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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Business continuity planning, resilient operations, disruptions, interruptions, cyber attacks, natural disasters, risk analysis, emergency management, active shooter, power outages, water supply, business impact, recovery, resilience, preparedness.
SPEAKERS
Erika Andresen, Damon Pistulka
Damon Pistulka 00:08
All right, everyone Welcome. This is Damon from the faces of business. I am so excited for our guest today, because we have Erica and reason with us here today from E AAS consulting, and we are going to be talking about building resilient operations with Business Continuity Planning Erica. Awesome, having you here today.
Erika Andresen 00:32
Thank you for having me, Damon, and thank you for everybody who is tuning in and listening.
Damon Pistulka 00:36
Yeah, it’s going to be fun, because a lot of people have probably not thought a lot about business continuity planning, but today we’re going to learn some of the basic things and reasons why I hope and some of the things you’re helping people with. Yeah,
Erika Andresen 00:55
it’s funny when you gave it a little brief intro, I was wondering how many people actually understood any of what
Damon Pistulka 01:00
you said, yeah, yes. Well, let’s, let’s start there. So what is business continuity planning? So someone that is listening first time today, what? What would they what would they find out
Erika Andresen 01:14
about it? So I think the easiest way to describe it is it is a practice that sets you up for success. It is there to prepare you for meeting any type of disruption or interruption large or small that will impact your operations. So when that does happen, you get back to operations, and it depends on what state like, a diluted state or your normal operations, but at the end of the day, you’re still making money, and you’re doing it in a way that’s cheaper, easier and more quickly than your competitors are doing it. So you know my catchphrase is, I keep your doors open and cash flowing. I enable you to keep making money, regardless of what happens.
Damon Pistulka 01:59
Yeah, yeah. And it is, there’s, I’ve been through a couple natural disasters. One was a tornado that took down the power system in a place where I had, there were over 100 people working in the facility that I was, I was responsible for. And then I also had an earthquake that stopped us for a few days, and another one. And these are things that you know, if you’re if you’re prepared for them, it can be a lot less disruptive, that’s for sure,
Erika Andresen 02:27
right? And I don’t want to just stick on I know some people and I purposely say disruptions or interruptions. I used to say disasters and disruptions, because most people stop listening at disasters and think just natural disasters. But it is so much more. It is also man made disasters, like an active shooter per chance or a cyber attack. And if it’s a disruption, it could be a key piece of machinery not working. It can be going viral overnight. It can be the entire warehouse winning Powerball and quitting the next day. So there are a whole lot of hiccups that will give you the worst headache ever in your business, if you’re not ready for
Damon Pistulka 03:03
them? Yes. And I was just laughing because I’ve had several of those, at least with businesses I know of, or businesses that I’ve been in. You know when you talk about critical equipment, and that’s a huge one, and you and you talk about cyber attack, we had someone in our industry one time that recently, it just about put them out of business. I mean, literally, I don’t know if they’re going to survive. And because it doesn’t happen just a big businesses anymore of the cyber attacks.
Erika Andresen 03:31
No, no. Actually, the it’s always the smaller businesses are actually the bigger target. You would think that’s the converse, because, like, the bigger targets have more money, but they also because they have more money. They’re spending more money on their cyber infrastructure. Smaller guys are not spending any money on it, so it’s basically shooting fish in a barrel for the cyber criminals at that point. Yeah, I want, I want to give a funny fact. So when it comes to like key piece of machinery not working or breaking down, the majority of those instances happen when somebody comes in to fix the machine, or, you know, do some kind of warranty thing, because they don’t know certain aspects of the machine or how it works within that actual area. Like, they’ll leave a wrench behind, they’ll do something, and it’s usually the person who’s there to try to maintain it that winds up screwing it up. So like, you think you’re doing the right stuff, but even at that point, you may wind up coming face to face with you, like, oh god, how are we going to operate? Like, I try to do all the right things, and it didn’t work. Mm, hmm.
Damon Pistulka 04:29
So Erica, what? What really piqued your interest and got you into business continuity planning as as a career choice, alright?
