Your Business. Your Plan.™
Make the decisions your business will eventually need.
You’ve already started getting organized.
Now it’s time to decide what should actually happen when your role in the business changes.
Maybe you’re preparing for an extended absence.
Maybe your capacity is changing.
Maybe you’re thinking about succession, retirement or eventual exit.
Or maybe you want clear instructions in place if illness, incapacity or death changes everything unexpectedly.
Your Business. Your Plan.™ is a self-guided Business Transition Preparedness service for established business owners who want to make those decisions independently, with strategic guidance at key milestones.
You’ll work through the planning at your own pace while I help you ask the right questions, identify gaps, involve the appropriate professional advisors and turn your decisions into practical instructions.
Independent planning. Strategic guidance. A plan built around your business.
STAGE → PLAN
Best For: Established Canadian business owners who have already organized much of their critical business information and are ready to make transition decisions.
Available For
Sole proprietors
Self-employed professionals
Incorporated owner-operators
Small businesses with 1–20 employees
Format: Self-guided planning with strategic milestone support
Typical Timeline: 3–6 months
Engagement Period: Included sessions used within six months
Includes:
✔ 60–90 minute Kick-off Planning Session
✔ Two, 30-minute milestone check-ins
✔ 60–90 minute Final Planning Review
✔ 90-minute Family & Key Contact Session
✔ Annual Review Reminder
✔ The Dahlias Planner™
✔ Personalized planning resources and worksheets
✔ Email support for brief clarification questions
Depending on your circumstances, your final planning may include continuity, contingency, incapacity, succession, or exit instructions and, where appropriate, a customized Business Continuity Roadmap™.
Investment: $1,497 CAD + HST
Designed for one business owner and one business.
If you own multiple businesses, we'll customize your planning engagement to reflect the additional scope.
The Business Executor Method™
Your Business. Your Plan.™ represents the PLAN stage of the Business Executor Method™:
LEARN → PREPARE → PLAN → ACT
LEARN — Understand what applies to you and what your business may need to prepare for.
PREPARE — Organize the information, people, responsibilities and professional support your business depends on.
PLAN — Make the decisions and create the continuity, contingency and transition instructions your circumstances require.
ACT — Communicate the plan, prepare the people involved and make sure they know where to start.
This is where organization becomes decision-making.
What Are You Actually Planning For?
Business Transition Preparedness is not one plan. Depending on your business and circumstances, this work may include:
CONTINUITY
How will essential business activity keep moving if normal operations are interrupted?CONTINGENCY
What happens if a specific event occurs?INCAPACITY
What happens if you’re alive but unable to lead or make decisions?SUCCESSION
Who or what comes next?EXIT
What do you ultimately want to happen when your relationship with the business changes?
You may need one of these conversations. You may need several.
Your Business. Your Plan.™ helps you determine which decisions matter now and turn them into practical instructions.
Where the Business Continuity Roadmap™ Fits
A Business Continuity Roadmap™ is one possible output of this work.
It brings together important information, contacts, decisions and instructions someone may need if you are temporarily or permanently unable to lead the business.
For some clients, that Roadmap is central.
For others, the priority may be succession, capacity reduction, retirement or exit preparedness.
The plan should fit the transition — not the other way around.
Why Make These Decisions Before You Have To?
You already know your business better than anyone.
You know how decisions are made.
Which relationships matter.
What can wait.
What can’t.
What you want the business to become.
The problem is that many of those decisions still exist only in your head.
That works while you’re available to explain them.
It becomes much harder when:
you want to step away
your capacity changes
a partner leaves
someone else needs to assume responsibility
retirement gets closer
succession becomes real
or an unexpected event removes you from the business
Planning now gives you the opportunity to make the decisions yourself — rather than leaving someone else to interpret what you would have wanted.
Who This Service is For?
Your Business. Your Plan.™ is designed for established business owners who have already done some preparedness work and are ready to make important transition decisions.
It’s a strong fit if you:
✔ Have already organized much of your critical business information
✔ Are comfortable working independently between meetings
✔ Want strategic guidance without monthly working sessions
✔ Know a planned or unexpected transition could affect your role in the business
✔ Are ready to make decisions about continuity, contingency, incapacity, succession or exit
✔ Want your family, business partners or trusted people to understand your intentions
✔ Prefer flexibility and control over your timeline
You do not need to know exactly which type of plan you need before you begin. We’ll identify that during the planning process.
