If there is one thing we can be certain about when it comes to cybersecurity, it’s that the landscape will remain dynamic and turbulent over the coming years. Today, news headlines are dominated by cyberattacks and breaches that span across all industries – causing security to be top of mind for almost all businesses. However, these headlines don’t seem to be slowing down, which means that businesses are still struggling to keep up with the rapidly evolving threat landscape.

So, what are the biggest obstacles businesses face in achieving a stronger cybersecurity posture, and how are MSPs best suited to help clients and prospects overcome these obstacles?

Cybersecurity Insiders’ 2017 Cybersecurity Trends Report recently uncovered that lack of skilled employees, lack of budget and lack of security awareness among employees are the three biggest cybersecurity challenges for businesses. Let’s break these down one by one.

Lack of skill

The problem: Finding qualified talent remains an ongoing challenge in the business world – specifically when it comes to IT security. In the report, 45 percent of respondents list lack of skilled employees as the first major obstacle to achieving stronger cybersecurity. It’s clear that cybersecurity is a rising concern today, but why is it still so difficult for businesses to find and retain security talent? For some, this can be attributed to the lack of training, certification, or even hands-on experience, while others believe that conventional education and policies simply can’t meet demand. Nevertheless, lack of skill has become a major obstacle in preventing businesses from achieving stronger cybersecurity.

In fact, this will remain a major obstacle for businesses because it’s estimated that by 2019, 1 to 2 million cybersecurity jobs will remain unfilled. The struggle to find employees with the right security skill set is plaguing businesses, including the small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that you serve. More often than not, these businesses don’t have the necessary resources or bandwidth to support their cybersecurity needs. Unfortunately, this leaves them very vulnerable to attack.

The solution: To address this skills gap, SMBs can leverage a managed services provider who has the appropriate technology, level of skill, experience and understanding of IT systems. Your clients won’t have to worry about learning curves or lacking the right IT skills because they’ll have access to your team of highly-trained technicians. With 24x7x365 monitoring and support, any issues that arise will be promptly remediated and taken care of. Additionally, the preventative solutions you provide, such as remote monitoring and management (RMM) and antivirus, will help bolster your clients’ cybersecurity defences and reduce their vulnerability to threats.

By leveraging your IT services, your SMB clients will have peace of mind knowing that you’ll always be working in the background to monitor and manage their IT systems, scan for any malicious activity and ensure that their network and endpoints remain secure.

Lack of budget

The problem: No matter the issue, lack of financial resources always seems to be a major roadblock for businesses. Although we’re seeing a slow increase in the investment of cybersecurity, 45 percent of respondents still list lack of budget as the next major obstacle to achieving stronger cybersecurity. The problem is that cybersecurity spending is still not at a level that matches the changing threat landscape.

Often, security budgets are hard won because you can’t see the results right away – it’s more about protecting against future issues. And for SMBs especially, financial resources are already limited, which means that not having the budget to invest in stronger cybersecurity can make them much easier targets.

The solution: Fortunately, one of the biggest values of managed services is greater cost savings. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on security hardware and software, your clients can leverage your technology, services and expertise – all at a fixed monthly cost. Also, when SMBs outsource their IT security needs to an MSP, they won’t have to deal with the added costs of onboarding new employees, training processes or paying for their benefits.

By handing off some of these needs to a trusted technology partner, SMBs can free up time for their in-house staff to think more strategically – which, in turn, increases profitability. Overall, an MSP can provide businesses with scalable IT services that can be customized to their needs, fit within their budget and keep them protected against current and future threats.

Lack of security awareness

The problem: In a perfect world, employees would act as a company’s most effective security defense. However, this is not a perfect world. Sometimes the greatest vulnerabilities are created by employees who did not receive proper security awareness training. We all know that human error has been responsible for some of the worst data breaches, and this happens mostly when security training is an afterthought. In fact, 40 percent of respondents say that lack of security awareness among employees is the third highest obstacle to strengthening cybersecurity. Organizations could risk their reputation, customer trust, and potentially their bottom lines when employees aren’t properly trained and end up mishandling data or falling for a phishing attack.

The solution: Working with an MSP is one of the best ways to overcome this obstacle. It’s in an MSPs nature to stay up-to-date on today’s threats so that they can provide the security awareness education employees need to guard against malicious schemes.

