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.

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.