No sooner does one disaster (natural or man‑made) recede from our memories than we find another right in front of us. Consider for a moment:

• The local, national and international disruption caused by the events of 9/11.
• The destruction and social upheaval that followed Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the surrounding areas.
• The immediate and long-term recreational, environmental and business damage caused to the Gulf Coast as a result of the BP oil spill.
• The billions of dollars of damage caused by the tornado in Joplin, Missouri, last May.
• The damage caused to the Northeast in October by a pre-winter snowstorm that came close on the heels of Hurricane Irene.

In the face of these and other events, business is expected to keep on churning. That’s a task that’s easier said than done, however. When one considers that the Fortune-500 type of businesses have the staff, money and assets to plan for such events, the task of keeping business operating on all cylinders might be a bit more daunting for the majority of MANA members. Given the fact that the size of their staffs is in the range of one–three people, the average association member can hardly be expected to plan for the unexpected. Having said that, however, we might do well to keep in mind the words of Ben Franklin, who admonished: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Balancing Priorities

While preparation appears to be the first word to keep in mind when considering how to deal with disasters, it’s unavoidable for small businesses (especially independent manufacturers’ representatives) to ignore the fact that they’ve got more than enough on their plates just keeping their businesses running smoothly under the best of conditions. When Agency Sales approached a number of reps concerning their level of preparedness in the face of a disaster, the first response most offered was that the greatest disaster they face is when they lose a major line. They can hardly be blamed for overlooking the need to have a plan in place to deal with a natural disaster.

At first thought, it might be that reps who aren’t located in particularly susceptible (to natural disasters) areas don’t have to be overly concerned with disaster planning. A small sampling of interviews with reps, however, pokes some holes in that theory. For instance, consider Joel Casaubon, Canner Associates, Inc., Charlton, Massachusetts. In fairly rapid succession last year, his area endured a triple play of actual or near disasters in the form of a tornado (fairly rare for that area), Hurricane Irene, and then a pre-winter snowstorm that knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of people in the Northeast.

According to Casaubon, “While we weren’t tremendously affected by either the tornado or the hurricane, immediately after the hurricane I went looking for a generator. Predictably, I had difficulty finding one but did locate one in time to be installed prior to the snowstorm.” And lucky for him he did, because just as thousands of people in nearby Connecticut, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire lost electricity, his power went out. “Thankfully, we were able to stay up and running, not that it did all that much good because all of my customers had lost power at the same time.”

Even armed with his recently used 20/20 hindsight, Casaubon is remarkably honest when he admits, “I don’t know if I’d tell other reps to spend a great deal of time planning for disasters. I’d say the best thing you can do is keep your eyes and ears open to what your local weatherman says and then act accordingly.” Having said that, however, he admits he’s glad that generator was up and running to see him through the latest storm.

Early Season Snow

Similar to his rep neighbor to the north, John Aiello, PSE Associates LLC, Guilford, Connecticut, was hit twice in succession by the hurricane and snowstorm. Following the hurricane, which had been downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hit Connecticut, Aiello purchased a 6500W generator but wasn’t lucky enough to get it hooked up in time for the snowstorm. When the snow came, he was out of power for two days, but with the aid of a friendly electrician was hooked up quickly to the point where he could run his business effectively from his BlackBerry. He adds that when the local public library was up and running, he’d go there about twice a day to recharge his BlackBerry.

Aiello notes that in general, he’s not surprised if most reps don’t spend an awful lot of time planning for surviving disasters. “Reps are ‘today’ kind of people who have to think on their feet. When something happens, they’ll figure out how to survive and get things done.”

As someone located in an area particularly susceptible to tornadoes, James Flanagan, MINK Assocs., Inc., Overland Park, Kansas, says, “I’ve got to admit that planning for such an event doesn’t weigh that heavily on my mind. Naturally, you take any and all precautions that anyone would take in their daily lives — but perhaps we should do more.”

Flanagan explains that his agency backs up all its files, can access and work with those files remotely and “for the most part we can operate out of a virtual office from anywhere.” He adds that perhaps more thought should be given to becoming comfortable with teleconferencing and using Skype and even backing up files on Cloud (Cloud computing is a marketing term for technologies that provide computation, software, data access, and storage services that don’t require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services.).

Before answering any questions on disaster preparedness, John Sandifer, CPMR, took a deep breath and admitted, “That’s not something I’ve thought an awful lot about. But since the subject has been raised, it’s definitely something I should plan for.” Sandifer, SanCo Sales, Crandall (Dallas), Texas, adds that “Since we’re located right here in Tornado Alley, I ought to be thinking about what would happen to my business if power went down for a period of time and I lost all my accounting and customer information.”

