Natural disasters have been front-page news around the world this spring, and are being chalked up as the deadliest to date. Yet, four out of 10 business professionals admit to not being prepared for a disaster. A new national survey of 5,000 business professionals, conducted by Office Depot, sought answers. The survey found that unprepared business professionals say readiness-planning isn't a priority, that it's too expensive and that they don't know how to adequately prepare.

"What’s most alarming about the survey findings is that the prevailing attitudes are steeped in misperceptions," says Jon Toigo, a disaster-recovery expert based in Tampa, Florida who works with Office Depot to help educate small businesses about important preparedness measures. "A $1 piece of media, like a CD-R, to store important data such as key customer lists, vendor details and presentations, could make a big difference in being able to keep your business running.  And it doesn’t take but minutes to back up your data on a regular basis."

According to Toigo, the key to effective planning is to protect your most valuable assets: your people and your data. When developing your preparedness plan, Toigo recommends small-business owners build solid contact lists, including at least five different forms of contact per employee. As for data, he recommends backing up the data your business can't live without and moving it off-site. For larger storage needs, Toigo suggests products that allow you to grab your data and go, like the Ativa 4GB Flash Drive and the Maxtor External Hard Drive.

To learn more about solutions for protecting your people and your data, download a free copy of a guide Toigo helped author called Expecting the Unexpected: Disaster Preparedness Strategies for the Small Business. The guide also provides preparation checklists and guidelines on how to get started.

The Discover Small Business Watch reported that small-business economic confidence is rising as cash flow issues improve. The monthly poll of 1,000 small-business owners with less than five employees said economic confidence rose more than five and a half points in May to 81.8, up from 76.1 in April.

"Together with improved confidence in economic conditions for their own businesses, cash flow issues will be a good barometer of whether this rise in economic confidence is a trend, or just another blip in what has been a downward pattern for almost a full year," said Ryan Scully, director of Discover's business credit card.

In addition, 28 percent of small-business owners agreed that economic conditions for their business are getting better, up from 24 percent in April. Overall, 71 percent said they thought the U.S. economy is getting worse, down from 76 percent last month.

Understanding the process of finding government contracting opportunities can seem daunting to small-business owners. That's why the SBA is offering a live web chat to help answer small business government contracting questions this Thursday, May 29 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. EDT.

The chat, titled "How to Do Business with the Federal Government" will be hosted by Fay Ott, associate administrator for government contracting and business development. Ott will respond to questions on how small-businesses owners can gain access to the federal marketplace, walk through the procurement process and explain how to register a small business into the Central Contractor Registration database.

To join the live web chat, go to sba.gov and click on "Your Small Business Voice Online Chat." If you want to ask Ott a question, visit here before May 29 to post your question online.