Is OGR Having Trouble Filling Annual Expo?

Order of the Golden Rule (OGR) is a trade organization of independent funeral homes.  Here’s how they describe themselves:

Founded in 1928, OGR’s mission is to make independent funeral homes exceptional. We do this by building and supporting member interaction, information exchange and encourating professional business development through a wide range of programs, services and resources.

OGR also negotiates discounts for their members with various industry suppliers.  I recently received an email from a company that is a Golden Services Group supplier (OGR’s designation for companies that participate in their discount program).  This email was sent to many GSG suppliers, including our company, because we currently offer a discount through the program.  Here’s the text:

Has anyone else read the last sentence of the paragraph that I’ve copied from the OGR’s email?  I’ve written Connie and Diane an email as I think this goes against the commitment that we’ve made over the years to OGR as being a representative in our respective product offerings.  If all competitors are allowed to attend, the distinction as a GSG Supplier is gone.
 
EXCERPT FROM OGR’S EMAIL:  “As a GSG Member, you have the first option to select a tabletop in this year’s showcase. Please make your reservation using the Supplier Showcase Registration Form. Also included is a floor plan to make your choices, preliminary conference schedule and other details about the showcase. After February 26, OGR will open this year’s showcase to all prospective industry suppliers.”

In effect, the writer is concerned that opening the show to competitors hurts the GSG supplier that has faithfully supplied a great discount to members for several years.  I tend to agree with the writer and voiced as much in a reply.

Then, OGR wrote eveyone to clarify the issue.  Here’s a snippet from their email:

The practice of opening up the Supplier Showcase to non-GSG suppliers was started last year at OGR’s Annual Conference in Nashville. Last year GSG suppliers had first option to purchase a tabletop. We had 5 new companies exhibit who were not in the GSG group because they paid to exhibit in the space that GSG suppliers did not purchase. Again this year, GSG suppliers will be given preferred placement, along with special signage recognizing their company as a member of GSG.
 
There are 60 GSG supplier members to fill the 35 tabletop exhibits at this year’s conference.  Your commitment to participate in the showcase and provide options for the products and services our members ask for and need is essential. Providing the space and related events for a Supplier Showcase is a costly and involved endeavor on the part of any association, but it is one that allows OGR members the opportunity to explore new products that will help them be better at what they do as funeral professionals. Our role is to help make them and their businesses exceptional. Your support of the Supplier Showcase is also toward that end.

So here’s my response:

Ms. Haymes:

It is unfortunate that you are unable to get even 35 of the 60 suppliers to exhibit at the show and, therefore, need to open the expo to outside companies.

 Perhaps you’d find it beneficial to have the perspective of one of GSG suppliers about this situation?  If so, here’s my take.

 

Our company gives a great discount (15%) to your members.  I’m also required to pay a percentage to GSG for the pleasure of selling to your members. 

 

In return, you occasionally mention my products to your members through the magazine, your annual resource book and in faxes and emails.

 

I’m glad that this has been a percentage arrangement, because if I were required to pay you a flat fee every year, I’d have ended our relationship after the first year.

 

How much business do I get from OGR members?  Less than 1% of my annual sales come from your group. 

 

As a marketing plan, being active in OGR has done little for my business.  Your magazine ad rates are comparable to other trade publications, but your distribution is MUCH, MUCH less.  I can’t offer a “hurry, sale ends soon!” call to action in your magazine because your members already get a substantial discount.

 

We plan our trade show attendance by factoring things like cost, location and attendance.  Frankly, even a simple review of your show tells me that I can’t make my money back.  Consider, first, the cost of travel.  Two of us attending will cost $850 for travel (air, hotel, car) if we stay in the cheapest place and drive the economy car.  Then, we’ll have to pay $749 for the first person and $450 for the second to attend the show.  Factor in meals ($100 if we stick with fast food and IHOP) and we’re over $2000 without putting gas in the rental or other incidental costs.

 

All that to reach a few hundred OGR members from behind a 6′ table for less than 1 hour of uninterrupted time on Friday and during a 90 minute lunch on Saturday.

 

To contrast, I recently spent half that amount to get five hours of uninterrupted time with over 400 funeral directors in South Carolina.  And I had a real 10’x10′ booth.  The booth itself costs me less than $600.  And the show planners quickly filled every space.

 

I don’t mind paying for high-quality leads.  I spend thousands to exhibit at the NFDA show each year.  But I expect value for my dollar, which means space, uninterrupted time and adequate foot traffic.

