Call To Action Soundtrack

This is one of the three minute "call to action" spots that will run on our infomercial in a few weeks. It may change a bit and the images I have added (Life Story covers) are just for this posting. The actual infomercial will feature very different images.

I hope you enjoy!

Welcome to Priceless Legacy Video

We will send this video to clients and subjects who order Life Stories from Priceless Legacy. This version is a raw advance copy. We'll add graphics and do a bit more editing before it goes out.

Your Priceless Legacy Book Published

We have published a small paperback book called "Your Priceless Legacy: A Story That Must be Told." You may order it from us by email for $10 plus $5 shipping.

It is a why, what and how book that explains the need for life story preservation, how to get started and the method we use at PLC.

Please check out the online copy.

Priceless Legacy Promotional Video

This is a new promotional video for Priceless Legacy. It provides a broad overview of our mission with a leaning towards LC recruiting.

Life Story Preservation is Serious Business :)

Life Story preservation is serious business at Priceless Legacy. . . .but it is also a lot of fun. COO, Bruce Cramer, is trying some new hair looks. Let us know whether you think this is a positive change or if he should go back to his previous image.

Obituary Televsion Channel in Quebec

Interesting news from Canada. A Quebec entrepreneur is starting a cable news channel dedicated to broadcasting obituaries. It is nice to see so many novel approaches to memorializing. Of course, I believe that it is far better to capture and celebrate the stories of the living that to wait for their passing.

Ethical Wills in the Denver Post

The Denver Post ran a very comprehensive article about Ethical Wills on Feb 22. I prefer the term Legacy Letter or LifeLesson Book. As Priceless Legacy continues to grow, I look forward to developing a product line around these important publications. Not just the elderly should think about preparing a LifeLesson Book. I have prototyped one already, but the company will not introduce products like that for at least a year. We need to remain focused on our LifeStory business. It is where the need clearly is today.

In fact, I calculated today that with 2.3 million Americans dying each year, we are going to need 700,000 Legacy Consultants to capture all those stories if each one does 3 per year! . . . and we assume that 200,000 preserve their stories themselves. I doubt we'll ever get that large but we won't run out of work either!

You Already Know Everyone You Need to Know

A new book by Bob Beaudine is out and it is called the Power of Who.

The premise, as the reviews I have read state it, is that we all know a lot of people in our daily lives. These people are prepared and willing to assist us in attaining our goals if we only ask them to do so. This observation Beaudine makes in distinction from "networking" where strangers meet each other often without a clue as to what each is seeking.

For our Legacy Consultants this is a powerful insight. The near universal appeal of the LifeStory preservation mission and the gorgeous LifeStory products we produce is such that each of us has a nearly universal well of human resources to tap - yet how many of us do? Fear of being "pushy" or "salesy" will sometimes cause us to down play our passion. The result is a story not capture and a memory not saved. Real people pay the price for our inactivity.

If each of us knows 200 or more people - think of the power of spreading the word at almost every encounter?

Selling LifeStories in a Recessionary Economy

Denis Ledoux runs workshops for aspiring memoir writers and would be personal historians. He calls his business the Soleil Life Story Network.

His newsletter yesterday had some interesting observations about selling life story products and services in a recessionary environment:

"Hard financial time..."

"Everyone's feeling the pinch..."

"Nobody's buying..."

These are generalizations that you and I are constantly being bombarded with. They are not universally true. While it is true some people are having hard times, some people are feeling the pinch, and some people are not buying, it is not true that this is universally so for your entire contact list. For example...

My friend Don said to me, "My stocks have lost half their value but that's my kids' inheritance. They'll rebound eventually. Meanwhile my retirement income and my wife's are allowing us to have a comfortable life."

My friend David offered, "My state pension is not about to go away, and I'm comfortable for the rest of my life no matter how old I live."
Let these statements remind you that your memoir business need not be on hold until the economy gets back on its feet. You can make your business grow right now--regardless of the doom and gloom you hear and read everywhere.

Below are a few ideas gleaned from the curriculum of my forthcoming Business Development Seminar Tele-Class beginning Thursday, February 19.