In working with an MSP, clients will have continuous support for not only their IT systems, but also their security-related planning, procedures and protocol. MSPs work with standards such as PCI compliance day in, day out, and should be able to steer clients within the specific parameters and regulations they need to adhere to. All in all, leveraging the knowledge and expertise of an MSP can allow businesses to close the security awareness gap and ensure that they’re well-equipped to face the cybersecurity landscape – with both internal and external defences. 

Need additional help? Continuum’s Cybersecurity Sales Success Kit: 2017 Edition provides you with custom, white-label content you can leverage to tailor your pitch and grow revenue for your security offering. Download the kit here.

The article ‘Overcoming Cybersecurity Challenges with Managed IT Services’ first appeared on Continuum Blog.

(c)iStock.com/Aslan Alphan

By Lily Teplow

As a savvy managed service provider (MSP), you know that having an effective backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solution and disaster recovery (DR) plan is a necessity in today’s business landscape – just in case your client opens an umbrella indoors and their whole IT network crashes. However, having these reliable solutions in place is of no value if the processes aren’t regularly tested. So, the question is this: what do your clients’ DR plan look like and when was the last time they had a DR drill test performed?

Creating a disaster recovery plan is an essential part of the business continuity planning process, yet over half of DR plans are tested once a year or never at all. There’s more to simply developing the plan – it must also be regularly tested to ensure it will work in the event of an emergency. However, when it comes to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), they don’t always have the technical resources to do so.

As an MSP, you can help them avoid major data loss or business failure due to failed DR by packaging regular DR tests into your overall BDR offering. Not only will you be able to increase a client’s disaster readiness, you’ll also increase the reliability of your BDR solution and accelerate sales. But how can you convince clients and prospects that they need to partner with you to routinely test their DR plan? We’ve gathered data from CloudVelox’s State of Disaster Recovery Survey in the chart below for you to use in your next BDR sales meeting:

Infrequent testing of backup environments is putting businesses at substantial risk in the event of an outage or disaster. As you can see from the chart, 58% of respondents say they test their DR plan just once a year or less, while 33% of respondents say they test infrequently or never at all. Without adequate testing, a minor outage could become a serious headache, and a major disaster could prove catastrophic.

So what is holding these organisations back from more frequent DR testing? For most, the major reasons can be chalked up to lack of internal resources and process complexity. But this is where an experienced MSP can come in to help. Your clients and prospects can rely on you to test and work out any kinks in their DR plan and ensure a higher level of data protection. If they have any questions pertaining to the need for DR testing and your services, use the talking points below to convince them.

Why is DR testing important?

Despite all the talk about disaster recovery testing, most organisations still don’t do it enough. Without the testing and verification of DR plans, you’ll have no idea as to whether or not you’ll actually be able to recover from a disaster or extended outage. It’s during these testing periods that any security and backup issues can be identified and addressed because sometimes, extended downtime can be a life-or-death situation.

Rather than leaving it to chance, testing backups helps you ensure that all components of our BDR solution and process work harmoniously to provide you with the proactive data management, protection and business continuity you need to be successful.

How often should I have my DR plan tested?

Chances are the answer is “more often than you are testing now.” There truly isn’t one magic number, but the more DR testing you have done, the better prepared you’ll ultimately end up. As your MSP, we can undertake this testing for you to ensure that all backup and data protection processes are working correctly, and provide you with added peace of mind that you’ll be prepared for any disaster.

How can I improve my business’ DR preparedness?

The first step is to build a detailed disaster recovery plan. We can work together to help you determine specific procedures for your DR plan, such as setting Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) for critical applications. The next step is then to test the plan. Constant testing can set a cadence that your organization deems effective, while also allowing for improvements critical adjustments. The best solution for this is to form a strategic partnership with an MSP. As an experienced provider, we can offer assistance with DR testing while providing ongoing monitoring to ensure data is being regularly backed up and is always secure. With our help, you’ll be in a good position to stay fully protected in any situation that might come your way.

Does your BDR solution enable you to run frequent DR tests? Scaling for Success: The MSP Guide to Operational Efficiency, Continuum’s new interactive eBook, examines the costs of “noisy” BDR technology and reactive service delivery, revealing a smarter, more reliable backup verification alternative. Download your copy here!