Erika Andresen 04:39
So when I was in the military, I was doing a lot of risk analysis for missions, especially when I was in Afghanistan. And part of that risk analysis was most likely, least likely, most deadly course of action daily to us, because we’d be killed. At the same time, I was reading a Business Review article, you know, as you do on your downtime, and it was. About businesses that suffered through Superstorm Sandy, and they were all answering the same questions. The final question was, what are you doing to prepare for next time? And every single one of them, except one said, Oh, this won’t happen again. And because I was in this risk, you know, mindset, I was like, they’re so wrong. They’re so wrong. And after that deployment, I was home a station at that point in the Boston area, and I was walking down the street and there was a restaurant that I liked a lot that had closed. And I said, Oh no, they closed. And my buddy who’s with me said, so what? They sucked? I go, No. Somebody’s dream died. And everybody who works for that person now has to go home and say, I don’t have a paycheck to pay for my bills, my rent, food, whatever. And I was like, you know, that doesn’t have to happen. And not just did that happen to the dreamer and their employees, but also the community lost a place that, you know, I don’t know how I now don’t have that as an option to go to. And I saw, and I think at the end of the day, everybody has the right to have a good life, which includes paying for your necessities, but also buying things that enhances your life and makes your life worth living. And you get that by having a paycheck and you pay for those things from other businesses who then have money to pay their employees who do this. It’s a beautiful cycle to be part of. So yeah, yeah, yeah,
Damon Pistulka 06:18
and that is cool, and you are right that so many businesses something will happen, and they’ll say, Well, that’s a one off. And and, I mean, let’s look at the hurricane situation in the Gulf Coast. Now it does, it’s not every year, but it seems like we do get hit with hurricanes from time to time, and it does cause a fair amount of damage, and we need to be ready for it. You know, this, this just happens. These things happen economic. I mean, I’ve worked in the oil field services industry for a number of years now, and you can see the boom, bust cycles of of just the price of oil, how that used to be, and how the whole industry, I believe it has really gotten a lot smarter over the last three or four decades of being okay, we’re not going to go crazy when the oil price goes up as much as we did before, where you might go a little bit, but it’s not. We’re going wild and then coming back down when it reduces, just because of these kind of the economic risks that it just killed a lot of people, right?
Erika Andresen 07:22
And you said that, you know, hurricanes happen, not every year, but they do. It’s just not, maybe the area you live in, they’re not happening. Yeah, that’s true. And then you look at last year, Helene came, and then two weeks later, in Florida, specifically, the same exact spot was hit by Milton, yeah, like a horrible one two punch. And I, and I talk a lot about this, because when I I’m also professor of emergency management, I tell my students, you know, there’s one example I was giving from September 11, you know, there I’m getting it sounds convoluted, but there was a point where the at the time, he was the Dean of the Law School, he’s going to be the president of NYU, and he was like, you know, we were concentrating on what had happened that day, but what may come next week. And the student said to me, Well, I think that’s really bad, because you should concentrate on what’s happening. And I said, No, I’ll tell you why that’s a bad idea, because, and I know this from the military too, when you are focusing just on what’s happening and not what can happen, then you’re missing what else is there, and the thing that wants to intentionally attack you wants to get you when you’re on your knees, you never get up. Yeah, now you’re healed and like, Okay, now we’ll come back to you again. And it’s the same kind of theory, even with Mother Nature. It’s not like Mother Nature’s doing intentionally, but you don’t even have the opportunity to get back on your feet yet, and you get hit again. It’s very devastating to a community. Never mind, you know, this economic loss, like, one after the other, like, how much more can we take?
Damon Pistulka 08:47
Yeah, yeah. So let’s, let’s talk about this a little bit, because we’re kind of folding into you’ve written a couple books. Let’s talk about the first one, and let’s talk about the second one, and let’s go through them a little
Erika Andresen 09:01
Okay, yeah, the first one, it was advised to me to write it as a way to increase my eminence. And I was listening, and it sounded like it was gonna be an academic book. And I ate with case studies, and I didn’t really want to write that book, let alone read that book. And at the time, I just finished teaching my first semester University of Texas at El Paso, the emergency management and the students said, we really like you as a professor, because you don’t talk like a professor. I was like, Okay. And I was like, You know what? I want to write my book this way. I want it to be readable. And I started doing marketing research for that book, and I saw all other business continuity books were written by other professionals, for professionals. And I’m like, Well, who is this helping? So I decided, for the business owners who cannot afford to invest in business continuity, I give them a leg up. So that book is called How to not kill your business, and it’s got blood spots on the corner on the cover, because Nice. That’s how I designed that. And it’s really just a very conver. Conversational way to talk about business continuity in the various types of disasters and disruptions. So you actually understand. There’s a worksheet at the back that you can download get your business continuity plan started. It makes you go through a lot of questions and think you’re like, well, this, I can’t I, you know, learned about this, but I don’t think I can do this. You can, trust me, you can. You’re not too small to do this. And then the second book. I wasn’t planning on writing a second book, but I live in Asheville, and it was here for Helene, and I saw all the destruction that happened, both to businesses in the community and the people were just so angry about a lot, and some of it was rightful anger, but I was thinking. I was like, you know, y’all wouldn’t be so mad if you knew how this worked. Like people were screaming on within 24 hours later, like, where’s FEMA? I’m like, they’re not showing up to at least Monday, because I know how the process worked. So I decided to write that book to help people, regardless of whether or not you have a business continuity plan, all the things that are going to hit you side, front, back in a disaster if you’re not prepared for it, and that’s when the shit hits the fan. So now I have fans on my cover instead of blood. Yeah, I thought it was a good choice of thing to put on the cover. And, yeah, I had a lot of people say, like, you know, the first one is great because it’s a how to this one is great because it’s a really, what you need to know? It is a survival guide. Yeah, they’re both on Amazon,
Damon Pistulka 11:26
All right, great. And, and we’ll get the links links in the post for that too. So the the second book, when the shit hits the fan, what are, what are some of the things that are going to impact us in a situation that we’re totally not expecting.
