EaaS Consulting, LLC

Check out the May/June issue of SUCCESS Magazine with Tony Robbins on the cover -- you might find two pages featuring some #businesscontinuity advice from yours truly! Thank you to Lisa Beach and Kerrie Lee Brown! #SUCCESS #SUCCESSmagazine #businessresilience #businessgrowth #businessowner

Part of #businesscontinuity is figuring out what your most important #processes are for #operations - to keep things running, even at a reduced rate, to always be continuous and making money. Another possibly nuanced and overlooked aspect is determining what your biggest #asset is and protecting it as the highest priority. If you manufacture a product, it would seem that the manufacturing process is the most important operation but also your most valuable asset is the machine that makes the productor or maybe, even, one of the raw materials. You can see here that we are taking apart the entire manufacturing operation to see what truly is the most important aspect of the operation and securing that thing piece by piece. One thing has now exploded into many. What if you are a #nonprofit with a mission? I'm sorry MANNA Food Bank has become such a lightning rod of a case study, I truly am. This is a good example of how operations can vary from the asset. What's the most important operational aspect to feeding those who are food insecure? Getting and delivering food. Assets involved: trucking and warehouse for storage. Are the trucks and warehouse the most valuable assets? They are essentially a delivery service. However, they are mission fail if they don't have food to deliver. You can always figure out a way to get the food to the people, but at least have the food. I saw MANNA trucks moved to higher ground the morning before #Helene. The trucks were empty. The food was left inside the warehouse - moved to a higher shelf but that was no match for the flood that was coming. Non-profits need business continuity, too. When you are rushed to make a decision, you don't have the ability to see the playing field appropriately, especially if you've never experienced it before, never had to think about it before. You may accidentally leave your most valuable asset exposed. Secure. Survive. Thrive. For more on this and other topics, visit and subscribe to the blog on the EaaS website. #businessresilience #businessgrowth #asheville #businessowner #smallbusiness

Thank you to Dr. Steve Goldman and MIT Professional Education for inviting me to speak on the experience of surviving #Helene in #Asheville, NC, with the mind of someone having both #emergencymanagement and #businesscontinuity experience to the Crisis Management and Business Resiliency course yesterday. It was a pleasure and honor to speak to peers in the profession. Secure. Survive. Thrive. #businessresilience #crisismanagement #businessgrowth

I have some stories of just harsh truth, paths ahead, and amazing hope. The reality for many #Asheville-area #restaurants: they experienced #Helene differently, depending on the location. Some were very lucky - no damage at all, some even never lost power. Some had some minor flooding issues from the rain, untouched by the river. Yet others have to do gut renovations and throw out all their equipment due to the 10+ft the river flooded them. Almost all of them, though, lost water. What does that really look like for a restaurant? Aside from not being able to do dishes, wash produce, or sanitize working areas for health codes, they are required to have bathrooms for employees and dine-in patrons. Porta potties can be a solution. Also, they need to be approved by the health department to reopen. Restaurants have been preparing donated meals, which can be done outside health department oversight. They have been using potable water from public distribution sites and donations from breweries who have water available as part of the brewing process. Normal commercial levels of service, however, require so much more that until water returns, it isn't worth it. Water sourcing is a big (and expensive) issue. Some restaurants are taking notes from Waffle House so they can open up again to make money. They are creating simplified menus that require, in their case, minimum water usage. Aside from smaller menus, operating hours are also being reduced. Now here's for the really good stuff. First, World Central Kitchen has a guy named Ruston Waldron. He is a plumber who installs water tanks in some of the most austere environments. He's been working disasters since 2005 when Katrina hit his hometown. He said Asheville's problems are the worst he's encountered. Yet, in spite of that, he's been able to set up 19 restaurants with 1500-2000 gallon tanks so far! Second, I did my own investigation when I saw SUBWAY shops open. The owners were providing potable water for sanitation for the meat slicers (with an added solution) and for the spray bottles for the bread. I asked if providing their own potable water (it's an expense borne by the franchise owner) was worth it. In the few days they were open that week, the sales were 30% higher than an average week! Being under the gun forces some creative solutions. It can also be done in advance (with #businesscontinuity) so action can be taken more quickly. Secure. Survive. Thrive. For more on this and other topics, subscribe to the blog on the EaaS website. #businessresilience #businessgrowth #businessowner #smallbusiness

One of the hardest sells for #businesscontinuity is that it isn't a physical thing. It's not a new machine with buttons to press. #businessowners who want to invest want to see an ROI immediately. I can always offer the idea of increased security and the ability to grow, but that's too abstract for some, still. So what do I offer them instead? COI - cost of inaction. The three types of clients I get are 1) leaders who lean in early and want to be agile, 2) people standing on a burning platform, and 3) people who need to do business continuity because they are required to. The COI for each? (going out of order on purpose) 1) missed opportunities 3) gets fined/doesn't close the sale/doesn't get the insurance policy 2) loses (almost) everything None of these things are palatable. The ones who come too late for their current situation has to be the most heartbreaking. When MANNA Food Bank moved their trucks to much higher elevation to save them, I thought that was amazing. I immediately said "I hope they put all their non-perishable food items in those trucks." They did not; they lost all of it. I read a quote that they did they best they could. I believe that. They did the best they could under a lot of stress - making decisions in the moment and not seeing an obvious solution to secure their most valuable asset for an area of NC that was already food insecure pre-storm. Having a #businesscontinuityplan takes some of the stress away because your playbook was thought out, trained on and exercised in advance. I end a lot of my talks on business continuity with the line "You can't afford to not do it." I wish I didn't have concrete examples right now of how expensive that loss truly is. Secure. Survive. Thrive. For more on takes like this, visit the EaaS socials on instagram and tiktok @dontkillyourbusiness. #businessresilience #businessgrowth #smallbusiness

Class written and delivered by yours truly. Doing something to help many.

