Well, thanks Prasanna.

Uh, you know, uh, w w we did, I didn't have to ask hardly any

questions, you know, th this,

I know she just

you just turn me on on and away we go.

Hi, and welcome to Backup Central's Restore it all podcast.

I'm

your host, W.

Curtis Preston.

AKA Mr.

Backup and I have with me, my website reconfiguration

consultant, Prasanna Malaiyandi.

How's it

going?

I'm good, Curtis.

To be honest with the listeners.

I did very little.

That was all you.

I was just there like as emotional support and as a venting partner.

but, but, but then you would chime in yes.

As an occasional venting partner and you would chime in with, with those words of

encouragement of like, um, it's looking good, Curtis, uh, you know, that it was so

for those, for those who, who don't know.

Feel free to go over and check out the, the all new backupcentral.com.

It looks a thousand times better than it ever did before.

Um, I went with a podcast forward theme for WordPress, and so, you know, the

website used to be more, uh, blog forward.

And now it's sort of podcast forward since I talk a lot more than I write these days.

Yeah.

Listeners, you should definitely go and check it out if you've only seen, like,

if you listened to our podcast or your favorite podcatcher and you've never

been to backup central, go take a peak.

You'll get to see pictures of Curtis and I,

Yeah, we did a photo shoot.

We did it.

We talked about the podcast that, that, that was released.

It was released yesterday, but who knows when this one will actually go publish,

On March 28th.

Yeah, the, um, yeah, so we, we, we, we actually

did photos together for the flu.

It was all the pandemic, right.

We've been doing this for what, almost three years now.

Right.

And we, for most of those three years, we've, we've worked together.

I would probably say for maybe like 10 episodes tops,

we've been in the same room.

Right.

Right.

And that was early days where we were like, w when I used to come, when you

used to be in the Druva office and I used to occasionally come to the Druva

office and then we'd do, we'd do it live.

But for the most part, it's like this.

So doing a photo shoot.

Yeah,

I think it was funny because I think it was actually more complex

to do it in the office than it is to do it remote, just because all the

echoing of the mics and everything else it's like technology is wonderful.

Even in the same city, you'll still be in different rooms.

Yeah, there have been some episodes where I've been in.

I've been in Santa Clara and you were also in Santa Clara, but we, we did it remote.

Yeah.

Cause it's just easier,

but, for the listeners, again, check out backup central

Curtis, it looks amazing.

I know you put a lot of hard work and effort into that and also

figuring out a new podcast service.

Right.

But I think

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I went to captivate, uh, after, after a long search, uh, I went with

captivate with, which I think is, is a bit more forward-looking than

some of the other podcast services.

And so anyway, yeah.

So super excited

You know, what we should do is we should probably do part of

the podcast episode on how to do podcasts.

Right.

I'm sure people are curious about, like, what is your workflow, Curtis?

You've done so much research on this.

It might be worthwhile.

We've learned a lot over the last three years.

And I, and of course I've, I've completely changed my workflow because

of the, um, my new tool descript, which is like changing my life.

Um, but, but.

So, all right, well, let's get onto our guest, by the way, before we bring on our

guest all throughout our usual disclaimer.

Prasanna and I work for different companies, he works for zoom.

I work for Druva.

This is not a podcast of either company.

And the opinions that you hear are ours.

If you, uh, like us, then please go rate us, go to ratethispodcast.com/restore.

Or you can just scroll down to the rating section of your favorite.

If you're on, if you're on apple podcasts, you just scroll to the bottom and,

you know, give us, give us five stars.

Leave a comment.

and leave a comment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, it's always nice when we get to hear from our listeners.

So, um, and then also if you're interested in anything, you know, anything that we

can sort of tie back to the world that we do, the, the one we're doing today.

It's very interesting, which initially you might not think has

nothing to do with what we do.

But I think a lot of the concepts that we're going to learn from our

guest today are universally applied.

So if you're interested in, just reach out to me @wcpreston on

Twitter or wcurtispreston@gmail.

