What’s the appropriate way to thank a neighbor you just met who spends two long days helping you build a fence and who won’t accept any payment?  That was my quandary.

Bob and Mary Lane have a beautiful picket fence around their modest and well-manicured yard here in Harmony.  My wife saw it and decided it was the perfect fence to keep the grandchildren in our yard, and the deer, wild turkeys, and sand hill cranes out. 

I stopped by Bob’s house one evening to introduce myself and ask about his fence.  He said he built it himself and said if I decided to build one, he would be happy to help, as long as I didn’t ask him to dig the post holes.  He seemed truly genuine and I knew I didn’t have the handyman skills to build a fence myself, so I told him I’d take him up on his offer.

I ordered the materials and called Bob when they arrived.  On the Saturday before Martin Luther King Day, he and my son Paul and I built the fence for several hours.  At his insistence, he returned the following Monday and worked nearly the whole day with us.  His experience and keen eye for detail were invaluable.  I absolutely could not have done it without him.  And if I say so myself, the fence looks great—mostly thanks to Bob.

And what counted for more than building a fence was building a new friendship.  As you might imagine, we told a lot of stories out on the fence line.  There’s something about sharing hard work and stories that turns strangers into friends.But Bob’s generosity was troubling. 

How could I thank and repay someone I only recently met who cheerfully gave not just one but two whole days to help a neighbor in need?  Having them over for dinner was a given, but that wasn’t enough.  Offering money would be insulting, but I had to do something.  Fortunately the answer came to me Monday as we worked. 

In the course of our conversations, Bob told me that they have seven children, including three married daughters who live within a block of their house.  One of those daughters, their middle child Amanda, 33 years old and the mother of a five-year-old daughter, was dying of breast cancer.   She had fought it a couple of years earlier, successfully they thought, but it had returned with a vengeance.  This time it was taking over her whole body.  Fence building, Bob said, was good therapy to get his mind off her plight.

I responded by telling Bob about my 32-year-old mother and her fight against throat cancer.  I told Bob about my mother’s letter, and how it inspired me to develop tools like “Priceless Conversations” to help people like Amanda share love messages with their children, their spouse, and others.  I told Bob about my book, Like a Library Burning.  I told Bob I wanted to repay him in part by helping his daughter share and save her legacy.  From the tears in his eyes, I could tell Bob was touched and grateful for my offer.

Bob left that afternoon with a copy of my book for himself and a copy for Amanda.  The next day I took them three Priceless Conversation tool kits—“My Child” for her daughter Addison, age 5; “Love” for her husband Shawn; and “Legacy” for the rest of her family.  Amanda thanked me and said she would read the questions and call me when she felt well enough to talk.  She also asked some legal and financial questions that I was able to answer for her. 

Sadly, she never called.  Bob phoned last week when I was in Scottsdale and said Amanda and Shawn wanted to see me Tuesday to address some of their legal and financial issues.  He said Amanda had been in constant pain and on medication, and didn’t feel she could complete a Priceless Conversation.

I met with them Tuesday afternoon and discovered a couple of really critical insurance issues that needed immediate attention.  Amanda told me she really wanted to do the Priceless Conversations, especially the one for her daughter, and as soon as she felt a little better, she would do it.  She was afraid her little girl might not remember her very well if she didn’t.

On Wednesday, Bob and I took care of those pressing insurance issues, but Amanda still didn’t feel that she could talk.

At three o’clock Thursday morning, Amanda passed away at home in her sleep. 

*   *   *

Amanda’s death hit me hard.  It hurts that we failed to capture her words and her voice and her stories.  I feel like a frustrated fireman—I rescued the money, but the library burned down while I looked on.  This wasn’t supposed to happen on my watch. 

The family is planning a memorial service on the 28^th of February, which would have been Amanda’s 34^th birthday.  Before then I’ll give Bob and Mary the “Tribute” Priceless Conversation and offer to facilitate it for them when their family is together again.  That will afford them an occasion to remember Amanda and tell their favorite stories about her and save those stories for her daughter.  It’s the least we can do for little Addison; I hope it will be enough.

Let me say right up front that this is not a political commentary. This is a commentary about how to communicate more effectively, more persuasively, through a certain style of story, what I call the “New Me Story” or the “Transformation Story.”

Like 40 million other people, I watched John McCain’s speech at the Republican convention, and although I support him politically, I was not impressed with his presentation. Not impressed, that is, except for one part near the end, when he told the story of how the direction and focus of his life was changed.