Together, We'll Make the Important Decisions
This isn't about filling out forms.
It's about making the important decisions every business owner eventually needs to make.
Together, we'll work through questions like:
If you were unavailable for 30, 90 or 180 days, what would you want to happen?
What should continue?
What can pause?
Who should step in first?
Who has authority — and who simply needs information?
What does your spouse or family need to know?
Which responsibilities should be delegated?
What happens if you cannot return?
Who or what eventually comes next?
Should the business continue, transfer, sell or close?
What would need to happen before you could reduce your involvement?
What do clients, employees and professional advisors need to know?
Which decisions require legal, tax, financial or insurance advice?
What do you want documented now so someone else is not guessing later?
These decisions become the foundation of your customized transition plan and, where appropriate, your Business Continuity Roadmap™.
What You’ll Build
Using the Business Executor Method™ and Eight Business Preparedness Pillars™, you’ll work through the areas of your business affected by the transition you’re planning for.
Business Foundation
Ownership, structure, registrations, core records and key people.
Business Operations
What needs to continue, what depends on you and what someone else may need to understand.
Clients & Relationships
Communication, contracts, confidentiality and key business relationships.
Financial Readiness
Banking, CRA, payroll, income, debt and financial-professional relationships.
Technology & Access
Systems, subscriptions, administrator access and secure digital processes.
Insurance & Benefits
Coverage, beneficiaries and information relevant to illness, incapacity, transition or death.
Legal & Professional Planning
The lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, insurance professionals and other advisors whose expertise may be needed.
Business Continuity & Transition
The actual decisions: what happens, who becomes involved and how the business moves through temporary absence, incapacity, succession, exit or death.
Your final plan will reflect the transition your business actually needs to prepare for. It may include a Business Continuity Roadmap™, succession instructions, contingency plans, transition decisions, or a combination of these.
What You’ll Leave With
Depending on your circumstances, your completed planning may include:
✔ Your Business Snapshot™
✔ A customized transition plan
✔ Business Continuity Roadmap™, where appropriate
✔ Documented incapacity considerations
✔ Succession or ownership-transition intentions
✔ Communication priorities
✔ Emergency and key-contact order
✔ Guidance for family, business partners or trusted contacts
✔ Centralized structure for critical business information
✔ Family & Key Contact Session
✔ Annual review checklist and reminder
Most importantly...
You’ll have made decisions that other people would otherwise be forced to make without you.
Don’t Keep Your Plan to Yourself
One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is creating a plan that no one else has ever seen.
If the people around you don't understand your wishes — or where to find important information — they may still struggle to make decisions when it matters most.
That's why this service includes a dedicated 90-minute Family & Key Contact Session.
Together, we'll walk through your completed roadmap, clarify responsibilities, and ensure the people you've chosen understand their role.
Quick question: Have the people you’ve assigned roles to actually agreed to those roles?
This gives the people you've chosen an opportunity to ask questions, understand your wishes, and feel more confident about the role they may one day need to play.
Depending on your situation, this session may include your:
spouse or partner
adult children
estate trustee
attorney acting under a Power of Attorney
business partner
shareholder
office manager
key employee
Because a plan only works if the people involved understand it.
How We’ll Work Together
This is a self-guided planning service. I provide the structure, education, tools, questions, feedback, and milestone support. You complete the activities, gather your business information, speak with your professional advisors where needed, and make the final decisions about your business.
After our initial planning session, you'll work independently through your planning activities.
We'll reconnect for two 30-minute milestone check-ins to review your progress, answer questions, work through any roadblocks, and help you prepare for the next stage of your planning.
Once your planning is complete, we'll meet for a comprehensive final review followed by your Family & Key Contact Session to ensure the people you've chosen understand the plan.
You'll also receive an annual reminder to review your roadmap and make updates as your business and life evolve.
Your Investment
Investment: $1,497 CAD + HST
Designed for one business owner and one business.
If you own multiple businesses, we'll customize your planning engagement to reflect the additional scope of work.
