14: Scaling Up Life Story and Personal History Business with Tom Cormier of Legacy Stories

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Scaling up your life story writingLearn how to scale up your life story writing and personal history business with Tom Cormier

Tom Cormier knows the legacy business. A former nationally-syndicated radio host, Tom is cofounder of legacystories.org, a platform for sharing legacy stories, and its sister enterprise, legacystories.com, a B2B company that offers coaching and resources for professionals who want to teach their clients the value of recording and sharing life legacies. Tom shares tips he has learned on how to scale up life story and personal history business by using the “one to many” approach.

Tom didn’t start with a biding interest in legacy stories. Several years ago, his business partner and the partner’s wife perished in a plane crash, and it changed everything. Through this tragedy, Tom met Dennis Stack, a wealth manager who after losing his parents had created a legacy saving program for hospices. The joined forces, and the Living Legacy Project was born.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • how they trained hundreds of hospice care givers on how to collect stories, an how to break down the barriers of reluctant storytellers
  • how they scaled up their story-saving mission by bringing their legacy training to home care companies and independent living communities (some of the largest home care providers use their system today)
  • how they shifted their focus to estate planners and wealth managers

Why do wealth managers need personal historians and legacy professionals?

We talk about:

  • the legacy wave and the aging boomer population
  • the value people place on passing down their values and their stories, not just their tangible wealth

9 out of 10 wealth managers and financial advisors lose their accounts when the patriarch of the family dies. Why? Because they don’t have a connection to the client’s family beyond being the “numbers person.”

One one side, there’s the recognition of the importance of family history, values, and life stories.

On the other, there’s the need for wealth managers to differentiate themselves, foster bonds with their clients’ families, and bring a value-add to the relationship.

Those two tides converge to create an opportunity for personal historians and legacy professionals.

Legacy coaching teaches financial advisors a process of how to have that legacy talk with their clients. It changes and deepens the relationship.

Russ Allen Prince, an author and contributing writer for Forbes, did a study that showed some startling numbers. We all live our life based on a set of core values. Prince found that if a financial advisor knows their client’s top 8 core values, they’ll be entrusted with 100% of the family’s assets and be given, on average, about 4 referrals. The less familiar the advisor is with the core values, the fewer assets and referrals the client shares.

Tip: This opens the door for scaling up life story and personal history business in an organic way.

We also discuss:

Tom has graciously offered listeners of The Life Story Coach Podcast a discount on his coaching program and the Legacy Stories Handbook. Click here to check out the offer.

If you’re interested in becoming a Legacy Stories Consultant, visit legacystories.com for more information.

 

If you enjoyed the show, leave us a review on iTunes. And if you have any ideas to share or questions about this episode, share them in the comments.

Thanks!

Now go out and save someone’s story.