1. Review your list of clients and prospects (people who have not become clients but whom you assessed as genuinely interested) and evaluate their income levels.This may call for "best guesses" and that is fine. Use cues like a) "when we get back from our cruise" to add someone to the direct marketing list I am helping you devise and cues like b) "do you offer scholarship/reduced rate" to take them off this action list. (Later, you can offer scholarships to these individuals to fill in a lower than expected enrollment but don't invest prime energy in them at this stage.)
With the list you have just devised of interested and financially stable individuals, begin a direct marketing campaign. That is, you e-mail, call, or snail mail the individual to let him/her know of an upcoming program, a new product, or simply your schedule availability. This effort will produce new active clients. (Introverts will prefer e-mail and snail mail. These are fine first contacts in this campaign, but the best results come from the phone call!)
2) Once the old list is "milked," generate new contacts. In my estimation, the quickest, best source of new clients is the speaking engagement at libraries, clubs, conferences. Again these must target individuals whom you can reasonably expect to be interested in producing a memoir and who can afford your product.

For instance, a presentation on Five Things to Keep in Mind When Writing your Memoirs (the outline of which is part of the Soliel Lifestory Network Affiliate Package) at a library in a fairly wealthy community is likely to attract just the kind of person who will purchase your product. A number of attendees will realize that, while they might go it alone, they would do better to hire your services--as workshop leader, co-author, editor. Of course, you mention these services in your presentation and have promotional materials available to hand out.

To learn not only ideas about business development but to acquire the habit of thinking and acting like a successful business person and to do so in the context of other memoir professionals like yourself, I invite you to enroll in the upcoming business growth tele-class by clicking on the link below

Make 2009 the year you finally understand how to run a financially successful business.
15 Weeks to More Lucrative, More Enjoyable Business Practices

I think the PLC LifeStory is not just for the wealthy. In fact some of our biggest successes have come from people of moderate or "regular" means. I think Denis has a lot of good advice above, but I would encourage our LCs not to prejudge anyone based on their perceived economic status. People will find the money when they buy into the emotional significance of what we do.

Two More LifeStories Came in Today

Two more LifeStories came back from the printer today. They look great!

Most Lives Vanish

A friend referred me to a 2006 novel by Paul Auster called Brooklyn Follies. Towards the end of the book there are a few pages that capture with wonderful precision the need for our company. I will excerpt a few paragraphs over the next few days.

Most lives vanish. A person dies, and little by little all traces of that life disappear. An inventor survives in his inventions, an architect survives in his buildings, but most people leave behind no monuments or lasting achievements: a shelf of photograph albums, a fifth-grade report card, a bowling trophy, an ashtray filched from a Florida hotel room on the final morning of some dimly remembered vacation. A few objects, a few documents, and a smattering of impressions made on other people. Those people invariably tell stories about the dead person, but more often than not dates are scrambled, facts are left out, and the truth becomes increasingly distorted, and when those people die in their turn, most of the stories vanish with them.

Another Legacy Consultant's Experience

Another of our Legacy Consultants speaks of her experience and how it has impacted her personally.

Legacy Consultant Experience

In this unedited video, Priceless Legacy Consultant Danielle Heles talks about why she became a Legacy Consultant and what the experience means to her.

Danielle is a married mother of two and has two LifeStories to her credit since signing on as an LC in late October, 2008. She is typical of our successful Legacy Consultants. She loves people, stories and helping people preserve their legacies.

Legacy Consultant Interest

I have been amazed and, I suppose, flattered that so many people have expressed an interest in becoming a Legacy Consultant. Sure, in a down economy one would expect there to be interest any part-time opportunity for people to make good money performing fun and valuable work. But it is the passion and enthusiasm that potential LCs have shown for the Priceless Legacy mission that is so encouraging.

A lot of people ask me "how will I know if I am suited to be a Legacy Consultant?"

The answer is very easy. If you love people and have a special respect for the wisdom that can come from life experience, you have the most important attributes to become an LC.

It also helps to be reasonably well organized and basically computer literate (uploading files and accessing email . . .). 

It is really more about attitude, interest and motivation than it is formal credentials like degrees and resumes.

We have about fifteen LCs who have started so far . . . what a great and diverse bunch they are.