This is a recorded presentation from Sarah Kendrick of RHEA Services. Sarah explains her book, and how she helps you get everything written down so you don’t have to worry about it.
Here’s the transcript for this video:
Jamie: Awesome alright. Well, I’m going to take the honor of introducing our speaker today. I was blessed to meet Sarah several months ago and learn about what she does. And I was just blown away.
Jamie: Sarah had a long career in music therapy and I’m not going to steal her story, but she went through some situations with her own family. And like many people in the senior industry, but in life in general, she saw a need that needed to be filled. And she’s like you know what?
Jamie: That’s something I’m passionate about. That’s something I’m good at. That’s something I can do and I want to do this and that’s how she started RHEA Services. And I can’t wait to hear talk about what she does. So, Sarah, the floor is yours.
Sarah: Thank you, Jamie, I appreciate it. I’m glad to be here.
Sarah: So, I’ve got some tips that I’m going to share with you today, so we’re going to start with that and then I’ll try to work in my story and what I do as well, but I wanted you all to come and have something to take away with you so that you can take action on planning ahead for peace of mind in your business.
Sarah: So picture this you and a few close friends are taking a long-awaited trip to a gorgeous island, leaving your spouses and business partners at home. You fly into the mainland, then take a boat to the island, landing on the only dock there. The island is spectacular.
Sarah: It’s one of the most beautiful places you’ve ever seen, and you spend the next week basking in the hot, sultry sun feeling the gentle breeze in your hair. Lounging in the warm seawater and drinking your tropical fruity beverage of choice, it is blissful.
Sarah: Your last night on the island, you’re awakened by a tremendous storm. Your room feels like it might blow away.
Sarah: In the morning light, you can see the chaos left behind by the storm, but you only realize the extent of the damage when you go to check out and you are told that due to the storm, the dock has been damaged and you’re going to get to stay in paradise for a few extra days.
Sarah: However, it isn’t until they tell you that the island is now also without Wi-Fi and cell phone service that you truly start to panic. You have a meeting with a huge new client the day after your return, and you’re the only one who has their contact information and no way to reach them.
Sarah: The stack of bills kept neatly in the desk drawer is due as well. You’d plan to pay them when you return, but your business partner probably won’t know where to look and won’t think about paying them because you’re the one who typically does that.
Sarah: All the peace that you found during the previous week disappears as you realize that without you there or reachable things will quickly fall apart at work.
Sarah: So, whether you actually end up on an episode of Gilligan’s Island or just out of commission due to some kind of emergency, odds are good, but at some point, someone else is going to need to step into your business.
Sarah: The question we need to answer then is, when something like that happens, will that person have the information that they need?
Sarah: So today I’d like to give you some tips to help you feel a little more confident that someone would be able to manage things in your absence.
Sarah: So, number one, let’s talk about caring for your clients. So, I don’t think, I think yes, all of you, from what I understand of what you do, work with people, as most of us do, and people really like predictability, they really like consistency and so if something were to happen to you, people want to know that you’re not going to be available.
Sarah: So, something that I want you to consider first as we go through everything we talk about today, the question that you need to ask yourself over and over is, what would someone else need to know?
Sarah: Because that’s going to be the most important question that you can answer for your business and for everything we’re going to talk about.
Sarah: We all carry around a lot of things in our minds that we are the only ones who know the information, whether it’s passwords or it’s what our schedule of when we do certain tasks for social media or for paying the bills or any of that.
Sarah: We’re all carrying around information on behalf of our families and our businesses. That we’re the only person who knows that information, so let’s make sure that someone else would know what needs to be managed in case we’re not there.
Sarah: All right, so when you’re caring for your clients, consider your schedule, so maybe you keep a paper calendar. That’s great, but a lot of people are going to be using an electronic calendar, so something like Google Calendar for example.
Sarah: So, when you have your appointments, your meetings and your deadlines and things, consider keeping those on that calendar and then also including information about the client that you’re working with, the address for any of your meetings, your phone number to contact that person that you had the meeting with, or the client that you were that you were meeting with.
Sarah: If you include that information on every appointment that you were to have with someone, someone would easily be able to find that contact information and notify a client. Say if you weren’t able to make a meeting or cancel a session that you had, and it’s really easy.
