How does this play out in terms of telling your business history, or your organization’s history?

Well, I’ll tell you a quick true story. (Or, you can listen to it on YouTube.)

I was recently hired by a business owner whose insurance agency was about to celebrate its 100^th anniversary. This man was the fourth generation owner of the company. It was started by his great-grandfather, passed on to his grandmother, then to his father, and then to him.

When he contacted me, he said, “Bonnie, I don’t just want to throw a party, I want to do something meaningful and lasting that will honor my family and tell our customers more about who we are.”

Now I KNOW, that you are already drawn into the story!

So, I set about doing a lot of family research and genealogy because there were a lot of missing pieces. I got his family back to French Canada, or New France, where my client’s great-grandfather came from, and even back to France.

Moving forward, I found out why they came to the community they did – Salem, Massachusetts, and how it was that a newly arrived immigrant set up a small storefront and launched an insurance agency.

It was a quintessentially American success story, because his agency flourished. In 1914, when the Great Salem Fire destroyed huge swaths of houses and businesses forcing many people out of Salem, this man stayed to help everyone he could.

Then when he wanted to pass his business along to his sons, none of them wanted it – but his daughter did. And so, a woman inherited this insurance agency at a time when women were not trusted with money, God forbid, most didn’t work outside the home, AND she steered the company through the Great Depression.

Her son, the first in the family to attend business school, transformed the company into the modern era and his son, my client, is doing the same thing today very successfully.

The stories go on and on, but I think you see my point.

And when we told these stories, with pictures, in newspaper articles, in a lobby display, and on his website, people were thrilled. They connected on a very emotional level with this man who had so honored his family, and especially his grandmother.

They loved him for it – and you better believe he attracted more customers. Why in the world would you want to work with another insurance agency when you could work with this one?

And even if you’re not a family-owned business, telling the story of your founder can have the same effect.

But here’s what I see most businesses do. Somewhere in their marketing, they say something like, “founded in 1900 by John Smith, who came from Europe in 1890, started his company, and we are still here today.”

Even worse, I hear or read “family owned and operated since 1900” and that’s IT! Nothing on their website, no more information.

That is NOT the kind of story that will engage anyone. You need to dig deeper, or it won’t work for you.

Do you see the difference?

So I HOPE you will think about doing your business history, and really telling the story of your founder, because the rewards are huge – personal, and financial.

You will also be expanding the story of your community’s history because it’s all connected. It’s all connected.