The reason you need a Legacy Management System (LMS) that I’ve been referring to is that relationships are the lifeblood of your life and your business. How you manage, massage, touch, and care for those relationships is critical. As you begin to create an ever increasing network of people who need your time and attention it will be critical that you create a “system” for strengthening and deepening those relationships. The Legacy Management System takes the complex and makes it simple by putting the relationships into 4 key tracks:

Track 1- Advocates- These are people who love you and advocate for you. This almost always begins by you advocating for them at the personal level or by them creating “emotional identification” with you, sometimes even unbeknownst to you. For years I emotionally identified with Covey’s work and promoted him to others while I only met him for one time in Boston. When you create a body of work (books, intellectual capital, etc.) that others identify with you create fans. This fan base widens as people learn more about what kind of class act you are and are compelled and curious to learn more about you. You need to begin your journey with at least 15-25 advocates.

Here’s what you do with these people:

1. Create a list of 25 advocates (a person who values you and is a fan of your work)
2. Touch these advocates 2x per month (minimal via e-mail or phone call)
3. See these people FACE to FACE 4x per year
4. Circulate “monthly” at a minimal of 2 events where your advocates circulate
5. Once you accumulate 25, add 10 each time
6. Use creative touches and a system to managing when you touch them (Constant Contact, Emma, etc.)
7. Send a gift to your advocates and think of them in special ways as THEY are the LIFEBLOOD of your business. These people are your biggest fans.
8. Have special parties for your advocates (Football, Fishing, anything) that puts people in your vicinity where you can interact with them.
9. Always have conversation with this group about their circles of influence who could use you and your services. Ask the question, “Do you know of others who you know who I need to meet with?”

If you will begin to “work” this system you will be well on your way to building a bigger network and a bigger future.

Always remember, there are only 3 types of customers (Reichald) and they are: Promoters (those who love you and refer you), Passives (those who are lukewarm about the experience with you telling no one about the experience with you), and Detractors (those who detract from your perceived value in the market) based on their experiences with you.

Strive hard to build Promoters, or what I like to refer to as Advocates. You do this by advocating for others and moving the needle up the ladder as WOWING people in today’s market is increasingly difficult and easier at the same time. The Paradox is that some people are WOWED by little things while others require lots of attention.

So the questions this week are simple:

1. What strategy do you have to acquire more customers? Are you executing that strategy daily? Is every person in the company tied to this strategy and understand that sales is “everybody’s business.”

2. What strategy do you have in place to take a current customer to a Promoter for Life? Is your customer service to the WOW level?

Remember, there is only two ways to get new business; we can earn it through referrals or buy it with advertising. If you don’t do a good enough job with your current customers then you don’t deserve any new ones.

1. The number one objective of this game is to get and keep customers. So, the question becomes; what is your strategy for getting and keeping customers?
2. By building a “network” of people who think of you first when they think of your industry you begin to become “top of mind” therefore increasing the likelihood that those people will tell others about you when the opportunity arises. You need as many people telling as many people about you as you can have. This only happens intentionally when you seek to get new customers through a system that manages the relationships in your life. Remember the saying, “For every person you know, they know 200 people you don’t know.”

3. Always remember, there are only 3 types of customers (Reichald) and they are: Promoters (those who love you and refer you), Passives (those who are lukewarm about the experience with you telling no one about the experience with you), and Detractors (those who detract from your perceived value in the market) based on their experiences with you. Strive hard to build Promoters, or what I like to refer to as Advocates, by advocating for others and moving the needle up the ladder as WOWING people in today’s market is increasingly difficult and easier at the same time. The Paradox is that some people are WOWED by little things while others require lots of attention.
4. Look at this as a game, a game to accumulate the most relationships you can by adding value to as many people as you can in ways that make you unique, or stand out. To do this you must have an idea of what the “best” look like and what your competitors do on a weekly basis. Who are the people who have transformed your industry through by-passing some of the old, antiquated ways of doing business with new systems, new strategies, and new ideas? Some refer to this as “creative destruction- the washing out of old ideas with new innovative ideas.” The person with the most relationships WINS as they will be referred the most as the law of the harvest always wins, and it tells us that themore value we add to the world, the greater the reward we receive.
5. Look at your Relationship Management System as organic, constantly growing, and something that you must tend to weekly and on an ongoing basis, not just every once in a while.
6. We could divide the RSM system into 4 very simple tracks:

1. Create a list of 25 advocates (a person who values you and is a fan of your work)
2. Touch these advocates 2x per month (minimal via e-mail or phone call)
3. See these people FACE to FACE 4x per year
4. Circulate “monthly” at a minimal of 2 events where your advocates circulate
5. Once you accumulate 25, add 10 each time
6. Use creative touches and a system to managing when you touch them (Constant Contact, Emma, etc.)
7. Send a gift to your advocates and think of them in special ways as THEY are the LIFEBLOOD of your business. These people are your biggest fans.
8. Have special parties for your advocates (Football, Fishing, anything) that puts people in your vicinity.
9. Always have conversation with this group about their circles of influence who could use you.