So let us bring on our guest.

She is a direct marketing copywriter and you're saying, what does

that have to do with our world?

Uh, w well, you're going to learn that.

The thing that interested me and got me excited and wanted to

bring on is that she is also the.

Uh, the emergency plan guide, which is you can find at emergencyplanguide.org.

And when, when she talks about disaster recovery, she's not talking

about our kind of disaster recovery.

She's talking about real disaster recovery, meaning recovering

when the big one happens, both of us live in California.

She's actually right up the road from me in Irvine.

And, uh, so I'm, I'm super excited to bring her on the podcast.

Welcome to the podcast, virginia Nicols

well, thank you so much.

I feel honored with all of the technology in front of me here.

I, I, I feel at the fact that the Zen desk, I have to say this Zen

Zencaster

Recognized my legacy recognized my legacy headphone

recognized my separate video camera.

I felt, I felt very welcome and comfortable.

Well, that's good.

That's

It doesn't always happen that way.

Right?

Right.

So this is not your first time doing things like this, but, and you're saying

sometimes they don't go as, uh, as

As planned that's right.

Lots.

Doesn't go as planned in world in the world, as we know, and

we experience that every day.

I was I'm delighted that you introduced me as being something different or out

of the ordinary from your usual podcast.

when we say disaster recovery, normally that means

something different to our audience.

Right?

That means something very specific to our audience.

But when you say those words, you mean something very different.

So why don't you explain what you mean when you say disaster recovery?

Yes.

In fact, I don't use disaster recovery because I do know that generally it

applies to networks and it, and so on for, uh, we have, uh, we have purposefully

use the word emergency preparedness and emergency response becauseI think

ordinary folks understand emergency.

They understand response.

Uh, they don't get recovery.

not in the vocabulary of what I would say is be ordinary citizens.

And, um, my world, as far as emergency preparedness, concerned is dealing with

people that are my next door neighbor.

No matter who they are, whether they have had any kind of training of any

kind that has to do with supplies, first aid, understanding what

happens, you know, what the, what the authorities do and what they don't do.

They, none of them have any particular background in disaster

recovery, but they all have some.

They will all be impacted when a disaster hits.

So my level of experience and exposure has really, as I say, been with my

neighbors if you sat live next door to me, it would have been with you too.

And in particular, though, with you and your family members and your elderly

parents and your pet and all the things that all the people that really get

impacted when there's a disaster.

It's not just business.

So, could you talk a little bit about, I think some of our listeners

may be, they're not quite aware of what encompasses an emergency in your mind.

That's a really good question because an

emergency is really self-defined.

Uh, what, what I work in though is specifically are large-scale emergencies.

Where, where as cert cert is set up to assist the community until

professional first responders can arrive.

Well, that's where I started.

And could you define what cert is by the way?

I certainly can Community Emergency Response Team Training is

offered by in every state in this country.

And in many, many cities it's usually for free or at a very low cost.

It's a program that's sponsored by FEMA and, uh, uh, Homeland security

started in, I think the 90s.

And really came into its, uh, self after 9/11.

Uh, so it is a course that is provided in the city are not going

to describe hours because it's really classic put on by the city

emergency manager taught by emergency managers, taught by police department.

Active officers taught by the fire department with fire actual

firefighters of all kinds.

So it takes about eight to 12 weeks.

Uh, you as a regular citizen sign up.

In our case, we do even get fingerprinted and interviewed.

Uh, I knew prov provided this training.

It's about 24 to 28 hours worth of training over a course of those weeks.

And it's hands-on stuff.

Well, much of it's hands-on, but it includes understanding what goes on in

your community when there's an emergency.

What do the police force do?

What does a fire department do?

What happens when the power goes out?

How do we all communicate?

And then how do the various parts of this whole emergency system?

How do they respond to that emergency?

And one of the things you'll be happy to know.

And then my neighbors are always quite shocked and oh, is it?

The fire department comes and talks to us and they say, you know, when the

earthquake hits, we're not coming to

Hm.