 

Right now, your show’s numbers don’t cut it, so I won’t be exhibiting.

 

But I like OGR.  I have good friends who are members.  I think you are trying to do good work.  It’s just not beneficial to your suppliers (at least this one) right now.

 

Best of luck in the future.

I’ve got issues with a few suggestions they make in their email.  In the second paragraph, there’s an attempt to shift blame with the line “your commitment…is essential.”  Then, an explanation of their inflated prices by claiming that “Providing the space and related events for a Supplier Showcase is a costly and involved endeavor,” while ignoring the basic math involved here.

They’re charging a minimum of $749 for one person to exhibit at a 6-foot table.  Multiply that by 35 spaces and you have over $26,000 in fees.  Imagine, then, if half the exhibitors bring a second person.  At $450 for an additional attendee, there’s an additional $8000.

I’m sure they’ve reserved a nice room for the showcase, but did it cost between $26,000 and $34,000 for three days?

The number one reason we’re not attending?  It’s extremely overpriced.  Like, ridiculously overpriced.

But surely there’s a great opportunity to interact with OGR members and sell lots of product, right?  Here’s what the online schedule shows:

Friday, April 23rd
1:55 – 2:55 pm   Diversity Panel

2:55 – 3:45 pm   Break/Supplier Showcase

3:45 – 4:45 pm   Concurrent Sessions

5:00 – 6:00 pm  Happy Hour/Scholarship Drive

Saturday, April 24th
11:15 – 12:30 pm  OGR Annual Meeting and Officer Installation
12:30 – 2:00 pm   Lunch/Supplier Showcase

2:00 – 3:00 pm  Concurrent Sessions
2:30 pm  Supplier Showcase Closes

That’s 50 minutes of scheduled time on Friday and 90 minutes on Saturday.

A good expo adds content and value to the attendees.  A minimal entry fee, in the form of conference fees for funeral directors and exhibit fees for vendors, pays for the space and services required.  In a perfect world, the showcase charges just enough to suppliers to break even.   

I feel that the amount OGR is charging to vendors is far too much.  As a supplier, I don’t mind paying my fair share.  But I will not attend shows that require me to pay everyone elses share, as well.

 

Anyone Hiring a “Corpse Beautician”?

I received an interesting email today.  At first, I thought it was a joke.  But the writer is serious.  Here’s the email:

Hello Tim,
I am very glad to find you and your posts on the internet and your website. I am writing to ask you for help in finding employment. I am a licensed Estetician and am interested in the position of Corpse Beautician. I have been working with the public and applying make up for over 5 years and now find I am interested in this aspect of Estetics. However I have been researching online and not finding anything. Looking at online funderaljobs.com and places like that I have used their search windows and not found anything remotely called ‘corpse beautician’. I have also not found anything like this job description in the long list of funeral jobs in existance.
What I mean to express is that not for looking can I find even on the internet the job of corpse beautician or related position. Do I just not know the official name of this job? Do I just not know the category under which this job is listed? Is it that there is just no listings for this position at this time and my timing is bad?
I live in Houston Texas and I would like to transfer my skills in Estetics to the funeral industry. I don’t know if my serach criteria is bad or if the market is non-existant at this time. Is this position in funeral homes so rare and should I make a point of calling each individually and ask if they employ such persons? Do I need to sell myself and my skills as a new service to a unexposed area?
I simply can’t ascertain the market in my area nor online as I get no results from google searching.
If you have any advice how to approach the market or funeral homes directly and/or how I should go about getting experience on some corpses first before seeking employment I would appreciate it.
 
Sincerely,
Jil W.

After thoughtful consideration, here’s what I sent back to the writer:

Jil:

Thank you for your kind words about my website.  And yes, I can tell you a little more about the job you’re seeking and why there’s not much on the internet about it.

 

First, I’ve never heard the phrase “corpse beautician” before.  Frankly, it sounds in poor taste, which may be why no one uses the title.

 

You would do better to talk to funeral homes about cosmetologist positions or ask about employments as a dressing room attendant.

 

But the more likely reason that you can’t find job listings for the position is that few funeral homes employ someone who only does makeup.  Most funeral homes know that putting makeup on the deceased is such a tiny percentage of the workday, making it a job done by the same person who embalms the body, dresses the deceased and puts them in the casket.

In smaller funeral homes, that person might also empty the ashtrays on the smoking porch, vacuum the chapel, typeset the memorial folder, run the death certificate and stand for the visitation.