1. Win and build new business with NEW sales.
2. Add to your Relationship Management System
3. WOW early and often by doing the UNEXPECTED. Remember to deposit TRUST into their Emotional Bank Account early.
4. Touch 2x monthly via e-mail (Constant Contact)
5. Touch 4x per year FACE to FACE
6. Offer a gift 2x per year that is creative
7. Always engage this group in conversation about people who could use your services that they know. This will create leads and lead you to “The Connection Game”

1. Sit down and target 25 people you would like to know based on their success or influence.
2. Contact those people and say “I would like to learn from your success.”
3. Ask this question- “What breakthrough relationships do I need to cultivate to win” in life?
4. Each week work one to two of these relationships. Plan weeks in advance as Movers and Shakers are busy.
5. Add to your Relationship Management System.
6. Touch 1x per month.
7. See Face to Face 2x per year.
8. Send Thank you gift after initial visit.
9. Join a board, join the chamber, or join anything!!!! This is where more people get to know YOU.
10. Always remember, every town is built on “Influencers.” Get to know them and your business will expand.

1. Ask this question- How do you generate Leads? Possibly through the above strategies but what do you do with those leads when you get them? Most leads are LOST in never never land.
2. When you get a lead follow up promptly and quickly. Be prepared.
3. Understand that 80% of sales happen after 7-15 contacts with the potential suspect.
4. Understand that everyone goes through this cycle:

1. At each phase of the game you need a system. For example:
   • How do you identify suspects? Demographics and psychographics.
   • How do you go after suspects to make them prospects?
   • How do you build a relationship based on value and not short term growth in this phase? How do you articulate your value proposition in a compelling way?
   • How do you build advocates for life?
2. What is your touch system for a lead? We don’t know when the lead will lead to anything, we just know that we must work the system and play the percentages.
3. Add leads to your RMS.
4. Touch 1x per week.
5. Touch Face to Face if possible 3x per year.
6. WOW from the beginning with your systems.
7. Deposit into their Emotional Bank Account early and often.
8. Stay in touch as you never know when they will pull the trigger.

1. Showcase- Give me a reason to see YOU- Give away the FREE some to get the customized.
2. Database- How do you “TOUCH” with value?
3. Follow the Lead- Quick and professional
4. Current Customers- Promoters for Life Strategy
5. Targeted Networking- Go and see three people to build a relationship with- Let’s get coffee soon.
6. Target 25- Build as many advocates as you can.
7. Publicity- Be “Newsworthy” by being different and better
8. Direct Mail- Thank you letters, promotional pieces, campaigns
9. The Connection Game- Know the “influencers” as they influence business

• Limited thinking
• Constant Comparison to others
• Fear of Failure
• Inability to act on your thoughts
• Inability to marry your conscience with your actions leaving you in constant regret over your behavior
• Low energy people around you affecting your environment

The Second decision represents a “Naïve Climb” with a new burst of energy by the group. You experience quick success as a result of focused energy and a new initiative. This “Thunderbolt” jolts your people to move with a new purpose but one that will quickly be forgotten once old habits creep back in and the daily grind wears on people.

Here are key principles around the second decision of “Dreaming Up” in my book “This Ain’t No Practice Life:”

a. This decision begins by understanding all things are created twice; first mentally then physically. You begin to dream and envision the end product of where you are going like the custom home you’ve always wanted.

b. You enter into a “dream room” where you see with the mind’s eye what is capable and possible and you want to replicate the success of others and then others replicate your success.

c. You re-orient your value system that has consistently put you living in the past and now points toward your future.

d. You put valuable past experiences; both positive and negative in your suitcase and carry them with you to help build your dream one brick at a time.

e. You vow never to let your past hold your future hostage irrespective of that past.

f. You write your dreams down and share them with people you know and care about and understand “we only get one life, but if we work it just right one is all we will ever need.”

To learn more about dreaming, purchase the book “This Ain’t No Practice Life” at http://coachmichealburt.com/content/?page_id=30.

While re-creating in Florida and sitting at a table at Sharkeys overlooking the ocean I begin to write. Inspired by a question or challenge during the week and by Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Living my pen begin to squander on the pad of paper I always carry with me. I had just paid $20 for a bad appetizer and realized the $20 wasn’t for the food, but for the view. The experience of sitting by the ocean, capturing important thoughts that could move me and the organizations I serve, and honing out what I believe was worth more than the $20 I offered, I had found the perfect spot for that day’s activities. The view spoke volumes to competing on experience vs. commodity. You can serve bad appetizers when you have a million dollar view to compliment them.

It was at that point that I pondered this question or statement; “Coach Burt, you may have to delve into your arsenal of leadership tools to figure this one out. After all, you’re the one that says that you manage things, and lead people.” That statement had caught in my head and I had carried it with me the whole drive from Tennessee to my “mini-retirement,” the beaches of Florida.

As I began to write I began to delve deep into the seven important decisions I first introduced in my breakthrough book This Ain’t No Practice Life. I had given my talk on these important decisions hundreds of times but today I began to see them in a different light, a light that would lead to patterns and predictability, a light that could serve us well as we try to create something “remarkable.” The more I wrote the more I began to see the underlying “pivot points” for each of those decisions and the model I could use to diagnose exactly where a company and team was and what to do to move them through the next rite of passage.

We’ll be exploring those seven decisions in this blog over the coming weeks.