We're getting close to launching our brand new Success Planner (available at no cost to our Gold Members). It has several modules: Goals, Projects, Tasks, Schedule, Contacts, Journal, Win List, Idea Bank and SWOT Analysis.

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

It's a pretty simple process really—and quite worthwhile. You make a list of all your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In doing so, you get a clearer idea of where your business is.

And from it, you can make improvements and take actions that will minimize weaknesses and threats and optimize strengths and opportunities.

For today, I want to focus on threats—specifically one threat. The intention isn't to focus on the negative, it's simply to be prudent.

This threat is for any business—big or small. It's the potential loss of data. I'm amazed at how many business owners I talk with who don't back up their hard drives on any regular basis. Some have NEVER backed up.It's not a question of IF you're going to experience a hard drive crash, it's a matter of WHEN.

We have two portable hard drives that we use to back up all new files as well as any that have changed. The software that came with the portable hard drives is scheduled to back up at 1 AM.

It works great and it's saved us some real aggravation when we have corrupted a file or files.
However, even this system is flawed.

Because if our home and office were destroyed, our computers and backups would likely be lost as well.

We've just started using a service called Mozy. It automatically backs up over the web. Your files are encrypted and stored on their servers—nonstop, unlimited backup over The Net.

There is even a free version. And the unlimited version is only a few dollars a year. That's well worth the peace of mind it will bring. Mozy. 

Think how catastrophic it would be to lose all your data. And it's easy to insure yourself against this loss. Would you not have insurance on your house or your car? Of course not. And this is just a few pennies a day.

You'll be hearing a lot about our new Success Planner that I mentioned in the opening of this article. It's your own personal organizer designed to support you in reaching your goals. We're testing it now and we're pleased with what our developers have done so far. Coming soon.