 

In fact, some firms that handle 60-80 funerals a year (near the national average, actually) might only have two full-time employees.  That means the licensed funeral director is doing all the preparation and the secretary/assistant does all the jobs the funeral director doesn’t want to do.

 

What I’ve just described is analogous with my experience working in a small, family funeral home.  However, you might be more interested in what I saw at the large corporate firm where I worked.

 

There are several large corporations that own groups or “clusters” of funeral homes across the country.  These clusters operate at their most efficient when they utilize a central prepartion facility to handle the embalming, dressing, cosmetizing and casketing of the deceased for several funeral home locations.

 

In this arrangement, there are folks whose full-time jobs are to embalm and prepare the deceased.  In the large central facility where I worked in the 1990’s, there was a person whose sole job was to dress and cosmetize the deceased clients.

 

Before you get your hopes up, you should know what that job required:

 

Lifiting 100 pounds or more (to lift bodies into caskets)

Manipulating remains for dressing
Making a windsor knot in a tie on a person who’s lying down (harder than you’d think)
Dealing with purge (bodies that leak after embalming)

Lifting, stacking, pushing heavy caskets
Any other thing the funeral directors ask you to do

Still want this job?

 

Seriously, if this is something that you’re interested in, you should call some funeral homes.  But don’t be surprised if they don’t give you the warmest reception.

 

When I worked in the funeral home, I could always tell when a beauty school had just graduated a class because I would get ten calls in a week from freshly-minted cosmetologists who thought they were the first ones ever to look for a job in a funeral home.  And it was sad to have to tell them that my boss handled all the cosmetic work and was actually really good at it.  Besides, how would they make a living coming in once or twice a week for an hour to makeup a few bodies?

 

I hope I haven’t upset you terribly.  I think you will be able to make better decisions about your future with the information I’ve offered.

 

Once last bit of advice:  don’t try to sell yourself as a “corpse beautician.”  Sounds kinda creepy.

 

TIM

 

My Letter to Thomas Parmalee About EternalSpace

Thomas:

For my initial reaction, please see the post, Eternal Space: a Debacle?, on my blog.

 

I’m having trouble getting more details from folks at Eternal Space.  To be fair, my advisory role with them was limited to phone conversations by teleconference and a few in-person discussions at trade shows.

 

Still, I thought I was reasonably well-connected with them and I wish I could get one of them to call me back.  That’s not to say that I haven’t had some correspondence with my contacts.  It just means none of it has revealed more than “we closed the company.”

 

I am still a fan of the concept, as I think that the push toward online environments means that people are looking for a place to memorialize loved ones in a virtual environment. 

 

Unfortunately, concept without skillful execution is the real problem here.

 

Remember, Thomas, that I signed a non-disclosure agreement with EternalSpace, so I won’t share with you the detailed private conversations we had, but I do want to share, in a generic way, the public actions which EternalSpace took that contributed to their current situation.

 

1.  They spent big $$$ to launch a product that didn’t exist yet.  The worst way to introduce yourself to this industry is to tell everyone how great your product is and then not have an actual product to show them.  If our company attended the NFDA show and told everyone how great our covers were and then told them we hadn’t actually finished making any of them yet, I’d return with zero sales and a dimished reputation.  ES would have been better served by plastering huge “Coming Soon” signs on a half-constructed NFDA booth.  As it is, they showed a snazzy video of their concept in a 20×40 booth with expensive white carpeting.  When convinced funeral directors said “let me start selling Eternal Space!” the ES guys had to tell them that the launch wasn’t going to be for several months.

 

2.  They created ads that didn’t reflect their unique selling point.  Don’t get me started on how much full-page ads cost (yes, I know you publish for a living, so I’ll tread lightly), but how effective are dollars spent on generic ads?  The last ad I saw showed an old man in a beekeepers outfit with a quote saying something like “I want my kids to know how interesting their grandfather was.”  Take off the ES logo at the lower right and it could be the ad for any number of other funeral industry companies.  Batesville’s logo might sugggest the ad sells customizable caskets, Messenger’s might signal the release of a new register book theme.  Respectance.com’s logo would look at home also.

 

3.  They overestimated the interest of the industry.  They thought they were “revolutionary.”  Truth is, funeral directors appreciated the pretty booth presentation, but couldn’t figure out how to make good money from the product.  They expected the industry to embrace their offering and built a business plan to bolster this misconception.  Had they realized they were selling a niche product, at best, they would have been better prepared, mentally and financially, for the difficulties they faced.