I live in a senior community.

We have a lot of folks who depend on the fire department.

The fire department is in here frequently.

Individual situations, but in an earthquake, no, they

say we're not coming to you.

We have other things to do before we ever get around to a senior

community, we have to do an entire assessment of the, what has happened.

The danger level are the bridges down, you know, the roads passable

and we have to protect, first of all, the city, the fire department,

the hospitals, perhaps schools.

Senior citizens are low down on the list.

And, and as I say, that is shocking to our neighbors, but that's one of the

reasons why we have built this group.

And, and our purpose is to get everybody in our local neighborhood as kind of

up to speed as we can on knowing what to expect, whether it were, it would be

an earthquake or a storm or a tornado or a tsunami or whatever, airplane

crash in the neighborhood, what to expect, how to be prepared to respond.

I don't want to say that senior citizens are particularly challenging, but a number

of them are, and they have their own reasons for not wanting to participate,

uh, which I expect that a lot of folks share no matter what age they are.

Uh, I'll tell you some of the reasons people don't want to talk

about emergency preparedness.

Number one, it's negative.

Why do we talk about emergencies?

Because it's gonna make me feel more worried.

Number two I'm so old.

I don't care.

I'll this die.

That's a common one.

And so our answer has to be, well, you can die.

That's fine, but you're going to impact me.

I don't want you dying.

Okay.

And then another reason is some people say I don't need to prepare myself.

I will trust in God.

And that's a difficult one to.

Uh, get around if you will, but we have our answers to that one too.

Uh, because for our purposes, if everyone is the more people who are

more aware and more of a bird, the better off the whole community will be.

And that's kind of what my whole, and you mentioned that I was writer

and I have written a lot of books now about all of these topics.

Um, But that's the theme that runs through all of them is the more we

know the safer we all will be, but it means everybody has to know more.

So I work hard to get everybody to know more,

Yeah, it's interesting that there are parallels

between your world and our world.

Right?

We have the same concerns, you know, even that second one about

well I'm old and I'll, you know, I'll just die in a it's fine.

Ours is just different.

I I've sat with companies.

In fact, I can think of a company right up the road from you, a large, a large.

I'll I won't, I'll just say they, they make stuff and

they're up the road from you.

And I met with them.

We were talking about disaster recovery and being prepared for that.

And their response was, you know, if the big one hits or, you know,

there there's a list of things that we try to prepare for it right there.

I'll probably be dead.

And so I'm not going to care.

Right.

And it's like that, that one's hard to deal with.

Right?

If you, if you're just, you know, or, or if, if, if this company gets wiped

out, then I'll just move on to another company that didn't get wiped out,

um, that that's hard to deal with.

Uh, so I, it sounds like you deal with some of the very similar things, uh, just

trying to get people to move past that.

That, that other thing that we share is just trying to get them to

acknowledge that this is something they need to address in their life.

It sounds like that's a big

part of your job.

it is a big part of my job and, and.

Again, I don't want to, I don't want to linger too long on my senior community,

but that's happened to be where I live.

Uh I've we've also brought these kinds of programs.

Our goal, my goal has been to create groups with, to bring preparedness as a

topic or to any existing group, because as a group, people can make progress.

One by one by one isn't is very difficult and unless they themselves already

have an interest, you cannot tell them that they need to have an interest.

So we, our approach has been, and this is the one I would hope that I can share

with, with whoever's listening to this.

Not only do I think existing groups are my target, but in particular,

existing, small businesses are my target.

And I mentioned that the thing that happens with, with, uh, I've

mentioned what happened in Irvine again, so you can get an idea of

where, where w what has been going on.

Many cities have champions in emergency preparedness.

They typically are involved with the city or they're engaged with

a cert program as I described.

And then they get all revved up and are really excited and they

want to go out into the community and build little neighborhood

groups to carry on the good will.

Here in Irvine.

We've had, we've had 2000 people go through the program and last

year they pro well before COVID actually, it was let's go out.

