had a mini panic attack. Luckily I was able to get everything back to the way it was before crashing and no one was the wiser. Until just now that I’ve told you all.
Unfortunately, though, not everyone can say the same.
Let me repeat that.
More than half, 58% if you want to be technical, of small businesses are NOT backing up their files. We’re taking client information, accounting records, accounts payable or receivable, employee records, it could be a number of things.
WHY????
The first couple of reasons that come to mind are: It won’t happen to me or I don’t get it!
I may not understand the velocity at which the earth rotates around the sun per millisecond but I understand that I need to have some grasp on it if I want to get to my 4 o’clock appointment on time!
Data loss happens and it can happen to anyone and any type of business, be it a 1-man/woman show or a Fortune 500 company.
What needs to be backed up? In a word? Everything.
The WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHY, and HOW all vary a million different ways depending on the type of business you have and a number of other factors. What works for Walmart may not work for Best Buy and may not work for you either.
However, just because you’re not at a Walmart or Best Buy level doesn’t mean you should hold off backing up your important documents and files. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Take a cue from me and Murphy and prevent the panic, headache, and possible financial loss that could come with data loss.
Schedule a consultation now to see what would be the best option for your business, both easy on your wallet and technical skills.