By Datto Guest Blog 2

I was intrigued by John Chambers’ boastful comments from the recent Cisco Partners Summit.  “The message that we must give together to our competitors is, ‘If you are going to compete against Cisco and its ecosystem, you are going to lose.’”  Wow! Is Mr. Chambers just being a blowhard?  Does he really believe he has the best there is?  Or is he just trying to make us think he has the best there is?  It got me thinking about the ‘ole perception vs. reality refrain.

In Sales and Marketing the term “perception vs. reality” is thrown around as quickly as a hot potato. The challenge to be successful, however, is to make sure that these two are not mutually exclusive. When you deliver both, you’re delivering the best option for your partners and customers.  When the two come together, it’s a powerful thing.  It’s sort of like two superheroes coming together to create one awesome power.  Anyone remember the “Wonder Twins”?

If you’ve ever looked at my LinkedIn profile you’ll see that I’ve had the opportunity to work in a variety of roles, all focused on technology, from object-oriented technology to backup and disaster recovery (BDR).  So you can bet I’ve seen my fair share of perception, not reality.  I won’t name names.

A great thing about working for Datto, and in the BDR market, is that it’s harder to play the perception vs. reality game.  Reality rules.  It’s pretty difficult to grow 300 percent four years in a row based on perception.   You help your channel partners make money, or not.  The backup works, or it doesn’t.  

One of our partners, Peter Lythall with Nortech Business Solutions, had a reality check while at Automation Nation recently.  One of his clients experienced a data disaster while our partner was at the show.  Because his client had Datto SIRIS installed, our partner was able to instantly virtualize this client’s backup in Datto’s secure cloud.  And he did it right from the show floor.  Using Datto SIRIS, he created instant VMs from the cloud, ensuring that his client’s business never missed a beat.  Now that’s a true reality check.

Next time your client experiences a disaster, be it server failure or weather-related, make sure you are able to deliver the reality of business continuity.  Because when it comes to business continuity, perception alone doesn’t cut it.

One area that we do have a little fun is with Datto One Take.  And if you haven’t heard, it’s back.  Check out Episode 1 and Episode 2 of Season 3.

Holly Wainwright is Content Marketing Manager at Datto. Datto Inc. is an award-winning vendor of backup, data recovery (BDR) and intelligent business continuity (IBC) solutions, providing  technology and support to more than 5,000 channel Partners throughout North America and Europe. Datto’s hybrid-cloud BDR/IBC technology provides instant on- and off-site virtualization of servers and workstations, serving the needs of small to medium-sized businesses.