This article originally appeared in the March issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine

Statistically, commonplace events present a greater financial risk to businesses than major disasters. Tsunamis and freak storms generate big headlines, but they occur infrequently. In 2011, for example, the U.S. experienced the deadliest tornado season in 50 years. Then the eastern and northeastern U.S. was hit with hurricanes, floods and a very rare October Nor’easter triggering major power disruptions. These events were costly to businesses in the affected areas, but probably did not even approach the annual cost of paying for the Procrastination Mummy.

Postponing infrastructure updates can be costly and even lethal to an organization’s financial health. Every day of delay in implementing VoIP, FoIP, virtual operating systems, unified communications and other new technologies, means money is being lost and the business remains at risk of a major catastrophe. Generally, management does not have a sense of urgency because daily operations appear normal, but the foundations of their business are already slowly eroding. It is analogous to ignoring a moldering mummy in the basement – you know it is there but are afraid to look.

At TMC (News - Alert), we are very aware of the difficulty resellers and service providers are experiencing in selling disaster preparedness solutions. Today’s thorny economy has conditioned many managers into a postpone-the-decision-until-better-times attitude. Resellers need to motivate clients into opening the basement door and look the mummy in the face. Point out that postponing purchasing decisions is costly and could be a self-fulfilling prophesy for never seeing better times again.

One approach is to show real-world examples with real numbers of how to reduce voice, fax and other messaging costs. Show how implementing green solutions can also increase employee productivity plus generate additional revenue. Opening with “here is what some of my clients are doing” remains a proven and effective sales strategy. Make sure you point out that hosted and managed services provide the same benefits plus are simple and quick to deploy. Also, many service providers provide trials or short-term contracts, which are attractive to managers still on the fence. Whoops, did we forget to mention that business continuity is also built into these solutions?