Sandifer, who serves as MANA’s District 7 director, adds that while he does back up all of his daily activities, “Perhaps I should be doing more by storing the back ups off site or even in the Cloud.” Just as the other reps interviewed for this article, Sandifer concurs that even the smallest step in the direction of being prepared is a good idea.

Planning for the Unknown 

In general terms, however, even the broadest disaster plans should call for the protection of agency staff and property. Moving on from there, plans should include:

• Identifying how to get critical business operations running as quickly as possible.
• Minimizing the amount of downtime so customers/principals aren’t lost to the competition.

There’s more to be considered, however, and David Colmans, executive director of the Georgia Insurance Information Service, points business people in the direction of a well-thought-out program to help guide the small business owner through the steps to make sure your business is as protected as it can be from potential disaster. It’s called “Open For Business” and is available online at www.disastersafety.org.

Some of the basic planning steps include:

• Identify the potential impacts that threaten the business and their potential severity.
• Put a framework in place for building resilience.
• Create response procedures to prevent chaos and get the business quickly going again.
• Make a well-thought-out business recovery plan.

Disaster Specialists

Several of these points were expanded upon in an interview conducted with Bob Boyd, president and CEO of Agility Recovery, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based company that has carved out a niche for itself providing disaster recovery services to North American organizations for more than two decades. The complete interview, conducted by www.ilstv.com, appears on the company’s web site (www.agilityrecovery.com).

According to Boyd, “For a long time, the only people that really had large, sophisticated disaster recovery/business continuity programs were large enterprise businesses.

“But there are a lot of little businesses that haven’t historically had those capabilities, they don’t have a plan. They don’t know what they’re going to do if their building burns down or where they would go or how they’d redirect their phones or any of those kinds of things. The vast majority of the businesses out there don’t have that plan.

“The reality of the situation is people begin to think about disaster recovery because of those mega-events, the regional kind of events. The event that’s actually much more likely to impact them that they need to be prepared for is that thing that’s isolated to just them. That’s infinitely more likely to happen than being impacted by Hurricane Irene. People buy because they get worried about the big hurricane but they actually much more often have an event because of something that happened at their location.”

As an example, Boyd cites a recent phone conversation with a prospect in Houston. “Those folks are worried about hurricanes. They get hit a lot. I was going through my spiel and talking about how we’re going to get prepared for that and be ready. He actually stopped me midway through and said, ‘Bob, look, I am worried about the hurricanes because clearly they come ashore and they affect a lot of people. But I’m much more worried about that thing that’s going to impact just me, because if it affects just my business and my customers calling here get a fast busy signal meaning we’re not here, they’re going to go someplace else. If they called everybody in Houston and everybody is down, well then I’d probably get a couple of days’ latitude. They know it’s a hurricane.’

“He was much more worried about that. It’s the ‘I’ve gotta be able to respond much more quickly if it’s just me.’”

As he speaks to prospects, Boyd says, “We talk about core things that people can do, and one of the things we really recommend people do is whatever they put in place for their plan and processes — whether they use a service like mine or they’re just going to try to do this on their own — they should sit down and test that plan. They should sit down and get all of the stakeholders that are involved, put them in a room and walk through because if they conduct an exercise, they’re going to find out what assumptions they made in their plans that don’t hold water. You want to find that out when it doesn’t matter. Finding that out when the fire hits, it’s too late. You’re much better off finding the holes, the gaps in your plan, when it’s pretend vs. when it’s the real thing. When the real thing happens, you’ll find other things that failed. You can’t conceive of everything that could happen.”

Getting By in a Pinch

Taylor Busby, Agility Recovery’s vice president of marketing, adds his thoughts to those of his president, when he maintains, “The reality is that most companies as small as the typical manufacturers’ rep firm can get by in a pinch. If their office burns down, chances are they quickly will be able to find another place to move to. They’ve probably backed up their data and can access it from other computers. As a result, they don’t really need a robust plan. But they’ve got to consider the basics if they plan on surviving.

Here are some of the basics he cites as critical:

• Take whatever steps are necessary to assure the safety of your personnel, property and data.
• Back up data and be able to access that data from somewhere.
• How are you going to continue communications with customers? If you lose cell phone service, how do you keep open the lines of communication?
• Taking the previous point a step further — what’s the message you’re sending to members, reps and vendors if you can’t communicate with them? How do you plan on continuing to work with them on a day-to-day basis? Most people will give you a pass for a short time, but once you pass the understanding and compassion stage, what happens? What will happen is that they will look elsewhere for a business partner.

Busby cautions that if the rep extends the planning process to consider every disaster contingency, “You can easily drive yourself nuts. Disaster preparedness is a billion-dollar industry that not everyone has even considered. To take care of yourself and your business, create a basic plan and work the plan. But whatever you do, do something. Something is a heck of a lot better than doing nothing.”

For some additional information on disaster preparedness, visit www.preparemybusiness.com.