Let's give everybody who's been a graduate of the program, send them out into the

community and see how well they'll do and raise the level of community awareness.

They send them out.

They have exactly zero response.

Because they were not sent out with appropriate training in community,

organizing appropriate training in communications in how to give

a talk and how to get people engaged and how to sign them up.

All the marketing stuff.

That's just central to having any kind of success.

Yeah, they were trained in cert, but not necessarily in how to get

other people interested in understand.

Exactly.

So when we look at different organizations, if we have a

group already existing, we can really make a big difference.

And, and I'm, I'm thinking about, we've written several, a number

of books for different groups, and we've talked to different groups.

We've talked to church groups and service clubs and, um, uh,

HOA homeowners associations.

We've talked to businesses.

What happens is a service group may get a really good idea and they

really want to focus on emergency preparedness for their group members,

but they had the same problem.

The membership will get the knowledge, but the minute the member goes

home, there's nothing out there.

They're in the wilderness.

So our most success has been with like where I live in a close-knit

seizure community or in an apartment.

Or in a small business.

And, and here's why I think number one, they're close together,

physically close together.

If you're living in an apartment community, you know, your neighbors,

you see them in the hall, you're taking out the trash, you know who they are and

you begin to recognize their faces and you can begin to trust them as someone

you'd want to be with in an emergency and in an, and so a, an apartment

community can build a really powerful.

Emergency response team to whatever level they can, as long

as the owner of the property or the property manager supports it.

And here's been a real negative on LinkedIn, which is where I found you all.

Uh, I actually am engaged with, and you may well see them to a number

of homeowner association managers.

And they're really funny and they're good.

And they're.

Totally professional.

And I have written to them directly and said, do you have any interest

in, or do you know anybody who ever as a homeowner association manager

ever present the concept of emergency preparedness to the people living there?

And their answer is no, that's not within our job description.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

So and so I've also, but on the other hand, I've had mobile home parks where.

The owner of the park is interested.

The people of the park are interested.

They all live close together, as you can imagine, they, uh, know each other,

they trust each other and they can build dynamite emergency response teams

where they get together and clean up the whole neighborhood for fire prevention

and they have picnics and whatever else they do, they practice evacuations.

I mean, Really get, they are a group, they use their group for effect.

Uh, and as I say, where I think we've got an extra benefit and I we're just

working now on another new project where we're going to use small

businesses to do it because small businesses, not, not big business,

small to medium-sized businesses at the most have those same characteristics.

The people are physically together.

They are.

Um, they know each other, they already have practice where he and

his teams show they trust each other.

And, uh, if the owner, and there is also pressure on the owner to pull

together a preparedness plan or business contingency plan, I mean, big companies

already have business contingency plans and they all updated them for COVID.

Okay.

That's fine.

Smaller business.

Often have unworkable plans or no plans at all.

And there's where I feel that because they have an existing group.

And if the owner really cares about it, the owner can also

require them to get training.

He can offer training, he or she can require them to get training and can even

include their families as part of it.

And suddenly you have an entire group of people who are really

interested in emergency preparedness.

For their own sakes, but more importantly, if the business suffers

a disaster, if the business goes down, they lose their income.

So they had a real, they've got a real impetus to really get interested,

really get, um, knowledgeable, understand how the business works.

So I'm showing you look, my, this is my.

The latest.

like that

it, I just published it Friday last Friday.

Congratulations.

thank you.

So you see it's all about the magic five days that a small business has.

If, about small business is interrupted and the doors close, if they don't

open in five days, the chances of them surviving for a year are like 10%.

Five days.

That means you've got to know what to do immediately if something happens, whether

it's a power outage or whether it's out from some back hoe, breaking up a gas

line, or, or you have a strike with the company next door and they're blocking

the traffic or whatever it is, you gotta have a plan to be open and up back in

business, at least sufficiently that your customers think you're in business.

Uh, within those magic five days.

And so that's what this little book is about is like, here's the plan.

Here's the bare bones, get it done, be ready.

