
All-weather Disaster Recovery Plan
It’s essential to develop a disaster recovery plan that accounts for any weather-related disaster or other event, as well as one that ensures resiliency.
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) is such a great approach to disaster recovery (DR), it practically sells itself. If only things worked that way.
As is the case with most technology-based solutions, selling DRaaS requires integrating a significant amount of education into the sales process ─ for both the sales team and for the potential customers. While the following information isn’t intended to make anyone a full-fledged expert in DRaaS, it does offer some helpful suggestions for selling DRaaS.
1. Understand the terminology. Many of the terms, phrases, and concepts are similar but the differences between them are important. For example, learn the difference between:
2. Learn about the various DR methods, so you can talk about their pros and cons. Depending on a customer’s needs, these methods can be used alone or combined. They include:
3. Be prepared to talk about the various types of disasters that can and do affect business operations. Many people equate disasters with events like tornadoes or wildfires. These events make the headlines but the kind of disasters that are more likely to disrupt business operations are caused by hardware failure, human error, ransomware attacks and power outages. Even something like a broken water pipe on the floor above a customer’s office in a multi-story building can wreak havoc on its operations.
4. Arm yourself with statistics regarding the frequency of business-disrupting events. Here are some resources to help you get started:
5.Equip yourself with a downtime and/or uptime calculator. You’ll find numerous options online, as well as this one on US Signal’s website: https://ussignal.com/m/downtime-calculator
You can also use this easy formula:
As you talk to prospects about the cost of downtime, remind them that downtime costs aren’t just about lost revenue and productivity. Downtime can also vary seasonally. For example, it could be more during peak holiday seasons or at times associated with major events.
6. Understand the “big picture” benefits of DRaaS.
7. Understand the benefits to customers that are specific to the DRaaS solution you’re selling. What makes it different than what other service providers offer? Is it something about the solution itself, the underlying infrastructure, what the service provider offers or what your company offers?
8. Take advantage of all educational resources available from your DRaaS solution provider. If you need more than what’s available, ask for it.
9. Talk about what you bring to the engagement. You’re not just selling an off-the-shelf product. You’re selling a service – and you’re selling your own company’s added value.
10. Prepare to ask your prospects the right questions to understand their needs and the current state of their DR approach. Listen to their answers. Use them as springboards for digging deeper into their needs and expectations. Among the questions to ask, depending on the specific customer and whether or not it has a DR plan in place, are the following:
There’s much more to selling DRaaS than is provided in this document, but the information included will give you a good start. Keep in mind that research (to help understand DRaaS and to understand your prospects’ pain points and needs), listening to your prospects and instilling in them a sense of trust in you and the solution you’re offering is critical. You can never do too much on any of these fronts.
It’s essential to develop a disaster recovery plan that accounts for any weather-related disaster or other event, as well as one that ensures resiliency.
Create a DR glossary to help with DR planning by ensuring those responsible for approving budgets and resources understand the plan’s components as well as its necessity.
While recovery point objective and recovery time objective are different concepts, both are important in business continuity/disaster recovery planning.