Erika Andresen 11:46
So I think two things I would talk about. First is what help you can expect from outside, and I’ll tell you, almost none don’t expect there to be help, and I’m not being a conspiracy. I’m not, you know, sliding against the government, but I know, if you think about the entire United States, every single city, major city, has an emergency manager. But how many of these cities actually experience disasters? Not many you get the usual suspects, like Houston, Tampa, the North Carolina coast, California, like the Los Angeles area, but all these other places, they don’t, so they don’t actually have the experience, actual experience responding to disasters. In addition, it’s a local authorities who are supposed to respond first, and then the state and then the federal and if they’re not doing their job, or they’re punting it, because they think that, oh, the state will give us the money for this, so the state or, Oh no, the federal government will give us money, but those resources aren’t there. So just assume you’re on your own. And I like to tell students too, you know, when a disaster first happened, who are your first responders? And they’re like, firefighters, EMS, I was like, No, you and your neighbors, yeah, because they’re all affected too, like they have to get to their job. They’re humans. They don’t live in an invincible bubble. So the first people who are going to come to you are going to be you and your neighbors, and that’s just what you have to deal with. What was the second thing I was gonna say, dang it? Oh, about risk, appreciating risk. Now, one of the things that I do not like, and I never liked it in the military, people love repeating phrases and terms that they don’t know the definition of that they hear, but they’re also too ashamed to ask, like, what does that actually mean? They’re just going to assume from context. And when people talk about flood zones, for example, and floodplains, and it’s 1000 year flood, people then that language was created by civil engineers. For civil engineers, who do you hear that from not civil engineers? You hear it from weather people hear from politicians. You hear from news people. They don’t describe what that actually means. So it gives you a false sense of what is actually happening. So they say it’s a one in 1000 year flood. Two things to say about that that is more probable than you think it is. Ellicott City, Maryland had two 1000 year floods, two years apart, in 2016 and 18. And then you have even when Helene hit United States, that was 1000 year flood. And then two weeks later, there was 1000 year flood in France. And then two weeks after that, there was 1000 year flood in Spain. So if we’re pulling out globally, we had three 1000 year floods within a month. Yeah, so your risk is far higher than you think it is, even if you don’t live in a floodplain. Guess what? Things that aren’t in the floodplain flood, they just do. So be really understanding what your risk is, as opposed to being like, Oh, 1000 years. That’ll never happen in my lifetime. It’s going to happen three times in your lifetime. If you’re a global citizen, it’s going to happen, you know, two years in a two year period of lifetime, if you live in Ellicott City, Maryland. And more, possibly,
Damon Pistulka 14:50
yeah, yeah. And then yeah, there’s, it is a great point. And yeah, floods are something. And I just, I. I’m thank goodness I have not had to be in one and deal with because they’re so destructive. And, like you said, could be 1000 year flood, but it doesn’t matter, because it can happen again next year, and it can happen the year after that. And if you’re not prepared for it, it’s it’s just, you know, I was in there. I was down in Louisiana after Katrina, four or five years after Katrina, and people were showing me, because we were out on some tours out in the country, and showing how Okay, before Katrina, my house is this high. After Katrina, my house is this high. And you know, just the kind of things that you really need to think about before something like that happens, if you want to prevent it, because there are also houses, we said. And said, Yep, the water was right up to the middle of the windows. And you’re going, that thing is that high off the ground, and the water is up another four feet, five feet, whatever it was. And they say, Yeah, this is see the house beside it. And why this that much taller? That’s why we built it like that. Well, I think
Erika Andresen 15:58
people also need to understand with probability one in 1000 year flood. Probability has amnesia, right? So it always starts at one. So it’s, it’s, you know, oh, you know, at the roulette wheel, I’ve done this in Vegas. I’m like, oh, it’s, it’s hit you. If you’re betting red or black, it’s the easiest bet to make. Get the color. And it’s like, Oh, they’ve had 10 blacks in a row, clearly red it it’s due for red. Says, Who, says who it’s it’s probability. It doesn’t work that way. It could be, you know, black 50 times in a row. It’s just a chance. It’s just the chance.