(c)iStock.com/Aslan Alphan

By Lily Teplow

As a savvy managed service provider (MSP), you know that having an effective backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solution and disaster recovery (DR) plan is a necessity in today’s business landscape – just in case your client opens an umbrella indoors and their whole IT network crashes. However, having these reliable solutions in place is of no value if the processes aren’t regularly tested. So, the question is this: what do your clients’ DR plan look like and when was the last time they had a DR drill test performed?

Creating a disaster recovery plan is an essential part of the business continuity planning process, yet over half of DR plans are tested once a year or never at all. There’s more to simply developing the plan – it must also be regularly tested to ensure it will work in the event of an emergency. However, when it comes to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), they don’t always have the technical resources to do so.

As an MSP, you can help them avoid major data loss or business failure due to failed DR by packaging regular DR tests into your overall BDR offering. Not only will you be able to increase a client’s disaster readiness, you’ll also increase the reliability of your BDR solution and accelerate sales. But how can you convince clients and prospects that they need to partner with you to routinely test their DR plan? We’ve gathered data from CloudVelox’s State of Disaster Recovery Survey in the chart below for you to use in your next BDR sales meeting:

Infrequent testing of backup environments is putting businesses at substantial risk in the event of an outage or disaster. As you can see from the chart, 58% of respondents say they test their DR plan just once a year or less, while 33% of respondents say they test infrequently or never at all. Without adequate testing, a minor outage could become a serious headache, and a major disaster could prove catastrophic.

So what is holding these organisations back from more frequent DR testing? For most, the major reasons can be chalked up to lack of internal resources and process complexity. But this is where an experienced MSP can come in to help. Your clients and prospects can rely on you to test and work out any kinks in their DR plan and ensure a higher level of data protection. If they have any questions pertaining to the need for DR testing and your services, use the talking points below to convince them.

Why is DR testing important?

Despite all the talk about disaster recovery testing, most organisations still don’t do it enough. Without the testing and verification of DR plans, you’ll have no idea as to whether or not you’ll actually be able to recover from a disaster or extended outage. It’s during these testing periods that any security and backup issues can be identified and addressed because sometimes, extended downtime can be a life-or-death situation.

Rather than leaving it to chance, testing backups helps you ensure that all components of our BDR solution and process work harmoniously to provide you with the proactive data management, protection and business continuity you need to be successful.

How often should I have my DR plan tested?

Chances are the answer is “more often than you are testing now.” There truly isn’t one magic number, but the more DR testing you have done, the better prepared you’ll ultimately end up. As your MSP, we can undertake this testing for you to ensure that all backup and data protection processes are working correctly, and provide you with added peace of mind that you’ll be prepared for any disaster.

How can I improve my business’ DR preparedness?

The first step is to build a detailed disaster recovery plan. We can work together to help you determine specific procedures for your DR plan, such as setting Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) for critical applications. The next step is then to test the plan. Constant testing can set a cadence that your organization deems effective, while also allowing for improvements critical adjustments. The best solution for this is to form a strategic partnership with an MSP. As an experienced provider, we can offer assistance with DR testing while providing ongoing monitoring to ensure data is being regularly backed up and is always secure. With our help, you’ll be in a good position to stay fully protected in any situation that might come your way.

Does your BDR solution enable you to run frequent DR tests? Scaling for Success: The MSP Guide to Operational Efficiency, Continuum’s new interactive eBook, examines the costs of “noisy” BDR technology and reactive service delivery, revealing a smarter, more reliable backup verification alternative. Download your copy here!

(c)iStock.com/Dmitrii_Guzhanin

By Mary McCoy

There’s no denying the importance of effective backup and data protection technology in today’s IT landscape. Ensuring that customer information is properly protected – and accessible at all times – is an absolute necessity.

For managed IT service providers (MSPs), the challenge lies in finding the right backup technology that can give them even a slight edge against the competition. True to its name, Continuous Data Protection (CDP) technology can provide exactly that. Here’s how.

What is continuous data protection? 

Continuous Data Protection (CDP) is a cost-effective and resource-efficient alternative to traditional backup technology. Legacy backup solutions are becoming less desirable for small businesses and impractical for MSPs because they create an image of the entire system every time a backup runs. In contrast, CDP allows you to store data more efficiently by backing up at the block level. In other words, the technology looks at changes, “or deltas,” in the data set and only executes backups of these blocks, rather than the entire file. So, for instance, if you need to back up a client’s budget spreadsheet, you have the flexibility of backing up only those file changes that occurred since the last restore point, rather than creating an entire new copy of the full document. Scale this up to the level of client sites with multiple servers and dozens of desktops and storage savings become remarkable.

