On August 30th, I was in the Destin, Florida area with my family. It use to be one of the best kept secret in the country. If you have never been there, it is a beautiful place 10 months out of the year. The two months that I do not like are the ones during hurricane season. This time we had to evacuate or face the possibility of staying another week. We chose to travel north then west back to Texas.

As I watched the historic evacuation of the Gulf Coast on CNN, I felt for the many business owners who could not operate because of the impending hurricane. Most small business do not have a DR plan for their business. The ones that have a DR plan usually focus on the computer networks. I remind business owners all the time – Your phones are just as imortant! Remote PBX customers have a build in DR plan! Since our office runs on a virtual RemotePBX phone system, our location is not important. Call are still handled as if we are in the office. Can your business phone system survive a natural disaster? What would happen to your business if you could not answer the phone for a month?

Even though we are in the age of the Internet, the phone is still the primary contact for most small businesses. Unlike email, a phone conversation is real time. If your email service is down for an hour,clients and prospects most likely will not notice. Let your phones go off for a hour! You are effectively out of business. Think about it, unless you have a web business like Amazon, Ebay or Paypal, you are interacting with your customers, vendors and prospects on the phone.