Sarah: I mean, especially if you’re using something like Google Calendar to go ahead and copy and paste that and keep it as a recurring schedule, it’ll keep the same information. There’s actually a note section where you can keep additional information on that person and what projects you were working on for them.
Sarah: Again, just in case somebody else were to have to step into that space, they’d have some of that information that they would need.
Sarah: Also, consider now if you’ve got a paper calendar, this is going to be tricky, but if you’ve got an electronic calendar and share that with someone that you would trust to be able to step into that space if you weren’t there.
Sarah: Now it needs to be someone trustworthy. Obviously, like you know, you don’t need anybody, just like, snooping on your calendar all the time and following you around. That would get a little weird, but it could be really important if you’re again not able to make some of your meetings and things for someone else to know where you were supposed to be.
Sarah: So, consider having somebody else, share that calendar with somebody else that they’d be able to access.
Sarah: Uhm, so if you work alone, if you’re the only one who works in your business or even if you have employees or a partner who would be appointed to contact clients on your behalf.
Sarah: Now if you’ve got a business partner, that’s a pretty natural fit probably, but if you’re a solo entrepreneur or someone who works on their own, who would do that work?
Sarah: So, I’m not sure about everybody, but some of us work with confidential information, so you have to consider too. If you’re working with someone whose information needs to be kept confidential.
Sarah: That’s another factor to consider is, OK, well, who would actually be able to have permission to look at their information? Do you need to get that permission ahead of time? But somebody needs to know who to call?
Sarah: And then consider you know who could you tap to do some of that work oftentimes.
Sarah: If, especially again, if you’re kind of a solo entrepreneur doing things on your own, you might consider that if you’ve got a spouse, maybe they would just be able to call your call your clients for you, but I’d ask you to reconsider, because in a lot of, uhm, your spouse doesn’t want that responsibility.
Sarah: Especially if the situation you find yourself in is an emergency situation with your own health and you’re unavailable, your spouse is going to be very concerned about what’s happening to you. They’re not going to want to consider your clients or having to get ahold of them. It’s going to be a lot of extra information that they just don’t need to manage and then actually, even if you’re OK.
Sarah: And for some reason I’m not available to talk again, your spouse doesn’t always want to do that work, part of what I do is I help people gather up all this information into a book that I’ve created and I’ve had several people say.
Sarah: We’ve already talked about it.
Sarah: They don’t want anything to do with the business, so I have thought about appointing somebody else, so I would ask you to consider appointing somebody else.
Sarah: Having a legacy plan in place where you’ve tapped somebody to say look if something happens to me. I’m asking you to be responsible for contacting my clients and kind of managing things until either I can return or until things can officially be wrapped up in whatever way they have to be.
Sarah: Uhm, so having somebody serve as almost an executor for your business is something that I’d ask you to consider. Maybe it’s somebody who does a similar work to you, so maybe confidentiality, then would kind of transfer.
Sarah: I, actually, lawyers, uh, we have to set up someone else who would be able to come in and take their place if they were unavailable to finish the work that they were doing for someone, because, again, that’s a very time sensitive, confidential time and so they have to appoint somebody who would take step in and take over their cases.
Sarah: And so maybe your work is not quite as urgent, but it matters for those people that you’re working with. So, consider appointing somebody who would be responsible to manage things in your absence.
Sarah: All right #2 is money matters. So, who handles the finances of your business?
Sarah: We’ve got a couple people here who work with money, and so they’re going to tell you this is really important, because where the money goes, so goes all.
Sarah: The other things right? How we manage to take care of everything?
Sarah: So, if you are the person who handles all of the finances for your business, does anybody else know how to do that? Does anybody else have the information they would need to pay your bills or to close down accounts? Do they have the information that they would need to do anything with the money for your business?
Sarah: Now again it needs to be somebody trustworthy, because you don’t want all of your bank accounts here, so, you gotta be careful who you trust with that information, but consider keeping a list of necessary contacts, passwords and account information.
Sarah: So, if someone did have to step into that space, they would have what they needed.
Sarah: Now I’m going to give you a special note on auto-pay accounts because auto pay accounts are great. You know that you don’t have to think about your bills. It automatically comes out it’s figured into your budget easy, right?