You can do it for the folks in house.

You don't have to hire some hot shot, expensive disaster recovery company.

And so this is for small businesses.

So, so that's, you know, not, you now have a pretty good idea.

I think.

The things that have kept me busy and engaged for the last 20 some years.

So for Julia, just a quick question.

Um, your book that you have, I'm sure a lot of small businesses

think, oh, going through emergency preparedness, it's so complex.

It's so complicated.

I don't have time.

I am sure that there's very simple things they can do and very straightforward

things they could do to get prepared, or at least start that preparedness.

Maybe it won't cover a hundred percent of all situations, but it's probably the most

common or the most easiest to implement.

Right.

It's not like, oh, I have to go through all this preparedness

and spend months and months.

right.

That's right.

No.

And, and most businesses have already done some of it, you know, OSHA requires

business to have some evacuation plans and some safety features and so on.

So you're absolutely right.

And that's why.

A number of things.

And one I wrote was very come complete what I thought, preparedness

planning process for small business, but it was like 250 pages.

So this one is 30 pages.

So if that's what it is, it's what is meant exactly what you're asking for.

Number one, say, you think he need it, you're going to do this.

That's the first thing.

Okay.

We gotta do this.

And, and right now there's a lot more pressure on small businesses to do it.

Not only just keep the business alive, but you know, clients are now

saying, what's your, what's the status of your emergency preparedness plan

or your business contingency plan.

And you don't have one you're looking, you're not looking good.

And also given what's been going on with COVID lately, uh, people are more willing

to sue people if there's accidents or if there are illnesses of there are

things going wrong in the business, you can be sued for negligence for not

having had a plan to prepare for it.

Okay.

So, but anyway, simple things.

Number one, commit to doing it.

Number two, take a look around.

Okay.

What's going to happen to us.

I've got a nice long list in there, go through and pick five things.

Don't pick everything, don't prepare for everything.

And what we find out is that if you prefer one emergency, probably about 80% of

what you do is going to work for every other emergency, you know, it because it

has to do with safety and communications and, uh, and alternative, uh, electric

or air alternative utilities and so on.

So number one, be committed.

Number two.

Pick your five, then number three, go through an inventory or describe

all of the important processes that your business is engaged in.

And that might take a little time, but not, you can limit it if you

want, but like you've got a ma you've got a front desk capability.

You've got a marketing department, you've got a manufacturing arm, you've

got transportation, whatever it is, your business deals with and went and

have the folks who are in charge of each of those business activities.

Describe what they do briefly and what would happen, what they've already

done to be prepared for emergencies.

What, what would have to happen to bring that, that aspect of the

business back up in an emergency and the people working there know

these things, they already know.

You don't need to hire an expert to come in and assess it.

The people work in there every day, know it.

So you've got a description of every activity in the business

of the major activities.

And then again, you pick what are the key activities that we have to have up and

running within our five day magic period.

What are the key activities that would allow us to then resume

perhaps over time, full, full, uh,

uh,

Capabilities.

and be in business and then you write it down and what,

and, and it, and, and that a plan.

If the electricity goes out for this process, we've got to do

this and this for this process, because I do that these process.

We'll just ignore them for the time being we'll focus on these two.

Uh, if we have a, an earthquake.

Do number one, but you got to do this, my God.

Get that back up.

What about the website that clearly has to be up and going?

Can we do that?

If we are, are, can no longer access the office?

What our backup plan for having, let's say a website or communications capability.

Um, what can we, if we are damaged with a fire, how do we go back

to go to work somewhere else?

So, you know, do we have neighbors who could borrow a space from, do we

have called, do we have competitors who have the same kind of equipment

we have that would share with us?

And we, you make those arrangements, but yeah, you think it through, and as

I say, in our experience, the people working in the business know what,

what, what could happen that would bring you their bring their activity

right back up or not right back up.

But up enough

okay.

So the business could stay open

Yeah,

and

It sounds like, uh, you know, the process is very similar

to what we do with the it functions,

absolutely.

