Sal is a doer. A real mover and shaker. He spent years learning and honing his craft as a wallpaper glue adhesive guru. He knows the ins, the outs, and the top secret tricks to make that wallpaper stick to any wall. He is a true master of his craft. A few years had passed after working for the ACME Wallpaper Glue company and Sal had an itch. He needed to spread his wings and bring his mad glue skills to customers on a whole different level. Sal was going to take the leap and open his own shop. Sal got Mrs. Sal on board with his adventurous decision, and he gave his boss the two week courtesy letter.
The day finally arrived and Sal set up the Sticky Situation Wallpaper Paste Company in his hometown of Tacky, Indiana. He was beaming with pride as he polished and cleaned the glass door entrance to his newly leased office. He was in business, and he was both excited and terrified. Things were going well as Sal reached out to paste wallpaper clients and engaged them. He picked up some core clients and his little shop started to grow.
Sal didn’t really have many technical computer or IT skills, but fancied himself as knowing “enough to be dangerous.” As his business grew, he needed more and more systems and tools to ensure that his finances were in order, that his customers were happy, and that his business was safe and secure. Sal, however, didn’t want to hire an IT person, he really wanted to figure it out and do it on his own. About three years had passed and the Sticky Situation Wallpaper Paste Company was blowing up in size. Orders were flying in, most orders were flying out. This is where it got super sticky. Sal knew that he needed to stay ahead of the growth but didn’t have the time to keep up with the technology needed to sustain the growth. During this third year, Sal experienced a ransomware attack that nearly crippled his financial situation, countless internal network challenges reducing productivity, lost orders due to backup challenges, and so much more.
Ultimately, Sal realized that he needed help. He reached out to Advanced Systems Solutions after meeting the owner at a networking event and expressed how badly he needed them. ASSI sprang into action, assessed his network, his systems, his software, his hardware, and his business growth needs. They put a plan into action, set up redundancies, upgraded hardware and software, and most importantly, spent time training and instructing Sal and his team on how to prevent cyber crime. Sal’s business took off once again and he got to focus on what really mattered to him.
We caught up with Sal and asked him about his business growth journey and he wanted to share a few mistakes he knows he made along the way to help other business owners grow, thrive, and avoid some IT pitfalls.
Tom C: Sal, tell us about some of the challenges you had in IT as a business owner and how you addressed them.
Sal: Well, Tom, I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way and would love to share some of those mistakes with fellow business owners to save them the grief that I’ve gone through. Here are just a few mistakes that I’ve made along the way that are easy to avoid.
Backups
I lost data. A lot of data. We had a lightning strike hit the glue factory and it jolted our server with the backup drives. Losing that drive was borderline catastrophic as it contained orders, and customer data. Fortunately, I had a bit of a paper trail so I was able to rebuild that dataset. Your business needs multiple backup points. Not just a server, but in the cloud, and potentially on a hard drive that you bring home with you every night. ASSI helped me set these systems and processes up to ensure I always had at least one or two safeguards.
Network Stuff
As my business grew we needed more and more hardware pieces. At some point, one of our network repeaters got compromised because I never thought to upgrade the firmware. A cyberpunk found the exploit and was able to access a local PC connected to that device and leave a few nasty hidden viruses. ASSI went through each piece of hardware and determined what needed to be upgraded, and what needed to be updated firmware wise. This practice now happens on scheduled intervals to ensure that our stuff is always up to date and less vulnerable.
Software
We had been using a really outdated operating system on our network and our local PCs and being a slave to an old school server that hummed along in our IT closet. I never took the time to update any of that stuff in fear that something would crash or break. ASSI came in and recommended a cloud based solution that allows our team to work remotely when they need to and keeps our stuff updated automatically. This alleviated the need for costly server repairs and maintenance. It saved us time, which is money.
My Team
As we grew, my team never received any training on IT pitfalls. They weren’t really hired to be worried about that stuff, but I’ve learned that they ALL play a huge part in keeping our company safe. ASSI trained our team on what to look out for to keep the business safe and running. Stuff like email safety, spear phishing fraud, and all kinds of other potential pitfalls that would let a hacker come in. This has actually been game changing for us, we now hold monthly safety meetings to discuss new IT threats and how to avoid them.
Email
I have to admit, I hate email. It never stops. BUT, when I talked to Tom about it, he recommended that we add an email filtering system to weed out junk and potential cyber threats. This has saved me so much time and has been a game changer. Thank you for that time back in my life, lol.
Zero Trust
Keeping our network and computers safe and sound is really important to me and my business. I learned the hard way what a virus can do to your bottom line. ASSI introduced me to ThreatLocker and their Zero Trust Software to help lock down our machines and keep malicious software out of the network. I truly sleep better at night knowing that we have so many extra layers of protection.
Thank you Tom, and thank you to the team at ASSI. You’ve truly helped me grow and learn as a business.
Tom C: Thank you so much Sal for letting ASSI be a part of your growth. We love nothing more than helping businesses like yours be able to safely grow and thrive. It’s been an honor! Cheers to the future success of your business!
If we can help your business grow and thrive, we’d love to help. At ASSI, we have a saying, Relax. We’re on IT. You’ll sleep better at night, like Sal, when you partner with the IT experts at Advanced Systems Solutions. Give us a call today to discover the ASSI difference: (407) 414-6626.