Sarah: Autopay accounts are great until they are not, and that when they are not happens if for some reason you’re unable to return to your business or if things need to be finalized. Those autopay accounts, they don’t care. It’s set up to automatically leave your account. It’s going to keep going as long as your account’s open and uhm, if it’s a situation where someone has passed that, I mean, probate takes at least six months to a year, potentially for things to get finalized with closing down the accounts and different things like that.
Sarah: Somebody that I was working with, they had actually shared that their father had passed away and they were having trouble closing the bank accounts and canceling some of their services and he had a business, and he had autopay accounts and they were deducting hundreds and hundreds of dollars every month for his marketing plan that he wasn’t using for his website that he obviously wasn’t coming back to and that was they just because of those autopay accounts, they weren’t able to change that and they weren’t able to close the accounts.
Sarah: They’re working on it, but it’s been a, it’s been a process, and again, hundreds of dollars have left that we’re not needed any longer.
Sarah: So, for business owners, I want you to consider, or anybody really in business, what are things that only you manage?
Sarah: So, if you do have a partner or employees, they obviously have their own tasks that they have delegated to them. But there are things that only you do, whether it’s your social media or its billing, invoices, perhaps it’s payroll for your employees.
Sarah: There are things that you do every day that you’re the only one who does them, I would wager. And so, I’m going to ask you to think about what those things are, but don’t get overwhelmed yet.
Sarah: I know that there are a lot of things, so take it one small step at a time. So, I would say for a month, maybe every day, just keep a small note of what sort of things you’re doing every day, so if it’s posting to social or if it’s sending invoices. If it’s having meetings, just keep a running list so that way you’re not having to populate an entire months’ worth of work to figure out what it is that you do every day.
Sarah: It’s easier to just take it one step at a time, and as things come up, and then going forward, you can consider quarterly what are some things that you do, you pay your taxes quarterly. Do you do them manually?
Sarah: If you file your taxes, usually that’s just once a year, unless you pay them quarterly. I guess I am not the tax expert though so don’t quote me on any of that, but do you consider, what are some of those tasks that you only do certain times of the year?
Sarah: And what are things that you do regularly that you are the only one who does that?
Sarah: And then I would encourage you to create an emergency plan and share it with that legacy person, your business executor.
Sarah: Uh, that legacy plan could be anything from yes, your daily tasks, your weekly tasks, annual things to how to get a hold of your employees, how to take care of payroll, how to log on to your QuickBooks, you know. Again, it’s going to be comprehensive of this information that we’ve talked about.
Sarah: Again, we’re preparing for an emergency. We’re preparing for a disaster. This is what that looks like for your business. Consider that.
Sarah: All right, so #3, we’re going to talk about your important information.
Sarah: So first we need to keep it safe, so whatever you have, I hope that it is filed well.
Sarah: I hope that it is potentially kept in a fire box.
Sarah: But also consider scanning your important documents, and keep them on a password protected flash drive.
Sarah: So, when I do the work with families, after we’ve finished filling out the book, I do provide them with a with a password protected flash drive that also has an encrypted file, so they’re not very expensive.
Sarah: It’s pretty easy to get, but you can put things into that vault that is included on the flash drive and then somebody has to have that additional password to get to that information, but it’s a great way to keep, you know, things like your credit cards.
Sarah: If your business credit card is lost or stolen, do you know how to cancel it? If not, let’s keep a scanned copy of that credit card on this flash drive.
Sarah: Let’s keep any licenses or certifications. Education certificates that you have that you need to practice. Keep a scanned copy of that document so that if something happens to the original, at least you have something to go back on.
Sarah: You can also keep a copy of your insurance, a copy of your office inventory if you have a physical space that you use such as a business space. Yes, that’s something where if something happens to all of that, having an inventory is so much more helpful for getting the insurance company to sort things out.
Sarah: If you already know what you’re missing, it’s just an easier process than trying to look back and think about what all that you had in your office, so keeping that. Obviously, a copy of your emergency or legacy plan would be included on that flash drive.
Sarah: Those are just some examples of things that you could keep but you could also keep client contact information, important files, any of that sort of thing could be kept on an external source so that again, in an emergency you may not be able to run to your file cabinet and grab a big file full of papers, you know, maybe there’s a fire and you can’t get there. I don’t know, but I hope not.
