Growing Your Business With a Legacy Product Line

by Skip Cohen
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It's my favorite day of the week for posting--Throwback Thursday. Today, I'm using a 1929 photo of my Dad's first grade class and my third-grade class to introduce a key suggestion for 2026: build a more diverse business through a formal legacy program. If you aren't offering one, consider starting now.

Going through an album of old photographs, I found the one above. My Dad is in the top right corner. Dad grew up in Cleveland, and this would have been shot right at the beginning of the Great Depression.

Just to further make the point, I want to include this class shot from third grade. I'm highlighted on the right, my wife, Sheila, on the lower left. We actually met in second grade and went all through school together, right up to our senior year in high school. We were never good friends and barely knew each other until 40+ years later.

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Here's my point this morning - sharing a throwback on social media is a great way to light a fire with your target audience about helping them capture their stories. This isn't a new SCU topic, but there are still so many of you who haven't bothered to implement the service into your product line.

My definition of a Legacy Program includes anything related to documenting a client's history. Nobody can do it better than you, as a storyteller. Telling stories is your expertise. So, why not channel that skill set into helping clients tell their stories?

Very few of you offer any kind of Legacy Program in your offerings. Support could include efforts to capture senior family members in a formal portrait or to video-record the older generation telling their stories. While anyone today can capture video with their phone, all of you can create a more professional presentation. You have the skills for mixed media and editing to create a beautiful presentation and well-documented story for any client.

And then there's your own family! Everyone has aging senior members in their family with stories to tell. Plus, whether organized in albums or shoeboxes, you've got grab-shots and formal portraits over the years that represent key moments in everyone's journey. If you're just starting out with a legacy package, use your own family's history to build your sample product.

All I want to do today is remind you not to let time slip by. Take the time to set up a camera or phone and sit down with your parents and grandparents. Document their conversations about growing up, their friends, and their experiences. And if you're stuck for what to talk about, just pull out some old photographs and kick back and let them do the talking!

Set a date soon to document your own family's stories. Then, use it as a model on your website and plant the seeds with potential clients. There are an estimated 25+ million people over 75 in the U.S, alone. They all have stories to tell - it's a virtually untapped market!

STOP PROCRASTINATING---Remember, "Someday" isn't a day of the week—take action now to preserve memories in your family, and start helping your clients capture their stories.