Damon Pistulka 16:29
Yes, so as as you’re helping people with this continuity planning, what are some of the basic things that you you? Where do you start? Where do we start with this?
Erika Andresen 16:43
So I always like to start with, well, I’ll interview to figure out how big the actual business is like, how many people? What’s the locations? How many locations are there? Because if we have different locations, then we have different geographical considerations. Even within the same city, you might have one location be up high in a hill, one next to a river, so there are different things to consider. And then I’ll do an audit of the business to see what they have already, what their vendors are covering, how secure their vendors are, what their insurance policies cover, what their if they have a commercial rental property, I will look at that lease. And it’s funny, actually, I wasn’t looking for this particular thing, and it’s because I have a I was a lawyer, so I consider myself a recovering lawyer. I look for specific things in contracts, so I know what to look for. And I was looking for something specific that I learned to look for after Helene, because I used to walk around there’s nothing else to do. Everything was flooded, and then, you know, there’s nowhere else to go, and all the streets were blocked off with trees and wires down for days. So I just started asking people on street questions when they were doing, like, recovery type work. And I was like, oh, I should look at that. So this one client asked for their commercial lease just to look at one clause that’s looking for specifically. And in the lease they also had the layout of the office. And I went, Oh, that’s interesting, based on I was like, one door in this narrow hallway, windows that I guarantee don’t open, and then a back wall, so one exit point that’s an active shooter risk in my mind. Because, you know, from my time in Afghanistan, my brain is wired to see terrible things. Yeah. So then I went ahead and Googled the address, and I put Google Maps Street View. Then I drove around my finger. I was like, let me see what this building looks like. And I was like, Okay, there’s so many floors. Uh huh. Who else is in this building? I was like, Oh, that person has a business. If their client was pissed off, they’d come in and shoot them. This person, if their client was pissed off, they come and shoot them. I was like, Okay. And I told them this. This was before, well before what happened in midtown Manhattan. You know, a couple weeks ago, I was like, hey, based on your layout and based on who is in your building, I think you need to do some active shooter training. So that’s like another thing, like, I’ll look at all these things, and when I see the risk there, I’m telling you, chat GPT, can’t figure that out. When I’m looking at stuff, I’m like, my brain is just saying, what else can go wrong? What else can go wrong? What else can go wrong? And then I do a, I’ll do a follow up interview with the client, and be like, Okay, this is what I read. I need you to confirm this is what you were thinking, because this is what I think you were thinking. And they’re like, Oh yeah, that was what I was thinking. Well, actually, this is what I was thinking. And then I do an report based off of that saying, Here’s what I think your current state is, here’s what your biggest risks are, here’s what you need to do moving forward. And then that’s where we work from there.
Damon Pistulka 19:27
When you’re helping people do this, what are some of the things that they they say, like the the aha moments they have,
Erika Andresen 19:35
um, I the the eyes go wide, right? Sometimes they don’t say anything. I’ve seen somebody the blood drain from their face. When I said I was asking what his biggest concerns were, and he said, Oh, fishing. I said, Okay. And then I said, All right, you know, for cyber stuff. And I said, Okay, let’s move on to your physical structure of security, because we’re good. I said, Okay. And because I’m a lawyer at base, I know not to just accept an answer. From a client without asking why? And I went, Okay, so do you have, like, a really robust plan? And he went, Oh no, no, we’re fully remote. Uh huh. So are they all in your state? He’s like, no, they’re we’re all throughout the I said, Cool. Are they clustered anywhere? Houston, Tampa, North Carolina? Coast, yeah, yeah, we have quite a few. North Carolina coast, cool, if you know, I’m asking you, you went, No. I said, hurricanes. And you went, oh yeah. Like four years ago we had a really bad hurricane where for about two weeks, 10 of our staff couldn’t work. I said, right. So remember you told me you didn’t have to worry about a plan for a structure? And he goes, Yeah. I go, you have 120 to worry about. He had 120 employees. And that’s why I watched the blood drain from his face, because he never considered that. And and then when I asked a client who had their business did a lot of stuff in the cloud, and I said, So what happens if you lost your power and your internet? And the answer was, we’d be screwed, clearly, something they hadn’t thought of. And like, the this person is like, Well, I mean, what are the odds of that happening? I go, so, you know, I live in Asheville, right? I lost power, water, internet, phone, all at once for days, if not weeks. So it can happen.