If you missed it, Senator McCain described how his experience as a POW, and in particular the brutality he endured after he refused his captors’ offer of an early release, changed him from a hot-headed, self-centered, Top-Gun punk into a person whose mission in life is to put service to his country about all else. This, he said, was the defining event of his life and this is what drives him to want to serve his country as its president.

Of course the facts of his capture and torture are well-known, so he wasn’t saying anything new, in one sense. But in another sense, this was an entirely new narrative which he had never shared before in public. For me, this brief segment of his speech made all the difference in the impact of his message. For me, it gave a compelling explanation for why he wants the job, and how he’ll treat the job differently than previous presidents or current candidates. Shots of people in the convention audience wiping away or fighting back tears confirmed that I was not the only one affected by his account.

So how was it that this story worked and worked so powerfully?

The answer: it was not the events of the story but the way it was told. It was a classic “New Me Story” or “Transformation Story,” one of the skills and tools I have long taught in SunBridge, in Mastering the High-End Close, and in Professional Story Selling. And whether you agree or disagree with John McCain’s politics, you really should re-listen to that little piece of his speech after you read this. See if you can identify the structure he used in telling the story, which caused an old, well-known story to have such impact.

The “New Me Story” is very simple and has four parts:

1. The Old Me: This is who I used to be.
2. The Transforming Event: This is what happened to me that sparked a change.
3. My Reaction and Response: This is how I first reacted; then this is how it caused a deeper change.
4. The New Me: This is who I have now become, and this is how I am now more able to help you.

John McCain followed this format to a “T” and the result was a transforming experience for his audience. It’s a skill set great communicators have learned to master.

If you want to put punch and sparkle into your workshops and speeches, or if you want to transform the way prospects and clients see you when you sit down in an engagement meeting with them and they make the decision to hire you or not, you need to create, practice, and tell your own “New Me Story.” You may or may not have a transforming event as dramatic as John McCain’s, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve experienced real life, and real life has changed you, and as a result you’re better equipped to help them deal with their real-life issues. The result is the same: you’re more authentic, you’re more trustworthy, you’re more valuable to them. You’re much more likely to get hired, at a higher fee.

More about the power of story is available in my new book “Like a Library Burning: Sharing and Saving a Lifetime of Stories,” which I wrote with Peggy Hoyt. (Visit www.LikeaLibraryBurning.com.) Peggy and I will be teaching a break-out session at the National Network Collegium in San Diego on September 26, 2008, on how to use the power of story to build your business. You’re invited to come and learn more.

If I can be of further assistance, please give me a call at 407-593-2386.
Scott

A smart business recognizes that every client relationship can—and should—go through five distinct phases. One of the keys to success in business is being mindful of these phases and creating an appropriate process for each phase of those relationships. This is particularly true for each of us as we work to weave Legacy Building into our business. We must recognize each one of these phases and consciously determine whether and how we will utilize Legacy Building in each phase of our relationship with each client.

With each client relationship, there exists the potential of five distinct phases. Here are The Five Phases of Client Relationships^TM:

1. Client Attraction
2. Client Engagement
3. Client Service
4. Client Retention
5. Multigenerational Client Engagement

To maximize value, a business must develop and refine a unique process for each separate phase. Sadly, not every business fully develops each phase of each relationship, and as a result, significant revenue and other value are lost for the business. In addition, when the business is not sufficiently mindful of each distinct phase, the workers in the business are likely to be unclear about how to develop each client relationship to its greatest potential.

The purpose of this brief article is not to fully explore all the possibilities of applying this concept to our respective businesses. That would probably require a rather large book. Instead, it is to call to your attention that these five phases do exist, and that Legacy Building can play a role in each one. At this stage of your development, given the limits of your time and resources, it may not be feasible to create unique Legacy Builder components in your processes in each phase. You need to identify where the low-hanging fruit can be found in your client work, and, for the present, devote your time and resources to that phase. Over time, Legacy Building will become a consistent and significant element in each phase of your business for those clients who find it valuable. But unless you pick your spots in the early going, you will spread your resources too thin, and you will become frustrated at your lack of progress.

Let me be more specific by using an example of an estate planning attorney who is a passionate, dedicated member of the Legacy Builder Network. Based on the training she received at the Legacy Builder Retreat and the further development of her skills and tools, there are many, many ways she might weave Legacy Building into her practice.

First, she might use Legacy Building in her marketing, that is, in the Client Attraction Phase of her business. This could be through presentations to groups, clubs, and even in her own workshops. This could be through creating great referral relationships by helping her referral sources with their personal legacy building (such as doing Priceless Conversation interviews with the CPAs and financial advisors who send her business.) This could also be through writing articles for local papers and other publications about Legacy Building. This could be through using the Meaning of Success interview to come in contact with successful people in her community. The possibilities are virtually endless.