Let’s examine the benefits further. Here are four reasons why your backup solution should be powered by CDP:

More frequent backups

Does your current backup window frustrate your technicians? Perhaps they’d like to schedule backups more frequently, but with the time it takes to successfully complete a single backup it’s just not feasible. The amount of data your clients amass grows at an exponential rate. If you’re using a traditional backup solution, as the amount of data that needs to be processed increases, each new backup will become agonisingly slower. At some point – and paradoxically, this point is reached quickly – your techs will be forced to schedule backups during less ideal, low-activity periods like weekends or after-hours. And if they run into backup failures and are forced to work maintenance during those off hours, you may end up paying higher labour overhead!

Rather than incur these costs and restrain your team in this way, leveraging Continuous Data Protection technology provides a shorter backup window, enabling techs to take more frequent backups and shrinking your recovery point objective (RPO).

Minimal impact on server performance

Just as any person can become «brain fried» when absorbing too much information all at once, servers can slow or even go offline indefinitely if overtaxed. Just think about how DDoS attacks crash systems by flooding servers with series of packets, data, or transactions. Though the slowness associated with traditional backups described above isn’t as severe, it is directly related to server performance. When your brain is fried, how productive are you? At some point, you reach your limit and give out. Hey, that latest episode of Westworld isn’t going to watch itself, right? Servers act similarly. By nature of how traditional backups work, legacy solutions require servers to not only read but store significantly more data. Conversely, CDP doesn’t ask for too much all at once. With it, servers only have to process incremental changes that occur between backups so you don’t have to worry about overwhelming and exhausting system resources for long periods of time. 

Server performance directly impacts your clients’ ability to maintain uptime and productivity. Unplanned downtime and business inefficiency can severely harm their profitability and, in turn, strain the relationship you’ve built with them. If you’re running a traditional backup during business hours and a service disruption occurs, depending on the damage, you could lose that client. Rather than running that risk or boxing yourself into a corner with off-hours backup windows, continue to be your clients’ trusted advisor by offering Continuous Data Protection.  

More efficient storage

What if you want to create an image capturing the state of your client’s server at every hour for an entire business week? CDP saves disk space by only storing the absolute minimum amount of data needed to represent the unique disk sectors for those points in time. Because you only need to perform a full backup once, you are essentially recycling that data over and over again without taking up any extra disk space. 

By eliminating the heavy disk usage that’s become synonymous with traditional data backups, CDP offers an innovative and smart alternative to legacy data backup methods and technologies. A relief to your bottom line, it minimises the amount of storage used on the appliance or in the cloud, keeping storage costs low and more manageable. 

Increased client confidence 

Clients shouldn’t have to choose between data protection and system performance. With CDP, they don’t have to! As their virtual CIO, you can provide the peace of mind they need to continue running their business securely and efficiently. It’s no longer enough to simply offer data backup. Business continuity is now the new standard, but one not supported by traditional backup solutions. Even if you’re performing nightly backups, day-old recovery points don’t cut it anymore. The modern, increasingly mobile workforce demands 24x7x365 access to data. Should disaster strike, they need to be able to resume business operations ASAP.

As savvy computer users, you know to «save often» when working in any document for an extended period of time. Otherwise, if your computer crashed, you’d have to make up hours of work. The same analogy applies here. Since CDP allows you to take more frequent backups, clients receive improved recovery points, resulting in less data loss and increased productivity. Additionally, they’re able to maintain business efficiency because the block-level backups you schedule during the work day won’t consume network bandwidth. 

What do all of these benefits add up to? Increased client confidence. Considering that managed IT services is a business built on relationships, the more trust you can instil in your team and technology, the better. Client satisfaction should be at the centre of every key decision you make, like evaluating which backup and disaster recovery (BDR) platform is right for you. If the IT solutions you offer impede their ability to expand their business, you’ll soon face the same stagnated growth.

BDR is a core technology in today’s IT landscape and an absolute must-have in any MSP portfolio. And while effective security and data protection are essential features in any BDR solution, it’s also important to find an offering that’s efficient and cost-effective. By intelligently identifying and backing up only data which has changed and minimising server impact, Continuous Data Protection technology offers a smart and scalable backup methodology that can help MSPs effectively protect client data while maximising their margins.