Damon Pistulka 21:12
Mm, hmm, yeah. And then that, just that alone, that, right there, power and internet, right? That that’s something we take for granted so much now that, and it does. I mean you do if you have a situation, it could be out for days or weeks,
Erika Andresen 21:29
absolutely here, my power was out for eight days, and I got my Internet back when my power came back, and then I didn’t have potable water for about 15 days. Any water for 15 days? I didn’t have potable water for about 54 days. So how to keep going? Like, part of my daily task was to go and get the water from the water distro so I can have drinking water, which definitely puts a crimp in your in your schedule for the day. It’s like, Oh, I gotta get water again, which is kind of, yeah. But there’s people take for granted that things are going to be there, oh, the internet’s going to be there, oh, my phone’s going to be there. And it’s like, okay, let’s have some fun. I’m going to take away your phone capabilities. What are
Damon Pistulka 22:09
you going to do? Yeah, it is it, oh yeah. And it’s, and it’s getting more and more that we’re more and more dependent on those things every day.
Erika Andresen 22:18
Yeah, that’s, that’s, unfortunately, a big side effect of both expanding your business and making things more technological is you are designing out the redundancies. You’re designing out the clunky stuff. The clunky stuff is what you need when you don’t have the technical so you know files backed up onto a hard drive. Do you know, people don’t even back up their files to a hard drive anymore. Oh, it’s in the cloud. It’s in the cloud. Or, like, I had somebody who I advised who their business was purely 100% on Facebook, and I sent them a message, and they never responded. And, like, it was a month later, I’m like, well, they were kind of flaky anyway. So I was like, I don’t know what the hell happened to that person. And then they wrote me a monthly like, oh my god, I was in Facebook Jail and I couldn’t contact anyone. I go. So remember when I told you to get your contacts off of Facebook and somewhere else? I’m like, How’s any How are your clients going to know that you’re in Facebook Jail and not that you’re like, didn’t just drop out of business. And guess what happens when that part of keeping your doors open and cash flowing is you’re being available and being able to communicate what’s going on. So with her business specifically, do you think those people, because she didn’t contact anybody, shouldn’t have any of their information? You think they waited and waited for the month to expect? No, they want, bought their business elsewhere. Yeah, needed stuff to get done, and she was not available to do that.
Damon Pistulka 23:38
Yeah? And you make a great point with such basic necessities anymore as electricity and internet. And I love your point about water too. People don’t on a daily basis, people don’t understand how much water they actually use and and when people come to my house and see the 30 or 40 gallons of water I’ve got holed up out here, just in case, they wonder why, why it’s that way, and it’s because that’s not very long, I mean, and we, we don’t understand that until it’s not there. But in business, what are so we talked about this power internet. What are some of the things? And we mentioned a bit about cyber but what? How? How can someone actually get to a point where they go? Okay, I’ve got some things in place. What I mean? It seems like there’s a you get to a point where you go. I’ve addressed, you know, at least, the basic risks and what? What are some indications that you when you’re talking to people and you go, wow, they do have a pretty good handle on it. What are the kind of things that they’re telling you?
Erika Andresen 24:52
Well, that’s an interesting question, because I’ve never met a client or I was like, oh. Completely good. I’ve met clients who I’m like, wow, they’re really far along, and they only need one or two things, but the one or two things were massive. For example, one person is actually in your area. He is a survivalist type of person. So he’s got two homes. He’s got freeze dried food in both of them that he swaps out as they’re expiring and replaces them. He has everything. His redundancies within his business were also phenomenal. I even learned something from him based off of some of his redundancies. The problem is he didn’t do succession planning.
Damon Pistulka 25:37
That’s a big one, it
Erika Andresen 25:38
- And I was like, so what happens when you’re capacitated? He’s like, Well, um, I was like, it’s a problem. I’m like, Is your business in your will? And you’re like, I should probably call my lawyer. I’m like, yeah,
Damon Pistulka 25:57
yeah. The other those are one of the first questions I always ask people working with them, not that I’m a like anything, continuity planning, just like because you don’t want to get down the road with somebody and see that happen. And so many people you see, because it could happen to any of us any day, and they’ve got a good business, they’re rolling along all of a sudden, boom, something happens. Could be a broken leg. Can’t work for two weeks. Could be way worse, right? And they don’t think about it, and the half a dozen calls and getting things arranged can save your business.
