Report from 2007 St. George Genealogy Jamboree
I have really enjoyed the St. George Genealogy Jamboree. WorldVitalRecords.com has received a different reception than at previous conferences. We are recognized as a major player in the industry. I met many people who are our paid subscribers or newsletter subscribers. I had many people give great testimonials of how they love and are using our site.
At previous conferences we would talk about things that we were going to do and content and features that we were going to add. We had to apologize that we had so few indexes and records. However, we have done a lot and we have hundreds of indexes with hundreds of millions of records. We have a great story to tell and we have a great value for the money that we provide to our subscribers!
I still had to explain who we are and what we do to some of the attendees. But close to half of the people that I spoke to already knew something about us. I don’t have “rock star” status but a lot of people knew me that I had never met before.
Many of the most prominent presenters at the conference took the time to stop by our booth and talk. Barbara Renick, Kip Sperry, Dick Eastman, Don Snow, Pal Larsen, Bret Peterson all came to the WVR booth. Kip Sperry, Don Snow, Trisha Malone-Williams, and apparently others talked about WVR specifically in their classes.
I also had some great experiences in talking to people about our site.
I had a lady stop by the booth and I told her what we do. She said that there was a great uncle that they had lost track of and had no genealogy information on him. She had tried to find any record of his existence without success. She was overwhelmed when I did a search for him in our global search and found a completely filled out family group sheet in the Everton Family Group Sheet collection on her great uncle including his children that she never new existed. I emailed the links to those Family Group sheets to her. She bought a subscription.
A lady from Australia said that she had no information on her grandfather. She had no records of any kind and only had estimate on his birthday. We don’t have any records for him on WVR, so I tried the new Australia Country Search Page. The search brought up a police record where her grandfather was arrested in 1905. I thought that it was kind of embarrassing, but she was overjoyed to finally have any kind of record on her grandfather. She bought a subscription.
Ron Colman was a volunteer in the Washington County PAF Users Group in the booth next to ours. I told him about our relationship with Everton and how we have 60 years of the Everton Genealogy Helper on our site. He said that he is a professional genealogist that had advertised in the Helper in the 1980’s. I typed in his name and found his advertisements. He was amazed and bought a subscription.
Dick Eastman stopped by the booth. He is well informed about WVR and enjoyed talking about the innovative things we are doing. He said that he will write a BLOG that will be about WVR. He is very enthusiastic about what we are doing.
Paul Larsen stopped by the booth and gave us a copy of his “Crash Course in LDS Family History” book. I will hook up with him next week and work out some sort of arrangement. I told him that I wold like to sell his book on our site. There are many other ways that we can collaborate with him.
Trisha Malone-Williams talked about us in her class which was the last of the conference. We had 6 sales as a direct result. Trisha has been a WVR member since November 8th. She was a great salesperson for us. We need to thank her for her recommendation.
And before I forget, I need to recognize the great work by my wife. After everyone else in the company determined that they could not go to St. George (or at least they didn’t want to go to the conference as long as I went), I took my wife Mary. She has natural sales ability which she gets from her father. She did a much better job of selling our web site than I did. After listening to my sales pitch to several conference attendees, she pushed me aside did a great job in talking to conference attendees. When it was busy we were both taking orders. It was fun and as far as I can tell she made a significant contribution by working in our booth.
At previous conferences we would talk about things that we were going to do and content and features that we were going to add. We had to apologize that we had so few indexes and records. However, we have done a lot and we have hundreds of indexes with hundreds of millions of records. We have a great story to tell and we have a great value for the money that we provide to our subscribers!
I still had to explain who we are and what we do to some of the attendees. But close to half of the people that I spoke to already knew something about us. I don’t have “rock star” status but a lot of people knew me that I had never met before.
Many of the most prominent presenters at the conference took the time to stop by our booth and talk. Barbara Renick, Kip Sperry, Dick Eastman, Don Snow, Pal Larsen, Bret Peterson all came to the WVR booth. Kip Sperry, Don Snow, Trisha Malone-Williams, and apparently others talked about WVR specifically in their classes.
I also had some great experiences in talking to people about our site.
I had a lady stop by the booth and I told her what we do. She said that there was a great uncle that they had lost track of and had no genealogy information on him. She had tried to find any record of his existence without success. She was overwhelmed when I did a search for him in our global search and found a completely filled out family group sheet in the Everton Family Group Sheet collection on her great uncle including his children that she never new existed. I emailed the links to those Family Group sheets to her. She bought a subscription.
A lady from Australia said that she had no information on her grandfather. She had no records of any kind and only had estimate on his birthday. We don’t have any records for him on WVR, so I tried the new Australia Country Search Page. The search brought up a police record where her grandfather was arrested in 1905. I thought that it was kind of embarrassing, but she was overjoyed to finally have any kind of record on her grandfather. She bought a subscription.
Ron Colman was a volunteer in the Washington County PAF Users Group in the booth next to ours. I told him about our relationship with Everton and how we have 60 years of the Everton Genealogy Helper on our site. He said that he is a professional genealogist that had advertised in the Helper in the 1980’s. I typed in his name and found his advertisements. He was amazed and bought a subscription.
Dick Eastman stopped by the booth. He is well informed about WVR and enjoyed talking about the innovative things we are doing. He said that he will write a BLOG that will be about WVR. He is very enthusiastic about what we are doing.
Paul Larsen stopped by the booth and gave us a copy of his “Crash Course in LDS Family History” book. I will hook up with him next week and work out some sort of arrangement. I told him that I wold like to sell his book on our site. There are many other ways that we can collaborate with him.
Trisha Malone-Williams talked about us in her class which was the last of the conference. We had 6 sales as a direct result. Trisha has been a WVR member since November 8th. She was a great salesperson for us. We need to thank her for her recommendation.
And before I forget, I need to recognize the great work by my wife. After everyone else in the company determined that they could not go to St. George (or at least they didn’t want to go to the conference as long as I went), I took my wife Mary. She has natural sales ability which she gets from her father. She did a much better job of selling our web site than I did. After listening to my sales pitch to several conference attendees, she pushed me aside did a great job in talking to conference attendees. When it was busy we were both taking orders. It was fun and as far as I can tell she made a significant contribution by working in our booth.
posted by David at 8:53 PM
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