Editor’s note: Continuum has put together a business continuity content pack which aims to help generate more BDR leads with minimal effort – this includes a ‘getting started’ guide as well as customisable, white-label sales and marketing collateral. You can find out more here.

The article ‘4 Benefits of BDR Powered by Continuous Data Protection’ first appeared on Continuum Blog.

(c)iStock.com/Dmitrii_Guzhanin

By Mary McCoy

There’s no denying the importance of effective backup and data protection technology in today’s IT landscape. Ensuring that customer information is properly protected – and accessible at all times – is an absolute necessity.

For managed IT service providers (MSPs), the challenge lies in finding the right backup technology that can give them even a slight edge against the competition. True to its name, Continuous Data Protection (CDP) technology can provide exactly that. Here’s how.

What is continuous data protection? 

Continuous Data Protection (CDP) is a cost-effective and resource-efficient alternative to traditional backup technology. Legacy backup solutions are becoming less desirable for small businesses and impractical for MSPs because they create an image of the entire system every time a backup runs. In contrast, CDP allows you to store data more efficiently by backing up at the block level. In other words, the technology looks at changes, “or deltas,” in the data set and only executes backups of these blocks, rather than the entire file. So, for instance, if you need to back up a client’s budget spreadsheet, you have the flexibility of backing up only those file changes that occurred since the last restore point, rather than creating an entire new copy of the full document. Scale this up to the level of client sites with multiple servers and dozens of desktops and storage savings become remarkable.

Let’s examine the benefits further. Here are four reasons why your backup solution should be powered by CDP:

More frequent backups

Does your current backup window frustrate your technicians? Perhaps they’d like to schedule backups more frequently, but with the time it takes to successfully complete a single backup it’s just not feasible. The amount of data your clients amass grows at an exponential rate. If you’re using a traditional backup solution, as the amount of data that needs to be processed increases, each new backup will become agonisingly slower. At some point – and paradoxically, this point is reached quickly – your techs will be forced to schedule backups during less ideal, low-activity periods like weekends or after-hours. And if they run into backup failures and are forced to work maintenance during those off hours, you may end up paying higher labour overhead!

Rather than incur these costs and restrain your team in this way, leveraging Continuous Data Protection technology provides a shorter backup window, enabling techs to take more frequent backups and shrinking your recovery point objective (RPO).

Minimal impact on server performance

Just as any person can become «brain fried» when absorbing too much information all at once, servers can slow or even go offline indefinitely if overtaxed. Just think about how DDoS attacks crash systems by flooding servers with series of packets, data, or transactions. Though the slowness associated with traditional backups described above isn’t as severe, it is directly related to server performance. When your brain is fried, how productive are you? At some point, you reach your limit and give out. Hey, that latest episode of Westworld isn’t going to watch itself, right? Servers act similarly. By nature of how traditional backups work, legacy solutions require servers to not only read but store significantly more data. Conversely, CDP doesn’t ask for too much all at once. With it, servers only have to process incremental changes that occur between backups so you don’t have to worry about overwhelming and exhausting system resources for long periods of time. 

Server performance directly impacts your clients’ ability to maintain uptime and productivity. Unplanned downtime and business inefficiency can severely harm their profitability and, in turn, strain the relationship you’ve built with them. If you’re running a traditional backup during business hours and a service disruption occurs, depending on the damage, you could lose that client. Rather than running that risk or boxing yourself into a corner with off-hours backup windows, continue to be your clients’ trusted advisor by offering Continuous Data Protection.  

More efficient storage

What if you want to create an image capturing the state of your client’s server at every hour for an entire business week? CDP saves disk space by only storing the absolute minimum amount of data needed to represent the unique disk sectors for those points in time. Because you only need to perform a full backup once, you are essentially recycling that data over and over again without taking up any extra disk space. 

By eliminating the heavy disk usage that’s become synonymous with traditional data backups, CDP offers an innovative and smart alternative to legacy data backup methods and technologies. A relief to your bottom line, it minimises the amount of storage used on the appliance or in the cloud, keeping storage costs low and more manageable. 

Increased client confidence 

Clients shouldn’t have to choose between data protection and system performance. With CDP, they don’t have to! As their virtual CIO, you can provide the peace of mind they need to continue running their business securely and efficiently. It’s no longer enough to simply offer data backup. Business continuity is now the new standard, but one not supported by traditional backup solutions. Even if you’re performing nightly backups, day-old recovery points don’t cut it anymore. The modern, increasingly mobile workforce demands 24x7x365 access to data. Should disaster strike, they need to be able to resume business operations ASAP.