Erika Andresen 26:32
Yeah, I, actually, I used to say it a lot that when I first started, now, four years ago, the business continuity is a lot like estate planning. And you you know you want to have the stress off of your family and loved ones, both from having a state figured out, having a health care proxy, having your DNR, because you do not want them making those decisions if you if they have no idea what you want, number one and two, just they’re stressed. They’re going to be under so much mental pain and anguish to have to even think about if it’s already decided it’s not going to make it like hurt less, but at least they’ll be less stressed about it. They’ll know this. We talk about this, the plan. We’re following the plan. Yeah, this has all been taken care of like, you know. And some people, I don’t try to be a fear monger, and you know what I say is, you should protect your business. You built this thing. You should want to respect not just your business and the people who work for your business. You respect the you that put in all those blood, sweat and tears building your business. Give that person their respect so like, you know, five years down the road, they can go look back and be like you know what? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you me for having thought of this. So I’m, I’m, I’m ready. This is good. This is not going to destroy my business. It’s going to be a hiccup, and that’s it, because I prepared for it,
Damon Pistulka 27:51
yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s just, those are the things that, yeah. So good. So when you’re when you’re talking to people, or, I guess I got a couple questions I’m I’m pulling up on trying to see a few of them that I want to ask yet. Have you have you ever seen when a company has gone through these bad situations and and really taken advantage of it. So we’re we, we maybe didn’t have as good a plan as we should have, but coming back from it, it made us a better company because of the the challenge we’ve gone through.
Erika Andresen 28:32
Yeah, I would say there were a few businesses here in Asheville that learned that the hard way, though, a lot of them did not have continuity plans. So all the ones that put a GoFundMe did not have continuity plans. Some of the stuff that they did to pivot for next time they learned lessons, they that the food and beverage industry, specifically here, they learned a lot of lessons from covid And yeah, and then they had, they were, you know, using those lessons, which was, you know, I do talk about this in the second book, where there was a beautiful community, especially with the restaurants, the Brewers, where it’s like the Brewers had water because they were in downtown Asheville, and they weren’t flooded. So they had water because part of the brewing process, but they it wasn’t fresh water, like it was in their VAT that they already had. And they’re like, we’ll give this out so the restaurants can cook the food and give it away to everybody, because there’s no way to cook. You know, most of Asheville, like downtown, didn’t lose power for very long at all. So they’re giving away all this water, saying it’s fine. When we get running water back, we have to boil it anyway to make it as part of our beer process, a part of our brewing process, they gave away all their water. But when the water came back, the non poly this the running water, it was such poor quality, they couldn’t even filter it enough to make it, make the beer so that they actually wound up being like, wow, we just screwed ourselves by being really generous. So next time they’re going to be like, alright, we’ll give away some. Them to be part of a good community member. But we do need to retain some in the event that what comes through those pipes, and we don’t know when really clean water be coming after like so it was 1415, days for iron running water, 54 before it was potable. Yeah, able to be dry. That’s a long time for a brewer to not be able to make beer.
Damon Pistulka 30:18
Oh, yeah, yes, yes.
Erika Andresen 30:21
Even went ahead and made agreements with the other brewers in Raleigh and Charlotte and to borrow some of their equipment. But there’s like a four to six weekly four to six weekly time to make batches of beer. So yeah, also had figured that out. I mean things that they wish they would have done earlier. That’s the key wish you would have done earlier. Do it
Damon Pistulka 30:41
earlier. Yes, if you wish, that’s a great if you run a day, wish you would have done it earlier. You need to do it earlier. Yeah, yes, when, when you’re doing this. How do you prioritize? How do you prioritize? There’s all these different risks that we could look at. How do you really prioritize them when you’re sitting in there talking with
Erika Andresen 31:06
someone? So the first thing is, I look at the mission of the business to make sure that we’re looking to make sure that that is what happens. So again, I’ll give you an example from Asheville that’s also in the in the book manna, food bank. Their mission was to cure food insecurity in West North Carolina. They did not save their food. They put their food on a higher level because they weren’t expecting the flooding to be as bad news. But they moved all their food trucks. They moved all the delivery trucks. And I said to the guy, why didn’t you put the food on the trucks? When you move the trucks? He’s like, I think about it. I didn’t think of it. So when I say, you look at your mission, just because it’s the most money you spent on an asset doesn’t make it the thing that was most valuable. So as a food warehouse, it, you know, receives donations and it distributes it. So it thinks it’s a logistics company which you need a warehouse and trucks for. They thought those were the two biggest assets. But having a warehouse and having a truck does not make you any closer to, you know, curing food