Recently I had a meeting with a fellow business owner – purely social, and not a sales call in any way. Still, salesmen being salesmen, I could not help but notice some security oversights – notably the lack of a security system in their stand-alone building. I asked why, and received the jocular reply I’ve heard far, far too often: “We don’t have anything worth stealing”.
If you are a business owner, a homeowner, or just an average, everyday American citizen, trust me when I say this: Everyone has something of value that can be stolen.
Several years ago, my eldest child was enrolled in a local Pre-K. We immediately fell in love with the program and everyone involved with it. Again, I happened to take note that no security systems were in place at the school. As a parent with three children and a vested interest in being involved with the program for years to come, I offered to install a comprehensive security system free of charge, asking that they pay only the $30 monthly monitoring fee. The response was the same: “We don’t have anything worth stealing.” Not wanting to be pushy, I still attempted to plead my case. No dice.
Just a few short years later, I read in the local newspaper that the school had been broken into by a group of teenagers. To be fair, the teens did not take anything from the school. Instead, they tore the building apart. The vandalization was so extensive, that the school had to close for an entire month to make the necessary repairs. (Fire extinguisher dust is a bit difficult to clean when it has covered every square inch of your building.)
Many of the families we knew and socialized with ultimately found other programs and never returned to the school we all loved so much.
From what I hear, the school has yet to fully recover from the incident, and it’s possible they never will.
The absence of a security system, which would have cost only dollars a month, ultimately robbed this beloved school of precious time, long-time patrons, and significant revenue.
The bottom line? Don’t let it happen to you. Regardless of whether you believe you have anything “worth” stealing, every business – every business – stands to become a potential target. Defend yourself and your assets. Look beyond the physical to those intangibles that every business shares. Doing so could mean the difference between success and failure in the event that anything is damaged, vandalized, or covered end to end in fire extinguisher dust.
Don’t let security oversights ruin your business. Secom helps business owners protect their buildings, their property, and everything “worth” stealing associated with them. We specialize in implementing comprehensive CCTV solutions, intrusion detection, and more. Contact us today to get started.