Um, you know, the same thing of, of just first

inventory, everything that you have from a business function perspective.

And of course you need to decide what is business critical, right?

What w you know, I would argue even, even as a member of the marketing

department at Druva, I would argue that, you know, you can do without marketing

for, for five days, uh, But not without sales, not without the ability to

execute sales, not without that front desk person or the equivalent thereof.

Right.

Um, and I think that, um, I agree with you that a lot of these people probably

already know, they just, they have, they have the knowledge that they need

to sort of come up with those ideas.

But you, you do probably

need to goad them into

thinking that way.

Right?

What would happen?

Right.

You know, what would happen if we have a fire or we have I noticed

by the way that your, your list of disasters or emergencies is

actually quite broad because it includes things like active shooter.

I noticed that you had on your, on your website, uh, there, there are a number

of things that could happen to you.

And that's why you, like you said, you need to pick

your.

Your top five

Your top five or how many ever.

Yeah.

And, and every business is different.

I can imagine a.

Uh, you know, a small print shop or a coffee shop.

I I've been in a thousand of them.

I know how that feels.

What would happen there?

A doctor's office is a small business.

Uh, I mean there's, so the businesses are really distinct and what they would need

is, is different, but they you're right.

They, they probably already have a good idea, but they haven't written it down

and therefore they can't transmit it to their employees or to the authorities

who are looking for it, the lawyers.

this reminds me Curtis, of when we talked about the hurricane

that hit the tropical island, right?

How it had documented the process.

But they hadn't taken into consideration a lot of the emergency preparedness,

like where are people going to sleep?

Right.

Where are you going to get food?

Right.

A lot of where are you going to get power,

And now we're yeah, there were assumptions

of power and also internet.

This was, uh, a company that was doing manufacturing on this island and they

relied on services that were on the mainland, you know, computer services.

And as a result, when the, when the internet was cut between the two.

Oops, how do we, how do we get back up?

But, you know, we have a cart before the horse problem, right?

And so, and while that that's a very technical issue, you have

the same problem with, with, with things like electricity and water.

Those things are critical.

I am curious about that.

What is this?

For a small business, you know, that I've gotten in my head like a

picture of, uh, of somebody renting a storefront somewhere, whatever

it is, it could be a doctor.

It could be a print shop.

It could be who knows what it could be a sandwich shop.

What is the, the, the normal thing that people do from a power standpoint?

Do do they actually go in and prepare like, you know, um,

generators and things like

Yeah, they do.

They can, there, there are companies out there and one of the main

ones is that I've been watching.

15 years and it's grown and grown and grown.

And now it's kind of grown into a great big company, but they,

you can establish a contract.

You can establish a contract with a company like that, and you

will be number one on their list.

If something happens, they will bring you a generator within the first day.

X period of time.

Now you have to know how to use a generator.

So that means that you have in, in advance, made these arrangements.

You've got the right amount of power you can do.

You've got to manage the cords that run through the building because the generator

is not in the building, etc, etc.

Uh, but yes, that's what, that's what you do.

And I think most small businesses just as you've discussed.

Probably haven't done that.

So what would happen there is like your little candle shop or whatever

they're going to just shut down.

Yeah.

I was thinking like a sandwich shop, right?

That means the fridges aren't powered.

Now they have produce and stuff going

all spoiling.

It's all spoiling.

That's right.

They have to throw it out.

In fact, um, and, and their employees can't get to work

Yeah.

because something has caused the whole thing to blow up.

They're there.

Their plan would in likelihood have to involve having already scoped out

a place where they could go and either piggyback on someone else got a similar

type of business or they, they could.

You know, they could even have someone, a location where they could quickly

reconfigure, but a small business.

Isn't going to be able to do that, not within that five day period.

So it's tricky, it's tricky.

Um, and I'm not saying everybody can recover, but it can save lives and

you can have the right insurance.

Which is a big deal and you can have your bank account, your banking arrangements

already figured out that if an emergency hits, you have access to a new line

of credit because your employees that continue to work have to be paid.