As savvy computer users, you know to «save often» when working in any document for an extended period of time. Otherwise, if your computer crashed, you’d have to make up hours of work. The same analogy applies here. Since CDP allows you to take more frequent backups, clients receive improved recovery points, resulting in less data loss and increased productivity. Additionally, they’re able to maintain business efficiency because the block-level backups you schedule during the work day won’t consume network bandwidth. 

What do all of these benefits add up to? Increased client confidence. Considering that managed IT services is a business built on relationships, the more trust you can instil in your team and technology, the better. Client satisfaction should be at the centre of every key decision you make, like evaluating which backup and disaster recovery (BDR) platform is right for you. If the IT solutions you offer impede their ability to expand their business, you’ll soon face the same stagnated growth.

BDR is a core technology in today’s IT landscape and an absolute must-have in any MSP portfolio. And while effective security and data protection are essential features in any BDR solution, it’s also important to find an offering that’s efficient and cost-effective. By intelligently identifying and backing up only data which has changed and minimising server impact, Continuous Data Protection technology offers a smart and scalable backup methodology that can help MSPs effectively protect client data while maximising their margins.

Editor’s note: Continuum has put together a business continuity content pack which aims to help generate more BDR leads with minimal effort – this includes a ‘getting started’ guide as well as customisable, white-label sales and marketing collateral. You can find out more here.

The article ‘4 Benefits of BDR Powered by Continuous Data Protection’ first appeared on Continuum Blog.

(c)iStock.com/Dmitrii Guzhanin

By Mary McCoy

By now, most MSPs recognise that offering backup is table stakes.

Your clients can receive this service from any number of your competitors. In order to stand out and increase monthly recurring revenue (MRR), focus on the disaster recovery (DR) aspect of backup and disaster recovery (BDR). Offer your clients DR testing.

To fully capitalise on the advantages of DR testing, keep the following four best practices in mind when adding this service to your IT portfolio. 

Test everything

Technology alone won’t save businesses paralysed by an IT emergency. DR testing should also engage on the business level, considering continuity of operations and processes along with the validation of actual data availability. How robust is your client’s DR plan? Being properly prepared can be as simple as knowing who to call and having an up-to-date contact list.

Your DR plan should also avoid ambiguity and set expectations when it comes to designating team and individual roles and responsibilities. Do both you and your clients know what to hold each other accountable for or who to reach out to when something goes wrong?

Pro tip: Your DR plans are not one-size-fits-all, which means your testing should vary across your client base. Each business you serve has different needs. Many organisations have specific compliance and regulatory statutes that they’re required to adhere to. You may back up and store some clients’ data at a physical location offsite and others’ in the cloud. No two clients are alike. When DR testing, processes and procedures should be optimised for each individual client. 

Test regularly 

How often should you be conducting disaster recovery tests? There is no hard and fast rule, and it really depends on the client in question. That being said, you should run annual DR tests, at the very least. Your clients’ disaster readiness depends on every employee’s understanding of the current DR plan, which they can ultimately only achieve after familiarisation with the DR testing process. And when factoring in employee turnover, testing every year helps acclimate any new hires to the proper procedures and protocol, thereby helping you fine-tune your clients’ disaster response. 

Considering that a company’s DR strategy is only as strong as its least prepared employee, you’d think more would advocate frequent DR testing to mitigate risk. According to the 2016 Disaster Recovery as a Service Attitude and Adoption Report, however, 22% of respondents test their DR plans less than once a year or in many cases, never test at all. Help them avoid this liability and package regular DR tests into your overall BDR offering.

Sure, testing backups every year should be the standard, but even this may be too conservative in certain circumstances. Let’s examine a scenario in which you may want to test more frequently. Perhaps you serve a bank or any other financial services business bound by PCI DSS compliance. To comply with regulatory standards, you may need to test this client’s DR plan every three months to ensure your BDR solution meets the necessary requirements. In contrast, a barber shop’s DR plan may only need to be tested two to three times per year. Again, when formulating DR plans, always make sure you optimise procedures and processes at the client level.

Document outcomes 

Strong DR documentation starts with a client’s disaster recovery plan, which should outline everything anyone would need to know in the event of an emergency. This includes contact information, a detailed outline of the steps and procedures that individuals need to follow in order to activate a disaster recovery, expected time frames for recovering data and more. 