insecurity. Yeah, who does the warehouse and the trucks are the nice to haves. So if they would have looked at the food as the goal, they’re like, Okay, we’re gonna do the food. We need that we do some with the food. Oh, shoot, we got trucks. Let’s put the food on the trucks and move the trucks. They didn’t think that way. So one of the thing is, I look at the mission and the impact that any kind of disruption will have on achieving that mission, and it’s really about the impact, because I even did an exercise with somebody. It was a terrorist attack exercise. It was at Christmas time. So I was like, so you’re in the third floor of the Nakatomi building, and, you know, on the 24th floor there is a New Year’s, a Christmas eve party, terrorists show up, blah, blah. So clearly, I’m using Die Hard as, like my model. And we went through what they would do for their operations and whatnot, and the guy at the end was like, okay, great, I’m secure on what I need to do for a terrorist attack. But what’s the likelihood of that happening? I’m like, No, I did not prepare you for a terrorist attack. I prepared you for an event that is going to impact your ability to access your main operation center. It’s about the impact. So I look at what’s possible, what’s the likelihood of it, what are the impact? And I concentrate and focus on impact. And that’s why I direct my client to do too? Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 33:26
that’s a great way to look at it, because some of the things you might pay a lot of attention really don’t as far as impact your overall mission might not be what you really want to be looking at, and it can be something as simple as the food is the real value, rather than the truck or the warehouse or the equipment inside of it or anything. They
Erika Andresen 33:48
couldn’t say they’re going to lose the warehouse anyway. And that’s the thing, you know, when I was trying to figure out what I could have told people, other than don’t put your business next to a river, when Helene, happened, it was a few days later when the New York Times did a reel of the business owners in the river arts district who went and explored their premises for the first time since the storm. And somebody said, you know, nobody told us it would be more than 10 feet. And I was like, Who? Who are you listening to? Like, who are your people? Because I knew it going to be more than 20 feet days before, because I was paying attention to all the weather reports that the experts are putting out. They call for catastrophic flooding 20 feet or greater. I knew that, if they were my clients, I would have told them on that Wednesday, whatever you’re doing now to prepare stop it’s not going to work. I need you to do two things, except you’re going to lose your building and get out of your building. What you need most, that you cannot replace, that’ll help you start somewhere afresh or start but not completely from scratch after this is over. Yeah, something else. And I’m like, that would have been so easy if they just would have had access to that information or from the right people who knew to tell them that.
Damon Pistulka 34:54
Yeah, yeah. So let’s, let’s go back. Back to your last book, when the shit hits Japan a little bit, because we’re obviously talking about Asheville a lot, and it came from that. What are some of the things that you saw there that, I mean, well, because we’ve talked about some of them, but this is a great point. It’s like staying abreast of current information, even like on that situation. But what are some of the things that that really surprised you in this or that could have really helped people a lot more, like you mentioned?
Erika Andresen 35:28
Well, first of all, business continuity could help them a lot more, because one of the thing, and I’m not saying that to be, you know, in an opportunist idiot, there is a grant from the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, in coordination with FedEx, that if you are a small business and you have a business continuity plan, you register with them in advance. If you are ever in an area that’s declared a presidential disaster and you experience just, you know, disaster or damage, they will send you $5,000 to recover. Now some people, that doesn’t sound like much to everybody, throwing up those gofundmes that would have made a world of a difference, especially even just to keep their staff paid going forward. So the fact that they didn’t have the continuity plans, really, I thought was was really a horrible just fact that really hurt them, the the way that certain things were taken care of. I was not aware of how bad our infrastructure was, so I prepared for no food, for no power, no water, for about three to four days. I had more. I was able to stretch after that, but I was able to escape for a couple of days once the road opened and I actually had a pre planned vacation that I was able to go on, which is a four hour drive away to Charleston. And just knowing that even when you prepare like you may not be prepared enough, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t not prepare, but also prepare for just the mental impact that it’s going to have on you. Because when I got to Charleston, I took a shower, and I was like, I’m going to go out and get me a beer and some lunch. And as I was walking down like King Street, I wanted to pass out on the street and fall asleep. And I’m like, Why are you so tired? And I realized my adrenaline had been running so much from survival mode that I was like, Oh God, and me, a prepper who was ready, started prepping two days in advance of the storm. You have no idea, and you have to give yourself and everybody else around you enough grace just to understand the mental impact of having a kind of disruption. Because, you know, in my first book, I talk about, you know, after covid, the number one asset. There was a paradigm shift the number one asset in businesses. What were the employees? Somebody said to me recently, don’t you want to change that? Because with AI and blah, blah, and I go, No, I don’t want to change that, because you still need a human touch. But also understand, like, we go back to active shooters. If you are in a mall and one of the stores in your mall is the victim or target of an active shooter. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to be hunky dory going home and work just fine, and being able to show up to work fine the next day, even being that close to something that traumatic, is going to have a massive impact on you, and you have to prepare for your operations to be downgraded a little bit just to give people that ability to show up and be there, because even with myself, I had a work project due that I missed the deadline of because I had no power, no water or internet, and I let them know, and they go, it’s fine. You can hand in two weeks late. I should have just declined that all together and be like, You know what? I can’t do this. I forced myself to do it. I turned in a product. I couldn’t even focus when I was doing it. It was a terrible product, and the result I got from it was also terrible. So, you know, just being aware of your own limitations, yeah, that’s another thing,
Damon Pistulka 38:52
yeah? Because, like you said, when you’re in survival mode, you really don’t know how hard that is on you,
Erika Andresen 38:58
right? And then the other thing about Asheville, specifically, everybody was talking about recovery, recovery, recovery. And I was like, Look, recovery is not it. Recovery brings you back to where you were, and that’s it. Resilience allows you to move forward. And they were focusing only on recovery. And I’m like, no, no, no, let’s do better. Let’s think 510, years down the road, not let’s get you back, so you’re good from where you were. That’s not the way to do it. And that’s a lot of the people, what they’re focusing on. And I was trying to help something with astral and they’re like, oh, we have a lot of people who have experience with hurricanes, so I think we’re good. And I’m like, you, you know, there are other things, right, that can happen. It’s not just hurricanes. Don’t just focus on don’t have such a myopic view on certain things. Understand that the things that can mess you up are far broader. Like, again, it’s not the terrorist attack, it’s the event that’s going to disrupt your operation. So if you’re just preparing them for the minutia, you’re going to miss the bigger picture.
Damon Pistulka 39:58
Yeah, I think that is the one thing that. That, that you’ve talked about a few times in here, that really sticks with me is like, don’t focus on a flood or a hurricane or tornado or a fire. Focus on what could disrupt our operations, and how do we have any of those, and how do we really prevent that from hurting us as much, and putting things in place to do that, rather than focusing on fire and just going okay, like I had someone in California told me a couple years ago that I’ve got 200,000 gallons of water around my my property now, if it gets close, Dallas is my whole place with water for I forget how many hours. Blah, blah, blah, blah, and the flames we buy. And I’m thinking, well, that doesn’t do a lot of good in other situations. Now, after talking to you, right?
Erika Andresen 40:47
Well, so I think the important thing you said is we want to prepare so it doesn’t hurt us as much. And I think that’s key, because I never tell anybody. I will guarantee you 100% you’re going to be protected from everything. I guarantee I’m going to give you the best shot at success with the least amount of discomfort to surviving that thing. Yeah, the best chance at success with the least amount of discomfort to surviving that thing is if I told you, oh, you’re good, you’re golden, don’t do business with me, because I’m lying.
Damon Pistulka 41:19
I love how you said that I’ll give you the best chance of surviving, surviving, you know, and that’s really in the tough situations where we should feel good, that we survive with the least amount of disruption we can. Yeah, yeah, awesome. Well, it’s been great talking with you, Erica, and just really diving into the, you know, business continuity planning. And if people want to get your two books the first, the second one is when the shit hits the fan that came out in March this year. Your first one is, tell us that one again, how to not kill your business. How to not kill your business, both available on Amazon, and if someone wants to get a hold of you and talk with you about business continuity planning, Erica, what is the best way to do so,
Erika Andresen 42:09
you can email me at info@eaasc.com, or you can call and leave a message or speak to me if I happen to answer at the time. My number’s 828-708-7712, you could also go to my website as a clearinghouse for a lot of things. I have a blog there. There’s a bit in business readiness assessment. So if you’re like, I’m curious if I’m ready, go to the homepage. Scroll down the bottom, but it’s ready assessment. It’s like a Cosmo quiz, mostly A’s, mostly B’s, mostly C’s, and that’s WWW dot eaas, eaasc.com,
Damon Pistulka 42:44
nice, nice. Well, thanks for being here today, Erica. And again, we had Erica and reason here today, talking about building resilient operations with business continuity planning. Had tons of great examples. And it’s it’s so great when we can talk with someone like you, Erica, that’s been out there and really helping people do this. Thanks for being here today. Thank you. All right. Well, everyone, thanks so much for being here today. I know I could see we got the viewers there. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here with us today. We will be back again next week. Erica hang out offline and we will finish up offline. Have a great day. Everyone. Bye. You.