Second, she could use Legacy Building to transform prospects into clients, that is, in the Client Engagement Phase of her business. For example, she might conduct the Meaning of Money conversation with prospects to help deepen the relationship between them and motivate them to hire her as their estate planner. She might ask select prospects to watch the Lighthouse DVD in her conference room before they meet with her, to help them understand that she has a different perspective of what quality planning looks like. She might use the Legacy Circle in her initial engagement meeting to discover what each client is most interested in. She might use stories in that meeting to demonstrate what an impact Legacy Building planning can have on children and grandchildren. Again, there is any number of possibilities.

Third, she could use Legacy Building as part of her core business, that is, in the Client Service Phase of her business. She could ask clients to bring a brown paper bag, or pictures and heirlooms, to her design session. She could use a “Priceless Objects, Important Stories” worksheet in place of a standard “Personal Property Memorandum.” She could include an “Our Kids” interview as part of her standard package for each couple with children under 18, or an “Our Values” interview as part of her process for all grandparents. Her “Big Red Book” binder of estate planning documents could include special tabs and sections about Legacy Building issues. Once more, there are tons of options.

Fourth, she could use Legacy Building to add spice and zest to her ongoing client membership or maintenance program, that is, the Client Retention Phase of her business. Her clients would probably enjoy watching the Lighthouse DVD at the annual client meeting, or sharing the “My House” activity there. Her clients would greatly appreciate being able to complete a new Priceless Conversation each year, to be added to their ever-growing “Legacy Library.” Her clients would cherish “The Treasure Chest Game” (a.k.a. Tapping into Your Wisdom) as a special gift for an important birthday or anniversary. Certain of her clients would find huge value in using the “Book of Life” to review their life and prepare an oral or written story of their life. She would likely find dozens of other ways to enliven her services to her existing clients.

Fifth, she could use Legacy Building to draw business from family members of her clients, that is, in the Multigenerational Client Engagement Phase of her business. Her clients probably couldn’t stop talking to their parents, brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren about her amazing ability to incorporate the most important human elements into her planning, not just the money. Her clients’ relatives would hear her voice and see her address on all the Priceless Conversations interviews she had conducted with them. Her clients would include her in family meetings to explain the planning she had done for them. Some of her clients would even insist that she do planning for their children and grandchildren, so that the younger generations’ planning would be integrated with the older generation’s plans. In a myriad of ways, her business would grow (both for herself and her successor) from her Legacy Building work with her clients.

Yet, while she can see that Legacy Building can dramatically transform virtually every aspect of her work with clients, she is smart enough to know that, given her available time and resources, she cannot tweak that many moving parts all at once. She has to decide where she will achieve the greatest results right away and start there. Once she has that part up and running, she can shift her focus to other phases and other applications. She knows that, like the launch of the Space Shuttle, getting off the launch pad is the hardest and most energy-consuming part of any journey and that future progress will be much easier because of her momentum. Ultimately, she wants to change all her client relationships to include Legacy Building in every phase. But for now, she knows to focus on first things first.

If you’ve read Chapter 7 of Like a Library Burning by Scott Farnsworth and Peggy Hoyt, you understand that presently the best financial planning, estate planning, funeral planning, and philanthropic planning out there is “story-based planning.” At its core, The SunBridge Legacy Builder Network is all about story-based planning, because the essence of Legacy Building is sharing and saving stories. If you thoughtfully evaluate each component of the SunBridge Legacy Builder mind-set, skill-set, tool-set, and support-set, you will find they’re each about how to effectively, efficiently, and elegantly share and save stories. For all the dozens of reasons set forth in Like a Library Burning, sharing and saving stories is one of the most important things we can do for our clients, our clients’ loved ones, and ourselves.

As I wrote in the May 2008 blog (A New Breed of Planner), I believe the best advisors are those who are able to engage their clients on the story level and then use the insights and understandings gleaned in that exchange to build technically brilliant plans that reflect the values, personalities, fears, dreams, wisdom, and life-learning of their clients and their families. To do anything less is to grossly short-change and over-charge them, and to rob ourselves of the core reason we got into this business in the first place: to make a difference in the lives of those we serve.

Once you get that concept, you immediately recognize that Legacy Building or “story-based planning” should not be merely an add-on to your planning process. It’s not a quaint set of activities you stick into a workshop or a cute set of steps you append to the “real work” of estate planning or financial services. To the contrary, it is the heart and soul of good human-centered planning. It is not only what we do, but also who we are as we work with our clients.