I am continuing with my experience surviving #Helene in #Asheville, NC. I didn't think there was anything I could have done to help the businesses in my town that were destroyed. Then I got one... It was a New York Times reel where they were accompanying #businessowners from the River Arts District on their first impression back. The owners prepped by moving materials to higher ground within their buildings. "They didn't tell us it would flood more than 10 feet!" Who didn't and why didn't you/they know it would? The who: local government officials? That was a mistake. I've pointed out multiple failures of the local government pre-disaster. Who else was supposed to let them know? A #businesscontinuity expert. The why not: #businessowners are generally too busy to handle everything, especially if they haven't been trained to know what to look for or where those resources are. I was shocked they didn't know because I knew it was going to flood to 1916 levels (20 feet) or worse versus the more recent-in-memory flood of 2004 (10 feet). This information was being predicted at least a day in advance. Why didn't the "they" who told them 10-feet-but-not-more know it would be more than 10 feet? My "they" were right. We're not part of the same secret squirrel society; it's all publicly available information. You just need to know where to look. I paid attention to what experts were saying. I would have told those business owners to not waste time on the building - it will be gone. Focus 100% of efforts on getting inventory out to higher ground so they can continue their review stream or start over again with something instead of nothing. Also to make sure if they were going to store these things home, that home wasn't going to flood, too. I saw MANNA Food Bank - located in a low lying area next to the Swannanoa River - pre-positioned their trucks about a half mile away next to my gym on much higher ground by the early morning on the 26th (I took this pic out of pure joy). Their building has severe damage but the trucks were fine. Sadly they didn't put non-perishable food on the trucks. There was time to do something - to put all of the business owners in a better position to avoid complete loss. They just didn't know who they should be listening to. Secure. Survive. Thrive. #businessresilience #businessgrowth #smallbusiness

#Businesscontinuity is difficult after a catostrophic event has occurred, but no less important. There are organizations that help small businesses with more immediate impact. One is World Central Kitchen (WCK). Last week I volunteered with WCK in Asheville, NC as I live there (that is me on AC360 on CNN -- well my back at the table where the arrow is pointing). I have been a fan of Jose Andres and his WCK for years, especially after what he did during Hurricane Maria. He details his actions to inject money immediately back into the economy for mom and pop shops and #smallbusinesses. It was no different in Asheville. Jose sees a coffee vendor while driving around? Tells one of his managers to go find him and buy all of his coffee so he can come the next day and give it out. A closed (due to no water) business (small in number but not profits) next door with a warehouse? We need space for all the food supplies coming in - donate it and we'll compensate your employees to drive fork lifts for unloading our supplies. From a business continuity mindset, WCK has a duel mission: the feed people and lift up to community...through food in bellies and money to help fill those bellies. I was so proud to be able to take part in something so magnificent and see with my own eyes how WCK impacts my community. Secure. Suvive. Thrive. For more on this and other topics, visit the blog on the EaaS website and subscribe. #businessresilience #communityresilience #businessgrowth #businessowner #worldcentralkitchen #helene #disaster

What can we learn - for #businesscontinuity purposes - from the current event issue of Israel using pagers to attack Hezbollah? #Supplychain for #tech is so far out of your control then you possibly can know. One of the things continuity professionals advise on for supply chain is criminal acts hidden in it once subcontracting enters the chat. Child labor. Trafficking. Not good looks for your business PR when these things are uncovered. What Israel did is not unusual per se: the US does it often enough, but for eavesdropping/surveillance on criminal targets. If "the good" guys are doing it, you better believe the "bad guys" are doing it, too. It is why the US started to ban tech products from certain countries (read: China). And if countries are doing it at scale, the little #cybercriminal is, too. Secure. Survive. Thrive. For more hot takes on current events like this, visit EaaS instagram and tiktok pages @dontkillyourbusiness. #businessresilience #businessgrowth #bussinessowner #smallbusiness

So my plan for #cybersecurity awareness month has just been tossed out the window. I will be posting about my experience surviving Helene in Asheville...our Katrina. My bingo card for the event had 3-4 days without power and water (I was ready). Not on my bingo card: 1) loss of all cell service 2) information void 3) complete annihilation of critical infrastructure. My house is fine. I'm fine (uncomfortable but I've been deployed and camping...baby wipe showers). Everything around me is not. I'll be making long videos about my experience on my socials (@dontkillyourbusiness for both Instagram and TikTok). Take a watch. I volunteered with World Central Kitchen yesterday making food for areas it had to be flown into and serving food for hungry locals. People are asking me what they can do - nothing for me. What's done is done. Water won't be back for weeks. BUT you can donate to World Central Kitchen. They are helping my community directly and my tummy. And they are injecting money immediately back into #smallbusinesses. I'll talk about my experience with them next time. Also listen to Howard B. Price, CBCP, MBCI -- radio cannot die. It is the only way we got any information about what was happening. Secure. Survive. Thrive. #businesscontinuity #disaster #Asheville #survival #helene