Make Your Last Professional Act Classy

Doing This Assures You a Professional Send-Off

 Pre-planning for your death doesn’t mean you will die sooner.  I promise.  All it does is make life easier and possibly more affordable for your loved ones in the event of your loss.  

I wanted to finish the emergency planning month with the biggest emergency.  The one that’s hardest on your business. Your death.

Your Choice: Just Details or A Nightmare?

It’s easy to neglect this part of your business.  After all, you won’t actually deal with it. 

This can be just another aspect of settling the estate.  Or it can be a disorganized horror for your loved ones to sort through as they grieve their loss.  Here are a few nightmare-reducing things to consider.

Important Contacts to Organize

Have you hired an accountant?  Perhaps a personal assistant?  Have you outsourced product fulfillment?

Developing an easy to access contact list of vendors and clients will make it so much easier for the person handling your final affairs.  A simple instruction sheet of where to look for the list, how to use it (phone, online, mail, etc.) and even what to say means one less thing to figure out.

It may also save money by avoiding unwanted shipments or charges for monthly services.

You need a short list as well.  On this, include your retainer clients and other active clients.  They need to be informed immediately so they aren’t left hanging with looming deadlines and no product in sight.   

Leave clear directions for the bank accounts to make sure refunds are issued to appropriate parties.  If you are able to direct someone to fulfill orders, leave clear, step-by-step instructions. 

An extra touch of class would be to refer them to someone to fulfill the contract where possible.   It would be like having a godparent for the business setting, only less binding.  

Keep your research and work organized so that it's easy to send back to your client, reducing time for the next person to get up to speed. Your clients will appreciate your thoughtful preparedness.

Remember Your Other Contacts

Consider your personal contacts.  Friends you’ve developed over the internet via blog hopping or other forums may never know what happened to you.   They'll be pleased you thought enough of them to have them informed.

To avoid simply going dark, draft a final email, addressed to those people. You’ll want to remember people who recommend you through networking rather than client relationship.   

Facebook has a way to turn your page into a memorial page. Other accounts can only be shut off.  It's worth considering, if you don't want to run the risk of identity theft plaguing your estate and your family.

How You Want Your Legacy Products Handled

Are you blogging?  Make a draft final blog post.  Leave copy and paste directions so when it is used, it doesn’t appear to have been written years earlier if that is an issue on your particular blog. 

While you are thinking about your blog, do you want it left up for the benefit of new readers?  Will you have an online product that is automatically fulfilled?    

You’ll need to plan your business estate to account for keeping that up.  Include a way for funding to be addressed, including payment for your website.  Leave clear instructions for running that aspect of your business.   Include passwords, email addresses, information on any income sources such as affiliate relationships like Amazon or from banner ads. 

This will allow you to continue providing income to your family after you have passed as well as impact the lives of those who read your blog or buy your products.

Awareness is Key

The bottom line is to be aware of what would happen if your spouse or other loved one had to step in tomorrow morning and figure all this out alone.  Figure out how to make it easy to navigate. 

And get a lawyer to get things set up properly for minimum fuss to your survivors.

Make appointments to update this information regularly.  Your loved ones will bless you for loving them so much.

Weekly Challenge

I finally got my website live last week.  I don’t like it much.  Being lean on resources, I need to figure out how to do much of this for free.  My site looks incredibly boring.  Aside from the banner, it’s black and white. 

Much as I want to take time to do something about it, learning SEO is a higher priority.  Otherwise, I can’t be found without directly typing in my address.  That is my goal for this week.

Does this section hold any interest to you?  I’m considering dropping this section.  Comment below and let me know!

What are you doing to build your business this week?