Takeaway: Massage therapists have a responsibility to have a plan about the logistics of their business in the event of their death or disability.

As business owners, it’s easy to feel like we’re indestructible. When you’re in the thick of caring for your clients, managing your business, and handling any challenge that comes your way, there isn’t much time to consider the “what if” scenarios if something happens to you. 
But things can happen. While we hope to have a long, healthy career, everyone is at risk of a tragic event, such as death or disability. While it’s not fun to think about, it is a real possibility, and we have a responsibility to make the tasks in our business easy to handle if we need help.

Why Is It Important to Have a Plan?

It’s important to have a plan because if you were to pass away or become incapacitated, many people would be affected.
Naturally, the emotional stress on your loved ones would be very real. However, beyond this, there are many logistics of your massage business that would be interrupted, and it would affect your clients, your business associates and colleagues, and your loved ones.
Your clients would need to be notified. They would need to know what’s going on because their lives and their care would be affected. Your business associates and colleagues would need to be notified. You rent space, pay for software, and pay for other services, and all these entities would need to be notified. Your family and/or loved ones would also be affected. If you are no longer able to run your business, your income is interrupted, and many other challenges would occur as your loved ones deal with various elements of your business.

What Things Need to be Organized?

A lot goes into running a business. Some of the critical information about your business includes:
• Financials
• Client information
• Vendor/supplier information
• Insurance documents
• Licenses and certifications
• Marketing systems
• The person(s) delegated to manage your business affairs
In the event of a crisis that takes you out of commission, one of the first things that needs to happen is a notification to all your clients letting them know what the situation is. You need to delegate someone in your life to handle this task and be sure they have access to your schedule and necessary information. 
Additionally, business associates and colleagues would need to be notified, including your landlord, utility companies, cleaning service, accountant, attorney, financial advisor, and any other service providers you work with.
You will need to make a list of the professionals who are suited to help in situations like this. If you work with an attorney, they should be at the top of the list. Your accountant and financial advisor should also be at the top, as death or incapacitation can activate certain legal documents like health-care directives and power-of-attorney documents.
Ongoing financial transactions may need to be put on hold and various parties named in legal documents may need to be notified.
As an aside, this is a great time to encourage you to make sure you have your will or trust, as well as various estate-planning documents—established and current. This includes naming beneficiaries (and transfer-on-death instructions) on all your financial accounts and assets.
Your marketing systems would also need attention. If you die or are unconscious in the hospital, the last thing you want is your scheduled social media posts going out inviting people to book massages or buy gift certificates.
You need to delegate someone to log in to your accounts and pause posts, and possibly update your website with an appropriate message. You’ll need your online scheduler disabled and a sign placed on your door.

How Do You Organize Your “Get Hit By a Bus” File?

Organizing everything doesn’t have to be complicated. Your starting point is to identify one or more people responsible for handling these things after a tragic event. You’ll then want to create a checklist of the tasks they will need to execute, which includes the things previously discussed. Make sure these trusted contacts have a copy of this checklist or know where to find it.
From there, you’ll want to decide how to grant the access needed to allow your trusted contacts to carry out these tasks. One of the best things you can do is organize all your files into one system. Using a cloud-based system like Google Drive is a great option, but there are plenty of others. You’ll want to organize all your important files in this system.
Next, you’ll need to make sure your trusted contacts can get access to your systems. Using a password manager can be a great way to handle this. Most password managers allow you to add one or more trusted contacts to your account. If something happens to you, they can request access to your account. If you don’t reply after a certain amount of time, it will give them access to all your passwords. This is a great way to create one single method for giving someone the “keys” to your business.
If you or your trusted contacts are not tech-oriented, you can also store this information in paper documents in a safe. Pretty much everything you use will have your email address on file for password resets. So if you ensure that this document always has your current email password on file, then others should be able to get into everything else because they can log in to your email and then do password resets on all your other accounts.
Whatever system you use, be sure to keep it up to date! It’s a good idea to review everything annually to make sure your files contain the most current information.

A Plan Leads to Peace of Mind

Setting up a “get hit by a bus” system is not fun, but it will likely lead to peace of mind for you and your loved ones. While we don’t always have control over our own mortality, we can take control of the outcomes and how it would affect others if something tragic happens.