For owners and sole operators · focused guide
If you were out for a week, could the business keep running?
Not the work. The logins. The domain the whole business sits on, the three email records that decide whether your invoices arrive, the access a contractor still has, and the accounts only one person can reach. This guide puts all of it in one place, in an order that keeps you working while you do it. By the end there is a written plan somebody else could follow.
This guide is one of the titles in The Digital Life Management Library. The Library is $299 and includes everything we publish.
- Your business identity — the domain, the three email records, and your listing on the public register
- Who can reach it — shared logins replaced with the thing built for it, and access that ends when a contractor does
- The money — separate accounts, the fraud aimed specifically at you, and what the first hour decides
- The records — how long to keep what, in a filing system that holds up
- If you were not here — the document that keeps the business running for whoever has to step in
- An ebook — PDF, instant download, no login
It downloads the moment you pay. There is no account to make and nothing to log back into, and you have seven days to change your mind.
What it is for
The week you find out who holds the keys.
It is for the Tuesday a card is declined and you learn the domain renewal notice has been going to an address nobody reads.
It is for the week a contractor moves on and you need their access gone, rather than their name off the invoice.
It is for the morning somebody else has to open the business without you, and everything they need is written down in one place.
What is in it
Six parts, in the order that does not undo your own work.
A business collects accounts faster than a household does, and it collects them under pressure. The order here matters: identity before access, access before money, and the document for whoever steps in written last, once there is something true to write down.
Your business identity
The domain is the business. What happens when one expires, how to confirm it is genuinely yours rather than your web person’s, why a business running on a personal address stays fragile, and the three email records in plain language. Plus your listing on the public register your Secretary of State holds, and the free alert in thirteen states that tells you the moment somebody changes it.
Who can reach it
Why a personal password manager cannot run a business, how to stop sharing logins and use the thing built for it instead, two-factor that belongs to the business rather than to a phone in somebody’s pocket, and contractor access that ends when the contract does.
The money
Separate accounts and the documents you will be asked for before you need them. The fraud aimed at businesses your size, how account takeover works now, and why the first hour decides the outcome. Including the twenty-four hour fraud line to find today and write down, so nobody is looking for it at eleven at night.
The records
How long to keep what, and a digital filing system that still makes sense in three years. Three different clocks run on the same pay run, and only one of them is obvious.
If you were not here
What breaks when one person holds everything, the gap that applies specifically to a business rather than a household, the document itself, and how to close properly if it comes to that.
The plan
Four sittings of about two hours. Identity, then access, then money, then everything that outlives you. Followed by twenty minutes once a year, which is the part that keeps it true.
One number we will not use
Sixty percent of small businesses close within six months of a cyber attack. That figure has no study behind it.
You have seen it in an article, a webinar or an insurance pitch. We went looking for the research. The organization it is most often credited to, the National Cyber Security Alliance, published a statement saying the figure did not come from their work, that they could not verify its original source, and that they do not recommend anyone keep using it. They took it out of their own materials.
The most-linked modern source traces back to a blog post on a real estate website. The claim was already circulating in a Congressional subcommittee hearing in 2013, credited only to a recent report nobody has ever produced.
What the evidence does say is less dramatic and more useful. In the year to August 2025, 56 percent of United States small businesses said they had been attacked at least once, and a quarter of those said it threatened the solvency of the business. That is what owners reported about the pressure they felt. The guide uses that, and says where it came from.
Honestly
Who this is for, and who it is not.
This is for you if
- You run the business and you are also the IT department, whether or not anyone calls it that.
- You are a sole operator, a partnership, or a team small enough that one person holds most of the logins.
- Your business email and your personal email have never been properly separated.
- You have a web person, a bookkeeper or a contractor with access you could not list from memory.
- You want the thing written down before you need it, rather than during the week you need it.
This is not for you if
- You have an IT team, a security policy and an offboarding process already. This is written for the businesses that do not.
- What you want is your personal digital life in order first. The Digital Life Management System is $179, and the business half rests on the personal half.
- You want to give this to a whole team. The Digital Life Management System for Your Team starts at $99 a person.
If you want more than this
The personal half, and everything else.
This guide assumes your own accounts are in reasonable order. If they are not, start there, because the business half rests on it.
The Digital Life Management System $179
Three months, two hours a week. Organize, protect, prepare, with the Workbook and the Emergency Information Record.
The Digital Life Management Library $299
Every guidebook, workbook, checklist and template we publish, including this one, and everything we add later.
Protecting Yourself from AI Fraud and Scams $19
One verification habit that holds up against a cloned voice, and takes ten seconds.
Before you buy
The questions people ask.
Do I need to be technical to use this?
No. Everything is written in plain language, and where a term matters we say what it means and whether it affects you. The three email records are the most technical part of the book, and they are explained as three things you paste in, with what each one does.
I am a sole operator with no employees. Is this still for me?
Yes, and you may need it more. When one person holds everything, there is nobody to cover the week you cannot work. Four of the six parts are about exactly that situation.
Is this a cybersecurity compliance guide?
No. It will not satisfy an auditor or map to a framework. It is the practical work a small business can do in four sittings, which is a different job.
Is any of this legal, tax or financial advice?
No. It is education about organizing information and about who can reach what. Where something matters, take it to a professional who is licensed to advise you.
Will this go out of date?
The menus move and the product names change. The structure does not, which is why the book teaches you what to look for rather than which button to press. Where a service is named, it is because the service matters rather than the screenshot.
Can I buy this for my whole team?
This one is written for the owner. For a team, The Digital Life Management System for Your Team starts at $99 a person and covers their personal digital lives, which is where most of the risk to your business walks in from.
Do I need an account to open it?
No. It downloads the moment you pay and it is yours on your own computer. There is no account to make and no site to log back into.
Can I get a refund?
Yes. Read it, try it, and if it is not what you wanted, write to us within seven days and we will refund you.
The business half, written down before you need it.
Identity, access, money, records, and the document for whoever steps in. Four sittings, and the business stops living in one person’s head. One payment of $39.
Instant download · No login · Seven-day guarantee