To do that, we must move beyond story-based planning. The next step on this journey is what I call “story-based planning in a Thinking Environment®.” To become the most effective Legacy Builder advisor—and hence the best financial advisor or estate planner on the planet—you must not only master the art and science of story, you must also master Time to Think.

Thinking Environment principles, properly implemented, add incredible energy and impact to your story skills. With Time to Think under your belt, you can know which stories to tell and when, you can help your clients share their stories more effectively, and you can better understand their stories as they share them with you.

What I have learned from listening to Nancy Kline (creator of the Time-To-Think process) and then applying her message to my work with clients is that the most powerful planning occurs in a four-way confluence of expertise: 1) the planner’s technical training and experience; 2) the planner’s mastery of the art and science of story; 3) the clients’ unparalleled expertise about their world and their life; and 4) the planner’s skill at creating a Thinking Environment within which the other skills are at their best. When these four streams of expertise come together, magic happens and brilliance explodes in the room. The outcomes are unimaginable. There’s simply nothing like it in the world.

When a technically competent professional advisor who has mastered the art and science of story is also able to be a Thinking Environment in the presence of clients, the very best thinking, the very best stories, and the very best discernment about the meaning within those stories are available to push the planning to its human and technical zenith. Both the analytical and intuitive sides are fully honored, completely addressed, and elegantly woven into the finest possible result. When you’re working at that level, if feels as if each person involved is a genius and every product is a masterpiece. Which indeed they are!

Some day in the not-too-distant future, clients will insist on working only with planners who have the capability to bring these four skill-sets to the table. I plan on being there, and I invite you to join me.

From my vantage point, I believe we are witnessing the budding of a fresh, new model of planning and the appearance of a brand-new breed of advisor who is capable of working with clients in a revolutionary new way. And yet, while I call it “fresh” and “brand-new” and “revolutionary,” it is really as old as human communication. It is financial planning and estate planning based on our native language of story. I have not only envisioned the possibilities but have also experienced them, and I’m happy to report they are very tantalizing, both for clients and advisors.

I believe there are exceptional advantages for families and individual clients who work with financial advisors and estate planners who personally understand the power and importance of sharing and saving stories, and who have the skills and tools to elegantly and seamlessly weave a story-based approach to client services into their handling of the more traditional elements of planning such as investments, insurance, taxes, legal documents, public benefits, charitable giving, and the like.

Traditional financial services and estate planning, with their emphasis on numbers, formulas, tax codes, legal minutiae, and other “hard” issues, are not usually thought of as being naturally compatible with the “soft” issues of stories. Some in these fields tend to pooh-pooh the notion that story has much, if any, relevance to what they do. Story to them is just “warm and fuzzy,” “touchy-feely” kind of stuff.

But I don’t think there is a conflict between good technical skill and good story skills. I think both are essential to good results.

We believe those planners who look down their noses at story skills run the risk of creating glorious, gleaming plans that are technically correct but inside are empty shells because they fail to connect with the human dimension of planning. As a result of not checking carefully with the people involved, their ladders of “successful” plans end up leaning against the wrong walls, to borrow Covey’s metaphor. Like the Alaskan congressman’s ultimate earmark boondoggle, they design and build the financial or estate planning equivalents of “the bridge to nowhere.”

Good technical expertise and good story skills are both required to do the job right and to do the right job. I had an experience several years ago that illustrates this point. The names and some of the non-material details have been changed to protect the client’s identity.

Mr. Jacobs came to see our firm when he was 88 years old. With an estate worth approximately $9 million, he was looking down the barrel of an estate tax of about $5 million, largely because of some botched planning that had previously been done for him.

After reviewing the situation, I asked Mr. Jacobs if he were open to the idea of charitable giving. He was. “I’ve been a lifelong member of Rotary, and I’d be happy to donate $2,000. My deceased wife was an active member of a sewing club. I could give them $3,000 in her memory.”

I decided to save the discussion of charitable giving for another time. Instead, I started getting to know Mr. Jacobs. He was a good man with a remarkable story. It seems he had grown up and spent his long life on two pieces of ground. Born in upstate New York, he had lived on a farm there until his family moved when he was 10. They bought a small farm near the town of Ocoee, where he had lived ever since.