Uh, for some period of time, the other employees who are working

on an hourly basis, they just suddenly are without any work.

And that.

You know that that's a, that's a catastrophe for them probably, but

the business owner has has various things that business owner can do in

terms of insurance to protect, uh, the business, at least until it can

get back up, but you need to know how long will it take to get the money?

What do you have to have to prove you need the money?

And those are things you do have to learn about in advance.

You can't wait till the disaster hits and then, then you're in line with somebody

Yeah.

It's like the old phrase to time to take dramamine is to late

to take dramamine, you remember that you remember that marketing

No, I don't, but

You don't, you, you know, you know, drama

mean, right.

You know, the, yeah.

So that was their thing.

If you dramamine, it's too late, right?

Like you need to take dramamine beforehand.

Right?

Let it, let it get into your system and then you get seasick.

Or then you, you know, you, you would be in the condition to make yourself seasick.

And so you have to prepare for first, right at the time to look

for a, to look for a loan like that, like a line of credit is,

is not when the disaster happens.

No.

And, and so, so our thought is not only should the small business owner take

advantage of the expertise with in-house.

The it professional advisors that every small business typically has.

There are people who need to be brought in to help out in advance with this planning.

Are there questions that they should, like, I'm assuming a small

business owner has no idea that they need to do this sort of emergency

training or have a plan in place.

Are there certain keywords that they could ask these other professionals that would

sort of trigger the right set of responses from them or go down the right path.

Well, I've, you know, I think there are, there are key concepts.

I mean, so first the first thing is what happens the first day?

What responsibilities do I have?

What happens the first week?

What responsibilities do I have?

And if you ask that of your accountant for.

The accountant is going to know.

Okay.

You remember, you've got payroll, you've got property, you've got

taxes, you've got quarterlies.

You've got whatever you've got.

They can't know the answers to all that, but neighbor probably never

thought about it in terms of a disaster.

Okay.

And the, the lawyer let's assume you have a lawyer and most people have had

some dealings with lawyers if they've incorporated or even had employees, the

lawyers going to know what kind of uh, liabilities you have for not having a plan

or what kind of, uh, uh, uh, information you can share and how to share it in for

and with whom and in a timely fashion, lots of companies have to report to

shareholders or they have to report to, uh, various regulators or whatever.

So somebody in that business knows about those dates and those requirements.

But you have to ask in advance because the owner may, may or may

not really be thinking about it.

Um,

Right.

so we've got a banker.

Yeah.

And, and, and above all, you've got an insurance company.

Hmm.

And I don't, I'm thinking of you at your home office right there

now, you know, you've got some insurance potential of loss for whatever reason.

Uh, and you know, do you have what you need?

What kind of do you have insurance protection for the earthquake?

For the rainy roof that came through last night, but didn't

break through your roof last time, but will tomorrow and, and so on.

So a good conversation with your insurance person.

Uh, will open your eyes.

It turns out by the way that you can't, there's a thing called

business interruption insurance.

Okay.

But it doesn't work for COVID

Hm.

who knew?

interesting.

I didn't know that they

it

they said that it wasn't a disaster.

It's been defined as not being a disaster.

So then the question is in your insurance product, and I'm not an insurance

expert by any means, but what do they rule in and what do they rule out?

Because now we've got all this stuff going on in Ukraine

right now, wars are ruled out.

Acts of acts of God may be ruled out of your insurance and act of God is like,

What should an act of God COVID was not an act of God according to the act, but

according to some people, it was, um, earthquakes, I think are in most cases.

Uh, I, I'm trying to

I, I know, I know in the case of like, you know,

again, you and I live in, well, all three of us live in California

and California has very specific.

You know, earthquake is, is by default, excluded from most policies and you need

specific earthquake insurance, right?

The same thing for flood insurance.

Um,

land movement and so on.

Absolutely.

So, but I w the key words that I tried to create my list of keywords.

