What Happens to a Business When the Owner Dies?

The Question That Keeps Me Up at Night

It usually starts when I can’t sleep.

I lay there, wide-eyed in the dark, and my brain starts asking the hard questions:

What would happen to my business if I died?
Would Russell know what to do?
Who would email my clients? Cancel subscriptions? Find the tax info?

And even if it wasn’t death, what if I got in a car accident? Or needed to take an unexpected leave to care for a loved one? Or just couldn’t keep going for a while?

As entrepreneurs, we spend so much time planning for success. But very few of us take the time to plan for life happening.

That’s exactly why I brought my friend Julie Fried onto the podcast for a conversation I know we all need to hear—whether we’re ready for it or not.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Stop into my YouTube channel for weekly videos about all things content marketing
• Check Out Julie’s Book Recs Highlight on her Instagram
• Recommended by Julie in this episode: 1password.com
• Tune in to Julie’s Podcast
• Julie’s Death Folder prepares you to take care of the one’s you love when you aren’t around
• Action Step: Determine one person to be your person for your death folder
• Book Rec: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• Creative Educator Conference
• Want your own live coaching session? Apply here
• Find me on Instagram and tell me what you thought of this episode: @mrsamandawarfield

Julie Fried: Creator of the Entrepreneur’s Death Folder

Julie is a former luxury wedding planner turned systems strategist. Today, she’s the creator of the Entrepreneur’s Death Folder and host of The System for Everything podcast.

Julie is also a mom, a chronic migraine warrior, and someone who deeply understands the messy overlap between life and business. And she’s on a mission to help entrepreneurs protect what they’ve built without the doom and gloom.

Her approach is practical, compassionate, and honestly—so needed in the online business world.

Because here’s the truth: most of us don’t have a plan for what happens to our business if we can’t be there to run it.

So… What Happens to a Business When the Owner Dies?

If there’s no plan in place? Chaos.

Clients are left wondering. Projects are abandoned. Subscriptions continue charging. Income disappears overnight. And grieving loved ones are left to untangle a digital mess they never signed up for.

Julie shared that even business owners with solid systems often forget to put this kind of emergency planning in place.

• You don’t need to be running a Fortune 500 company to need a plan.
• You don’t need to have a team.
• You don’t even need to be making six figures.

If your business brings in income—or serves people—it needs protection.

The Entrepreneur’s