He’d certainly had his share of misfortune. As a boy in New York, he had lost an eye in a farming accident. He also had had polio, so one of his legs was withered, and he walked with a pronounced limp. He had been married for many years, but his wife had passed away about five years before I met him. He had one child, a daughter in her mid-50s who had not fulfilled any particular ambitions, and still waited tables at a local all-you-can-eat restaurant. She had two children, a son and a daughter, both in their early 20s at the time. Both were heavily involved with illicit drug use. The son had been arrested for dealing drugs for his father, Mr. Jacobs’ ex-son-in-law, who was serving time in a federal prison. Mr. Jacobs’ granddaughter also was pregnant; Mr. Jacobs did not know who the father might be.

In view of all this, and understandably, while Mr. Jacobs wanted to make sure that his child’s and his grandchildren’s needs were met, he certainly had no intention of leaving them $9 million. Mr. Jacobs had worked hard all his life. When he was a teenager, he and his father had built a service station on their property, which Mr. Jacobs had operated since he was 18. He told me interesting stories about sleeping in the station all night, so in case a car drove by he would be there to sell them a quarter’s worth of gas. At one point, he owned his own tanker truck, and worked in the station all day, and drove a tanker to Tampa, which in those days, took four or five hours, filled up, drove back, and worked all day taking care of customers.

Ocoee, where Mr. Jacobs lived, might fairly be described as a stepchild of Orange County—a town with a hard luck story much like Mr. Jacobs’. In the early 1920s, there had been a race riot there on Election Day. Several people were killed—an incident that had stigmatized the town and still cast a shadow over it even these many years later. Early in the Great Depression, the town lost its bank, leaving it no source of lending for businesses looking to put down roots and grow there. Mr. Jacobs told me that he knew a number of merchants who went to the bank of a nearby town seeking a loan, and were refused because the bank did not want to support businesses that would compete with those in its own town.

Mr. Jacobs chose to use this setback as an opportunity. In the 60s, he and a few Rotary Club buddies opened a bank in Ocoee. He donated the property on which the bank was built. One merger followed another until eventually Mr. Jacobs’ investments of land for the bank had returned the current value of his estate—$9 million.

Mr. Jacobs and I spent a good bit of time together. I helped him capture and articulate some of these stories. I wanted to make sure that, in addition to protecting the financial resources he had, we also preserved the rest of his wealth—who he was, what he had learned, and the values that have guided him to his hard-won wisdom, and ensure that these somehow would be passed along intact to those who would follow him, even though, at the time, they did not seem particularly interested in what he had to say.

As we talked one afternoon, I was struck by an insight into what might be important for Mr. Jacobs. He was describing his friendships and associations with citizens of Ocoee, his adopted hometown, and it suddenly seemed clear to me that this was the key. “Mr. Jacobs,” I asked, “what would you think if we could take the money in your estate that otherwise would go to the IRS, and instead direct it into an account that you and those you trust could dispense for projects in Ocoee?”

He looked at me and asked, “What do you mean?”

“We could take the money that otherwise would have to be paid in taxes, and see to it that it was spent to improve the town and the lives of the people there.” 

He was intrigued. “Give me an example,” he said, leaning forward. 

“Well,” I said, “suppose that the elementary school needed new playground equipment. We could take some of the money that we had set aside in a special fund—one that you and those you trust could control—and buy the equipment. If the girls needed a new softball field to play on, you could finance its construction. If you just wanted to make the Christmas parade extra special one-year, you could direct funds to do just that.”

Mr. Jacobs’s eyes grew wide; I could see he was imagining the possibilities. “We could do that?” he asked.

“Indeed, we could. And it wouldn’t take away anything from your family, because the money we’d be using to set up the fund would otherwise just have gone to the government.”

Mr. Jacobs sat back in his chair with a deeply satisfied grin. “This is exciting,” he said, and a new mood of enthusiasm came over him. He was already planning what he would do with the money.

Rather than giving $2,000 to the Rotary Club or $3.000 to his wife’s sewing circle, Mr. Jacobs ended up contributing $5 million. The money was used, as we had discussed, to create a fund to benefit the city of Ocoee—a fund that would be controlled by him and those he trusted, and be used expressly to support worthwhile community projects for that town, in keeping with the things that Mr. Jacobs felt were most important. With his wife gone, and appropriate arrangements made to care for his child and grandchildren, his remaining great love was the town of Ocoee. The difference that this advising made for him and for the citizens of Ocoee may well extend beyond the foreseeable future, benefiting countless generations to come.

I believe the best advisors are those who are able to engage their clients on the story level and then use the insights and understandings gleaned in that exchange to build technically brilliant plans that reflect the values, personalities, fears, dreams, wisdom, and life-learning of their clients and their families.