Sarah: But if you’ve got just something on a small flash drive, that’s really easy to grab and take with you. So, in an emergency you know seconds count, so let’s try to make it both accessible and safe and just as easy as possible to kind of grab it and go if you need to.
Sarah: Alright, so then I would also ask you, when you have a trustworthy person to share your phone code with somebody. Now this is maybe more important for personal use than for business use, but I think a lot of us actually also use our phones for business and there may be passwords or apps or things that we have on there that we haven’t considered because it’s on our phone, it’s a separate device.
Sarah: It’s not the computer, so think about the business things that you have on there and who might need to access that and make sure they have that. Make sure they have your phone code. Uhm, if something were to happen to you and somebody were to need to get into your phone.
Sarah: Those companies are not going to work with you; Apple is not going to work with you; Google is not going to work with you, they’re not Verizon, they don’t, they don’t care. They’re not going to help you get into a phone if you don’t have the passcode.
Sarah: And if you don’t have one, this is the expectation, if you don’t have a legacy contact setup. So, something that’s exciting that’s happening right now is, these companies are realizing that somebody’s electronic legacy, their online presence, is part of their estate and needs to be considered, and so a lot of these businesses are actually allowing you to set up some of those legacy contacts ahead of time, so that if something did happen, you could file the appropriate paperwork and be allowed some access to some of the information.
Sarah: Now it’s not going to be exhaustive, it’s not going to be your whole online presence but you know, say, Apple will let you look at somebody contacts or look at somebody’s pictures and things like that. We’ll be able to access some of that information.
Sarah: So, consider also setting up some of that those legacy contacts ahead of time, and I know that Apple has the option to do that, Facebook, and then also Google will let you set that up ahead of time, so that you can have a legacy contact to access those documents or that information, if necessary.
Sarah: And then of course, I’m going to ask you to, if you don’t already have one, get a will, a healthcare and financial power of attorney, and a living will, also known as your advanced directives, but include your business information in that if you haven’t already.
Sarah: That’s going to be part of that legacy plan of making sure that things go where you want them to go. That’s what a will is for. If you don’t have beneficiaries on your accounts, which you can set those up ahead of time. But if you don’t have beneficiaries on your accounts, that’s where the will comes in and says who gets what and where it should go.
Sarah: And if you don’t, decide not to do that, then the state will decide for you, which is probably not what you want, but it is an option as well.
Sarah: So, those are maybe not, maybe more than a few tips, but I hope that it was some helpful information and I know that it can be hard to consider not being available to manage our businesses, and all of the details that we care so much about, but we can help ensure that things don’t entirely fall apart without us by taking a few extra steps ahead of time.
Sarah: That way, if you do ever get stuck on an island, you can sit back, relax, and have a Pina colada for me, thanks.
Sarah: So, I that was a lot, I hope that was helpful. I’d also love to share a little bit about what I do and why I know all of this information ’cause you know I, I know most of you, but I started the work that I do in 2020. Again, as Jamie said, in part because we lost both of my grandmas within six months of each other.
Sarah: And having to, to take care of both of their estates at the same time was incredibly overwhelming for my family. But I was able to step in and help them do some of that work, which mattered a great deal to me and I think I can speak on behalf of my mom, also mattered a great deal to them.
Sarah: The fact that I was able to do some of that work on their behalf of finalizing estates and making some of those phone calls and doing some of that work.
Sarah: But it also made me realize that very often we do not have the information available that we need, and so I created a book and a system where I help people walk through filling out that book so that it actually gets done. And then we have all of this information that I talked about in one easy location.
Sarah: So that’s just the brief. That’s why I know these things. If you’ve never considered them before, it’s because I made a whole book considering these things and asking people difficult questions and asking them to think about OK, well, what, what happens when or what happens if, because we don’t know life is uncertain, I think we’ve seen that a lot over the past couple of years.
Sarah: But let’s make sure that things are as prepared as they can be and then and then we don’t have to worry about it as much.
Jamie: Absolutely all right. Who’s got questions for Sarah?
Myra: So, do I understand correctly that you do this for people as well as businesses? I do, yeah.
Sarah: So, a part of what the book that I created it, it has information for all kinds of people, not just business people, but there is a specific business section that we go through.
Sarah: If somebody does have a business that covers all of the things that I had talked about, and then you know for somebody personal life, it covers everything from kids and pets and insurance, bank account information, financial information.