Only when your response policy is put to the test, can you adequately assess the effectiveness of a DR plan. Maybe certain directions are unclear and create friction across teams. Document any and all outcomes during and after testing. What worked? What didn’t? Where were the failure points? Why did those failures occur? How do you address these in your client’s plan? Were any employees or team leads unavailable? In the event that you can’t reach these people in the future, who are their backups? Little details like this can mean everything when the clock is ticking and your clients’ business continuity is at stake. To help ensure a more seamless DR response, record all results that may be used to improve your clients’ disaster readiness. Then, conduct a post-mortem with all involved, to review lessons learned and areas for improvement.

Update DR plans

Finally, update your clients’ DR plans as necessary. This testing is all for naught if you don’t do anything with the data you record. It’s not enough to simply remember what to do next time around. Recall the conversation around client employee churn. If your client onboards a new hire after your DR test, this employee will only have the existing DR documentation to follow. Rather than repeat the same mistakes in your next round of DR testing, correct now to save your clients later. And remember, disaster readiness is ongoing. Continue to frequently revisit and strengthen your DR plans so that testing runs smoother going forward. 

The article ‘4 Essentials MSPs Forget When Disaster Recovery Testing‘ first appeared on Continuum Blog.

(c)iStock.com/Peshkova

MSPs planning a marketing strategy today will find an overwhelming array of technologies and tactics at their disposal. But those that adopt technology- and data-driven marketing while maintaining a consistent human touch will stand the best chance of success.

Here are five practices we often recommend for MSPs looking to humanise their brand and make stronger connections with prospects:

Lead with your people

Business owners looking to outsource their IT support want to know that you’ll provide technical expertise and reliable customer service. A great way to demonstrate both attributes is to lead with real people and real stories in your marketing. Examples of this include video interviews with your engineers and support team, frequent client case studies and team bios featured prominently on your website.

Deliver on-point content for every question and objection

A comprehensive, buyer-centric content library is a key building block of a good IT marketing strategy. You can build this by first holding an internal workshop to understand the common stages of the decision process for each of your services, then creating a piece of content that addresses the typical questions and concerns a prospect has at each stage.

Once built, this library can fuel nearly every aspect of your marketing—from lead generation to social media to sales calls.

Avoid marketing buzzwords

Contempt for marketing buzzwords and generally empty language is universal among IT pros. When you build your website and content library, try doing it without using phrases like “world-class,” “end-to-end,” “best of breed,” or “industry-leading.”

Instead, try to convey your true identity and differentiators in a direct, simple and transparent voice. Tell them what you do, tell them what youdon’t do, and have a clear and painless call to action for starting a conversation.

See also: Why Jargon is a Disaster for Your IT Marketing (and How to Recover)

Build email lists organically

Particularly for new MSPs starting from zero in marketing, the temptation to purchase an email list can be strong. But the serious drawbacks of this tactic have been well documented by popular platforms like Convince & Convert, AWeber, HubSpot and MailChimp®. Simply put, you risk brand damage and compromise your future email deliverability while likely seeing poor returns.

The good news: When you build your email list through slow and steady inbound marketing (drawing people in with useful content and getting them to subscribe) you will likely see much higher engagement levels and ultimately better leads. It’s quality over quantity.

If you cold call, be armed with knowledge

Cold calling can turn off busy business decision makers, but sometimes it feels like a necessary evil to build a pipeline. If you must do it, be sure your sales reps have the depth of knowledge to lead a meaningful conversation with the few people that do want to engage. Our own research as well as that of others has shown that IT pros don’t care much for cold calls, but they really don’t like getting them from people who can’t answer their questions.   

Lauchlan is sponsoring Continuum’s upcoming user conference and SOLD-OUT industry event, Navigate 2016, taking place in Boston, MA from September 28-30. Visit us at booth #108, and learn more about the humanised approach to MSP marketing. We look forward to meeting you and talking about your marketing challenges!

The article ‘5 Ways To Humanize MSP Marketing’ first appeared on Continuum Blog.

(c)iStock.com/tioloco

By Mary McCoy

If you’re looking to capture additional monthly recurring revenue (MRR) by selling your backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solution to more clients, you have to understand the overall sales process and particularly, the discovery phase, which is meant to help you identify the best candidates for your BDR solution.

