Affiliate businesses and spouses/wills?

[simo92]

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hi,


Ever think about what would happen if you get hit by a bus? My spouse is about as far as you can get from an affiliate marketer and I worry about how to make my business available for transfer and sale if I should, you know, croak unexpectedly. A huge chunk of it is just in my head.

I was loosely planning to make a list of all the servers, passwords, URLs, domain name companies, affiliate partnerships, etc.etc. I could think of off the top of my head (a LOT of info). I was also thinking of suggesting some places to sell the business in the event of my untimely demise.

My spouse would need a lot of handholding with this. I worry about the business getting picked up for a lot less than its value just because the people left behind wouldn't know the terrain.

Ever worry about this? Or take steps to leave behind a good record of the whole messy business so your family can get hopefully get full value out of it if anything happens?

[max99]

Think one of best possibilites would be to somehow set it up so maybe a friend in AM could do the selling on behalf of your wife if (god forbid) anything did happen. There would be a clause that they couldnt' sell it to themselves or any relatives etc. This would mean they would know all about it, know the value, where to sell, how to sell and at the right price.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Welcome to the forum with an interesting first post.

[Hero]

obviously the question applies to all self employed professionals and not just for those whose families know nothing about the profession. It's vital that you make provisions for the occasion where you are no longer able to attend to your business with instructions to your family how to deal with things and a list with all pending matters, especially financial ones. The problem is that people never tend to think of these eventualities and plan ahead and, sometimes, they are very secretive of business matters even to their own family.
My dad became seriously ill 1.5 years ago and my brother had to take over his business. He is still trying to understand how my dad run the office and get hold of all the outstanding financial issues, which is highly stressful for my bro.
So, plan ahead, we are not here forever and won't be in good health till the end of our days.

In your instance, I would start with a small explanation doc of what it is you do, how you do it, what the objective is, what your business if worth, who you partner with, password info - the very basic information on your business. Then expand on that accordingly with more details on whatever you come across. Give specific instructions on how you want your business to be treated on your behalf and give them through a legal document, so they won't be able to stray from it if you feel you only can give them the correct info.

[bapages]

I am sure if a Ltd Co. you accountants would assist your wife, but remember that if you have business partners you need to assign you shares in a will to you spouse or you partners may gain your shares over your wife.

A careful point to remember is to highlight all the out goings as these can mount up whilst she sorts thing out. the difficulty is passwords and logins for accounts, google and banks etc etc, can she remember them for you or should you document them shomewhere?

[accelerator]

Have you discussed this with your spouse yet?

Like others have said, creating a detailed file that somebody could read to understand the business would seem like a good idea, but it all depends on what your spouse wants to do, and other factors, e.g. do you have life insurance cover etc etc.

Rgds

Accelerator

[moredial]

An internet business is no different from any other business.

If all the 'goodwill' is the knowledge in your head then, without you, the business has no value.

At the very least, you should have prepared:

1. A list of all the business assets and liabilities

2. A list of all your business contacts

3. A prepared statement and who to send it to in the event that your business stops trading - for whatever reason - and how to send the statement.

4. Suggestions for how to dispose of your business and its assets

Having businesses going into a black hole is very common in the internet marketing business. The first anyone knows that the business no longer exists is when emails start bouncing - if you have set up a 'limitless' mailbox, that can take some time.

[simo92]

thank you very much for your valued comments.

[plussize.co.uk]

Get a book.
Write on it's cover "In the event of my death"
Put down all your websites/domains, affiliate networks and logins & passwords.
Put in it your safe, or with whoever has your will, to be stored along with it.
Write in the book suggesting to your 'dependant' that she/they ask advice from some/all of your affiliate networks.
Put the url of this forum page and the A4U site in it too. ( along with your forum handle and password )

[geordieGeek]

Interesting post and discussions.

I think I should be putting all my knowledge down somewhere too for my wife and family to amke sense of it all but I kind of feel as soon as I do then I will get hit by a bus!

[Azam.net]

This is a good topic of conversation and something that has concerned me from time to time.

I am gradually trying to train and motivate staff to become more knowledgeable and take charge of their respective areas of specialism, but do worry about what would happen to the business were I to get run over by a bus (and there are some near-misses as there is three lanes of traffic two metres from my front door and five bus routes going down it).

To five an idea of how complex my biz is, I have all my usernames/passwords stored on Roboform and there must be a few hundred logins in total. I can whizz around and do 500 different tasks a day to keep the business going, whether it is to do with domaining or affiliate marketing or seo or ppc, but worry what'll happen when I'm not around.

The tasks we all do that are bread and butter to us are impossible for most people to get their heads around.

[Ambski]

What an interesting post. Hmm...

Firstly, my wife would NEVER 'get it'. It's just simply not on her radar at all.
I have 2 sons and currently I could imagine each one taking over a part each, but as they get older I know their personalities will change and so may their plans.

Perhaps I should just leave it hanging and let the most savvy reap the rewards of taking over whats left to take over after I'm gone?

Damn, its late and I know this is going to keep me up all night now!

[christh]

This issue comes into my mind occasionally. As so much of affiliate marketing is 'hands-off' and passive in the way that it operates. All in the 'virtual world'. Not much tangible. Files on hard-drives. Very little paperwork. Only my Nominet certs are a hard copy clue as to what my domains are.

And as for the business earnings: PPC can operate and earn money without much maintenance for months, maybe even years. Websites can spin money for years if hosting fees are paid in advance.

I just think - what would happen if I did pop my clogs tomorrow? My bank accounts and other financial apparatus would be closed - so my AdWords would continue running until my bank refused to pay Google. With no valid bank accounts any automated payments from the affiliate networks would stop dead. Maybe they'd write me a letter if I was lucky but they'd probably just email me. Maybe I should go back to cheque-based payments.

I've often thought of leaving lists of userids, passwords, web addresses and instructions to keep things going, but I'm pretty sure my partner would just want to wind things up. Especially the PPC stuff. Unless I left a note saying to set everything to 1p a click and turn off content.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Has anyone got any suggested references or sources of good advice pertaining to this.