Sarah: But yes, so I don’t just work with business owners. I do work with just people, singles, married and I’m able to do the work virtually so it’s wherever they are too so.
Jamie: Absolutely, I’ve seen Sarah’s book. It is comprehensive and it is phenomenal.
Sarah: Thanks, Myra.
Jamie: Anybody else have any questions? They’d like to ask Sarah.
Cindy: I have a question. Do we have to share all our financial information with you when will you help us fill out this book?
Sarah: No, that is a great question, Cindy, thank you. No, you do not.
Sarah: So, when I do this work with people, I give them a checklist of things that we’re going to cover and we go through certain sections of the book. Every, you know, every session, it usually takes about 3, but no, nobody is required to share any of the information that they don’t want to.
Sarah: And I really encourage people not to share things that they do not want, because it is really important that your information is secure and the book is able to be updated at any point in time in the future.
Sarah: So, when I deliver it to someone locally or I ship it to them, if they’re not here, they are able to fill in anything that we didn’t cover. And I do provide a little checklist to help them remember what we didn’t cover. And then it’s able to be updated ongoing going forward.
Sarah: So no, please, no, don’t share anything you’re not comfortable with. You know, you don’t want to, like, that’s just blanket statement. Don’t do it.
Sarah: Thanks Cindy, thanks so it’s helpful.
Jamie: And then you’ve got places to where people could attach their financial statements and life insurance policies and things like that after they received the book. So, it can all be in one place, but you wouldn’t have to see it.
Sarah: That’s right, Oh yeah, no, I don’t see any of that information. I encourage people though, that list of things that I said keep on an external flash drive, so I provide the book, once we’re finished, on that flash drive and I encourage them to keep that file there.
Sarah: So no, I never see any of that information, but I just, it’s if you’ve already got something in one place. Let’s keep it all together. Yeah, let’s make it accessible so.
Sarah: Thanks Jamie.
Myra: Then do you normally recommend that we copy that flash drive ’cause I keep hearing about, you know, having it, having it in three different places, and three different sources and two copies and all that.
Sarah: Well, I think it’s going to depend on, you know I, it needs to be both accessible and secure, so I let people decide what that looks like for them. Some people want to print a printed copy of the book and you can print, it’s an electronic copy that we fill out, but it’s it can be printed.
Sarah: Some people want to keep that on a shelf somewhere, and that’s, that’s fine, it’s good for more than one person to have it, I think because you know, again, if you are the only person who has access to say a fire safe where you keep it, then then somebody else would have to get into your house and do all of that.
Sarah: But you also need to keep it updated so it’s if you’ve got 3 copies floating out there, how are you keeping them all updated? Are you just sending it to someone every time?
Sarah: You update it, it’s, yeah, so it’s really up to tou as to what makes the most sense. I’ve had a couple people say, a lot of their information wasn’t going to change. They were actually going to give a copy to their lawyer because it would be used in conjunction with the will to find everything else, which I think makes some sense.
Sarah: Because you know they’ve got a file for that sort of thing.
Sarah: Uhm, but so you might want to consider, uhm, at least leaving that information with your lawyer to say OK, here’s who my executor would be. This is where they would need to find this information that would show them where everything else was, so.
Myra: Makes sense.
Jamie: Any other questions for Sarah?
Jamie: All right, let’s give her a big round of applause. Oh, Ryans got one, sorry.
Ryan: No, Sarah, I wanted to ask how often should somebody update this? Since I’m sure some of this information changes over a lifetime.
Sarah: It definitely does. Great question, Ryan. Yeah, I would say at the very least annually, once a year take a look at things. Consider what has changed.
Sarah: What if you’ve moved? Had a kid, adopted a new pet? If your business has grown and you’ve got employees now, where you didn’t before, you can certainly do it as those things happen.
Sarah: But at least annually, and something that I’m able to do right now is when I do that process with someone, I call them a year later and I say hey, believe it or not, it’s been a year and everybody is always surprised because it a year goes by really fast and it’s really easy to lose track of that sort of thing.
Sarah: But yes, at least annually, but as it’s only ’cause it’s only as good as the information you have in it, you know, is what you keep but as often as possible, keep that updated.
Ryan: Thank you.
Jamie: Absolutely all right now. Let’s give her a round of applause. Thank you.