To identify those small and medium sized businesses with the highest probability of adopting your solution, begin by getting to know them. Uncover their needs by asking the following 10 questions.

Preliminary information

This first set of questions helps you establish a baseline regarding data management needs. Before you can begin qualifying, you need to know what kind of IT environment you’re working with. Are there any constraints? What’s the SMB’s attitude toward BDR solutions, and do they have a history of backing up data?

• What type of customer records are you storing? Examples: sales receipts/billing, contact information, private/confidential records
• How are you currently storing that data? Examples: physical copies, local laptop/desktop, local server, off-site storage 
• What regulations do you need to comply with? Examples: HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, HITECH
• What additional, non-customer related data are you storing on your machines? Examples: proprietary information/documentation, marketing materials, primary research, competitive data, vendor contracts

Gauge their disaster readiness

At this point in the sales conversation, you should begin asking questions to qualify the prospect. Getting the right answers is all about asking the right questions. What are the right answers? The ones that indicate whether or not the prospect is the right fit for your IT services. You want to weed out any unhealthy candidates that may stall your sales cycle or be «noisy,» unprofitable clients down the line. To do this, evaluate their level of disaster preparedness by asking questions that identify whether the prospect needs a business continuity solution. 

Often, these questions are ones prospects haven’t even thought to ask and trigger that «aha!» moment you’re looking for in order to close them into clients later.

• What problems have you faced in the past related to data loss or corruption? Asking this question gives you historical context that can help you judge a prospect’s disaster readiness. It introduces any problems you may be walking into if you sign the client, and helps you later cater your sales pitch or presentation toward real-life scenarios that the prospect can relate to.
• What percentage of your standard business operations would be impacted if your records/data were temporarily unavailable or deleted? Asking hypothetical questions like this is a useful MSP sales tactic. By asking this question, you should hope to have your prospect recognise the value of their data. At the same time, the answer they provide can help you judge whether the SMB has a need you can fill and is therefore worth pursuing.
• How long could you keep your business running without access to your data? Again, the benefit here is twofold. You get the qualifying answer in discovering if the SMB will benefit from your solution. And at the same time, you gain an opportunity to explain the typical, severe repercussions of prolongeddowntime after a disaster.
• What is your current plan for protecting the integrity and security of your data? Like the previous sales discovery question, this one helps you position your value proposition as your clients’ virtual CIO (vCIO). More often than not, the SMBs you talk to won’t have any kind of business continuity plan or disaster response procedure in place. They don’t have the time or in-house expertise to compile and manage such a framework. This is where you can really shine as their advisor. If the prospect has no business continuity plan, you can explain the reasons for developing one, walking them through the initial steps of creating and testing it. If the prospect has already implemented a disaster recovery (DR) plan, listen as they provide the details. Don’t discount prospects that claim they already have a DR plan. They may be mistaken, it may not be in use or it may require significant improvement that you can provide as their vCIO. 
• What are your top priorities as far as data backup and disaster recovery is concerned? This is a general catch-all to help you understand a prospect’s general mindset about the value of BDR and what they think you can provide. It’s also a more direct question that can help you determine whether a prospect has benefited from having a BDR solution in the past. Perhaps in expressing their priorities, the prospect expresses dissatisfaction with a competitive service. This not only gives you a leg up, but helps you tailor your proposal and eventual onboarding process to best serve the SMB. 

Steer the conversation back toward purchase intent

The best way to do this is to first ask the prospect what their previous purchases were and what the return was. Notice the subtle difference between asking «Are you interested in buying from me?» and this last, better question:

• What investments have you made in hardware/storage over the last four to five years? If the prospect has made recent investments in hardware or physical storage, this should signal to you that they likely understand the value of data integrity/security and are willing to make investments (such as cloud storage) to ensure that their data is safe. If they have not made recent investments in this area, the SMB likely needs your BDR services. Now, while this is also a favourable outcome, understand that they may need more convincing to see the overall value of your business continuity services. As a result, your sales cycle may be extended. 

When selling BDR, you have to get to know the prospect and their business needs first. Modern, client-centric sales involves talking with, not talking at, SMBs. The ten discovery questions shared in this post should help you start that dialogue, pinpoint worthwhile, high-close prospects and move them further along through the MSP sales journey. Once you know who to target your sales presentation and proposal to, you’ll have all of the necessary information to personalise your offering to their individual needs.