And I wrote this little book in, in a, in a format and I don't mean

that I'm not, the book has just, uh, a co a summary of everything

I've been learning over 20 years.

It's like day one, do this day two do this.

And there's 10 days and in 10 days, okay.

You've covered the whole spectrum.

And you can do that.

You can read that thing in 25 minutes.

And you'll have a really all the keywords you need to move forward to.

Then, then the thing is though, what's the impetus, the impetus, you know,

I impetus can come from an employee.

I hate to say it could come from the law from legal liability of not having one.

It's standard practice.

You're in a big business.

You don't get away without having one, a good business con con

I'm sure you've dealt with them.

Right.

I w I would argue that if, you know, the, the only thing that you could argue,

as well as not going to happen to me, you know, and maybe you won't, right.

Whatever, whatever it is you're worried about.

But if it does, if a disaster hits your area, that's significant

enough that impacts the whole area.

Like if it's the kind of thing that takes out power flight lake, the

kind of thing that happened in Texas.

Um, you know, we're without power for it.

If, yeah.

If you're the company that is prepared and you're a company that provides services

to the general public in that scenario, I think you will get a long-term competitive

advantage from having prepared.

And you're going to gain a whole bunch of new people as customers.

Uh, and so th that can assist in the impetus, uh, Uh, I just think that I think

you, what the thing that you started with is, is the, you know, sort of the, Hey, if

you don't prepare for this and depending on what type of disaster happens,

that could be it for you as a company.

And, and that, that would hopefully scare, you know, a lot of people.

you know, a lot of people.,

and, and, and, and it, it also means is it for your employees.

They are now you have lost your company.

You have lost your investment in your company.

You may have a lot of debt at the end of it.

Your employees are without a job.

They are now bereft.

So, and again, so there's the human part of it.

What are you doing?

How are you leaving your employees?

You know, you're, you're pulling the rug out from under them.

And so I, and I, there are a lot of small business people and

owners who just really love their employees and they are a big family.

And without some preparation, they are really, they're not doing their job.

They're not providing that kind of support that you would want to

And I agree that it sounds like what you're saying

is that, that you, you know, you have a responsibility to those

employees, it's your business and it is your responsibility to prepare

for that scenario because without it, you, you become, you don't

fulfill your responsibility to your.

I think that's true.

I think that's accurate.

And I think if you ask people, they would, the thing is people always agree.

It's a good idea.

No one ever said, oh, no, I don't really, I don't think it's a good idea.

They it's just getting them off a dime.

And, and so the people who like, were thinking about it, we're already doing it.

I've got my 55 barrel of water in my backyard.

So do you have one?

No.

Do you have water in your apartment?

Do you have 10 days worth of water for yourself and your family and your pets.

I have 5,000 gallons of water right out my

back door, but it's not drinkable.

Um,

Not too drinkable.

Listen, uh, you know, it's been a fascinating

conversation, Virginia.

Um, and I, and so here's a question.

How do people get access to this book that you, that you just published?

Easiest thing to do is they, they should, of course, go on

Amazon and look it up by its name, it's back up -two words- and running . But

the easiest thing to do is to go to my website, emergencyplanguide.org which

you've mentioned, and everything's there.

All right.

Well, thanks.

Thanks a lot for coming on.

Hey, it's my been my pleasure.

And I, I hope that you're, you know, I, I hope that other people in listening

to this, if it gets up there are going to have the same kind of thought to

get away from their job as a disaster recovery person or an emergency management

person and say, well, wait a minute.

What about my house?

What about me?

What about our family?

What about my children's families?

You know, what will happen to them when something happens?

And can I, uh, can we improve that situation?

All right.

Well, thanks Prasanna.

Uh, you

know, uh, w w we did, I didn't

have to ask hardly any questions,

you know, th this,

I know she just

you just turn me on on and away we go.

no, it was fascinating.

I loved it.

Thank you, Virginia.

thank you so much for having me it's fun, let know when it's

And, uh, uh, thanks again to our audience.

You know, we, we do this just for you and remember to subscribe