Reactive vs. Proactive: How $600 Can Save You Thousands

Today, there’s a very good chance that you either run a small business or that you’re employed by a small business owner.  I don’t really have to inform you that small businesses rarely address the “running” of their business from a preventative approach.  Too often, we tend to face our issues as they arise, in a more reactive way... knowing all along that ultimately we want to be in a place where we can take a proactive stance to our decision making.

I run a small business, and here at NovaStor, we don’t have an abundance of resources.  Since we can’t prepare for everything, I find myself in reactive mode more times than I would care to admit.  When running a small business, I’m faced with having to make decisions – lots of them.  No matter what the decision, there are often financial ramifications involved – which brings me to a story I’d like to share about the ramifications of reactive decision making and how to save money up front by using a more proactive approach.

About four years ago, we moved into our current office and installed VGA connections that enabled us to run our video conferencing system from our previous location.  It worked seamlessly so we could enjoy all of our presentations.

Fast forward to early 2014.  With technology advances and changes, I learned that I now needed an HDMI cable to do my presentations when guests are in the office.  At first, I elected to save time and money and just copied my presentations to NovaStor’s central server and opened them from there.  But, that soon became bothersome for a few reasons.  One, the content of my presentations was confidential and I didn’t want my files located on a shared resource.  And secondly, it was too difficult to find my file on the server as I didn’t know the IP address, or other network information that I needed to make it work.  Needless to say, this was only a short term solution.

We then tried a wireless setup rather than having to actually wire it and chance damaging the surrounding walls.  Unfortunately, the wireless solution only worked about 50% of the time, which is not acceptable when you are trying to impress your audience!

With our morale and patience running low,  we finally decided to request a quote to have an HDMI cable run from our video monitor screen to our conference room table (without any visible wire).  The quote came back at just $600, and the decision seemed like a no-brainer... such an easy fix after spending time, effort and money on alternative solutions that just weren’t working.  And in retrospect, I realized that I wasn’t saving anything by trying to avoid what I knew I should have done in the first place.

Therefore, another small business decision was just made.  We had the cable installed in days and have never looked back since.  We must have wasted thousands of dollars trying those other solutions before we did what we thought was right all along. The moral of the story here is that short-cut, reactive solutions, which are just quick fixes and do not meet all of your needs for the long term, end up costing you more... sometimes much more!

I’ve been witnessing this behavior for many years selling backup software. Our NovaBACKUP Business Essentials is the ONLY backup that a small business needs and it sells for a list price of $599.95.  This price even includes a pre-purchase consultation, product installation, a year of phone and email technical support (from NovaStor employed local experts), and a year of upgrade protection to cover any new releases that may come out during the year after purchase. 

We deal with customers every day that KNOW that they need to protect their critical data, and like me, some even may have tried alternative solutions. These are the same people that make several $100 to $1,000 decisions daily without much thought at all.  Why now when it comes to something as important as backup, does this rapid decision making ability take a back seat.  Is it lack of confidence about this subject matter?  Is it a fear of selecting the wrong solution?  Are they worried whether they will get everything they need protected?  Do they not have the time to learn and install a solution on their own?  Like my HDMI, it is something I needed, and sooner or later, it has to be done right.  With NovaBACKUP Business Essentials, NovaStor takes care of all these concerns and removes all the obstacles and concerns that can stand in your way of implementing a proper backup plan.

It’s only $599.95, so be proactive and not reactive...and backup your data.

Farewell until next time, when the “Rest of Us” meet again!