Your investment includes:
✔ Initial 60–90 minute planning session
✔ Two, 30-minute milestone check-in sessions
✔ Final 60–90 minute roadmap review
✔ One dedicated 90-minute Family & Key Contact Session
✔ Annual reminder to review and update your roadmap
✔ The Dahlias Planner™
✔ Personalized planning resources and worksheets
✔ Practical checklists and guidance
✔ Email support for brief clarification questions between scheduled sessions
✔ Customized transition-planning documentation based on your business and planning priorities, including a Business Continuity Roadmap™ where appropriate
Why This Investment Matters
The value of this work isn’t simply the document you finish with.
It’s the decisions you make while you still have the time and authority to make them.
You’re deciding:
Who should be involved
What should continue
What can stop
What happens if you can’t return
What you want succession or exit to look like
What your family should know
What your advisors need to understand
And what should never be left for someone else to guess
The opportunity is to create clarity before circumstances force the issue.
Why This Service is Different
You’re not completing a generic template.
You’re making business-specific decisions with guidance from someone who understands owner dependence, continuity, contingency, incapacity, succession and exit preparedness.
You’ll do much of the work independently, but you won’t have to decide what matters entirely on your own.
You keep the flexibility. I provide the structure and strategic checkpoints.
Which Planning Service is Right for You?
You want regular guided working sessions, ongoing accountability and more hands-on support from beginning to end.
We recommend...
Your Business. Protected.
You want to work independently, control your pace and use strategic milestone sessions to stay on track.
Your Business. Your Plan.
Same planning depth. Different level of support.
Is This Right For Me?
This service is a great fit if:
✔ You're ready to move beyond getting organized and start making important decisions about the future of your business.
✔ You like working independently but appreciate expert guidance at key milestones.
✔ You want flexibility without feeling like you're doing everything on your own.
✔ You're ready to make transition decisions and create practical planning documentation specific to your business.
✔ You're looking for practical guidance — not just another binder or template.
✔ You want to leave your spouse, family, business partner, or trusted contacts with clarity instead of uncertainty.
This service may not be the best fit if you:
✖ You're just beginning to think about business preparedness and need help getting organized first.
(Business Preparedness Foundations™ or the Business Preparedness Starter Package™ may be a better place to begin.)
✖ Learn best through weekly accountability and discussion.
✖ Would prefer someone to work alongside you every month to build your roadmap together.
(Your Business. Protected. may be a better fit.)
✖ You're not ready to spend time making decisions about the future of your business.
✖ You are already in an active crisis and need immediate operational support
→ Business Executor Support may be the better starting point.
Frequently Asked Questions
This information is educational and general in nature.
-
The Starter Package helps you organize the preparedness foundation.
Your Business. Your Plan.™ is where you begin making the transition decisions that foundation supports.
Depending on your circumstances, that may involve continuity, contingency, incapacity, succession or exit preparedness.
-
If you'd prefer more hands-on guidance throughout the process, Your Business. Protected. may be a better fit.
-
That's expected.
Your plan is designed to evolve as your business grows, your family changes, or your professional advisors change.
That's also why you'll receive an annual reminder to review and update it.
-
No.
While many business owners begin there, it's not required.
If you've already organized much of your business information or you're ready to move directly into planning, we can start here.
-
No. This service provides business transition preparedness and operational planning guidance.
Where decisions require legal, tax, financial, insurance or regulatory advice, we identify those questions and involve the appropriate professionals.
-
The time required will depend on your business and how organized you already are. You should expect to spend time gathering information, completing planning activities, speaking with trusted contacts, and making decisions between our strategic milestone check-ins. Because the service is self-guided, you control the pace.
-
I provide the structure, tools, questions, feedback and strategic guidance.
You provide the knowledge about your business and make the final decisions.
Together, we turn those decisions into practical planning documentation.
-
The listed investment covers one business owner and one business. If you own multiple businesses, we will review the added scope and create a customized proposal.
-
All included sessions must be used within 6 months of the initial planning session.
The average business owner completes their roadmap and meetings within a 3–6-month timeline.
You’ve Organized the Business. Now Make the Decisions.
If you already understand your business and have much of the critical information organized, the next step is deciding what should happen when your role changes.
Work independently.
Move at your own pace.
Use strategic milestone sessions when you need guidance.
And create a plan that reflects your business, your life and the transitions you’re actually preparing for.
Your Business. Your Plan.™
$1,497 CAD + HST