What happens to my Coaches Console if something happens to me?

This is a smart business-planning question.  And this can pertain to a short-term situation that prevents you from running your business (like a medical situation that prohibits you from running your business for several months) or upon death. I know it’s not a fun topic to think about, but as a business owner, it’s important to put measures in place now.

There’s actually two different things a business owner needs to address:

1. The status of their Coaches Console System
2. The data within the system.

Let’s start with the first item:  Status of your Coaches Console System.

You would have three choices:

1.  If you left the name your Console account is listed under and your left your login credentials with your P.O.A. (Power of Attorney) or whomever you’ve designated to handle your affairs, then they could simply cancel your Console System either by logging in to your Console account and clicking on the cancel button, by emailing [e-mail], or by calling the support team at [phone]
   
   
2. If you have not left your account login credentials with anyone, then whomever is handling your affairs would need to contact Coaches Console at [e-mail] or [phone].  They would need to provide a copy of a death certificate and/or proof of P.O.A. (or other designation that gives them the power to make these types of decisions).  Upon receipt of that documentation, our support team would cancel the Console System and no further fees would be processed moving forward.
   
   
3. If you did nothing.  When there is no plan in place and something happens unexpectedly to you, the following will happen automatically:  when the credit card that pays for your Coaches Console membership gets cancelled (by your P.O.A. or other designated person), and your Console membership cannot be processed:
1. Our Membership team will attempt to process your card three times.  If unsuccessful, our team will reach out to you via email in an attempt to update your billing information.
2. If we can not reach you or your billing information is not updated, your Console system will be made inactive after those attempts.
3. After 4-6 months the data gets cleared from our database, so no personal or sensitive information is left “hanging out” in the cloud.

In any of those situations, your Coaches Console system would be inactive, your website (if you have one through Coaches Console) and private client portal would be offline and no one would be able to access the data within your Console System.

That leads us to the second item:  The data within your Coaches Console System.

As a business owner, it’s important to have SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) in place so that other team members, a P.O.A. or other designated persons can take care of your business should something happen to you.  

1. If there is no succession plan in place (and there doesn’t need to be), you may simply create SOPs for your POA (or trusted designated person) to download client data from your Console system and make sure your clients have what they need before closing your Console account.  Or if nothing is in place, then after 4-6 months the data in your Console system is cleared out.
   
   
2. If there is a succession plan in place, then the person you’ve designated to take over will have access to your business and client data (including login credentials to your Console System and other technologies) to proceed with serving your clients and running your business as previously instructed by you.  With this designated person, there should be certain confidentiality measures in place (in advance) so that they too keep the material and data confidential. Confidentiality with your clients doesn't have to be with just you, it can also be with your business and other team members you’ve hired for certain functions.  
   
   For example, here at Coaches Console, with our private clients that are part of our Maximum Impact Mastermind program, the confidentiality is between the Mastermind clients and myself as well as extending to my team of coaches that are serving them. The client understands that between all of us coaches, their information, situation and data is safe, secure and confidential.

So the proactive question to ask yourself as a business owner now, before something happens to you, is “how do you want your business to be handled in that type of event?”