 

4.  They didn’t respect their audience.  This one’s the reason that everyone who works a trade show for me always dresses conservatively, like a funeral director.  Selling to an audience means first understanding the audience and trying to fit in with them.  A funeral director spends every day in a suit and showing respect to them means sharing that experience.  In my workshop, I wear tennis shoes or sandals (if I wear shoes – if I’m sewing I wear socks so I have more foot pedal control).  But on a trade show floor I want my customers to imagine our product, a removal cot cover, being used by a professional, which means I need to be dressed as one.  The Euro look that my friends at EternalSpace tried to use at the 2008 NFDA show – long, scraggly hair, stubble, shirt unbuttoned halfway – may have looked ready for a swanky nightclub, but didn’t fit in at a decidedly conservative venue like a funeral trade show.

 

5.   They quit too soon.  If they were truly committed to this idea and felt they were onto something, they needed to give their product more than a year to gain acceptance.  Our best sales (at trade shows) always come the second year, as funeral directors who enjoyed seeing the “new product” the first year become purchasers of the new product the second year.  In effect, many directors want to see if the company has legs and can last.  No one wants to buy a car from a company that won’t be around next year and no one wants to sell their families a product that won’t be around for a while.  Even worse, they claimed to offer Eternal memorial space; then they shuttered their site.  Ironic much?

 

Sincerely,

TIM

 

Charles Cowling Comments on My Affinity for Eternal Space

From my friend, Charles Cowling, who writes The Good Funeral Guide:

Tim,

your post of 13 April made me anxiously wonder why you hadn’t declared an interest, but I guess you hadn’t joined the AC at that stage.

I have to say that I don’t know that I share your enthusiasm for Eternal Space.  Sure, it makes Respectance look clunky, but it could be argued that it does that for itself.  The tributes currently viewable at ES fail to display its capability and are a poor advert.

I’d have thought that the ES market is a niche defined by taste; some are going to like it, others are going to find it tacky or mawkish — but perhaps I am speaking out of turn from a UK cultural standpoint.  I would dispute your assertions concerning the technical brilliance of ES (there’s no animation), and in terms of personalisation (the key to sales) it quickly takes on an air of seen-one-seen-them-all. 

For my money, it’s MuchLoved.com all the way — and it’s free, what’s more. But I shall be following ES with interest. It’s on to something, for sure, but I don’t think it’s anything like there yet.

Charles

This is what I love about Charles:  he writes crafty, insightful critiques.  Do I agree that Muchloved is better?  Don’t know since I only just visited www.MuchLoved.com after reading his response. 

Still, I stand behind my reasons for appreciating Eternal Space.  First, Eternal Space is truly different than a standard online memorial.  That difference is what consumers require if they’re spending money on the services; otherwise, they’d just use the free sites, like Respectance or Much Loved, and save their cash.

Second, Eternal Space will make money for funeral directors.  Will you be able to sell an Eternal Space to every client family?  Absolutely not.  In fact, I doubt more than 10% of client families will even want to hear about ES.  Nevertheless, it’s a simple add-on service that costs you nothing to offer and makes some cash when families do want it.

I think Eternal Space, as a company, has a slim chance of making it work.  But that’s also true for most companies!  Still, I think they’ve got to be very careful about how much cash they burn through as they try to make a big splash in the industry.

Thanks again, Charles, for your insight.  And I’ll pay more attention to MuchLoved.com.

 

Dale Clock Shares a Review of ICCFA Expo 2009

Tim,

Just got back from the ICCFA in Las Vegas. It was a great meeting. This is a great group of progressive thinkers. It’s fun to listen to the different points of view from all sides; funeral, cemetery, cremation, sales and service. The main speakers were all great. Jackie Huba, John Moore, Scott Ginsburg and Doug Gober This year they tended toward the marketing side of things, which is what I like anyway, and encouraged all of us to get out there and tell people our story in every way possible, especially on the internet.

Scott Ginsburg, who has worn a name tag 24/7 for the last 9 years, gave everyone a copy of his latest book “Stick Yourself Out There”. I read the first half on the plane ride home and loved it.

Doug Gober, who always gives great talks, did a whole bit on the Apple vs PC commercials and related it to funeral service. Unfortunately far to many funeral directors look and act like the PC guy and we need to start thinking like Apple. It’s OK to make funerals fun.

The normal vendors were there (no cot covers though) but not as many as NFDA. I saw a few new cremation products that looked promising; a heart pendant that had space for a portion of cremains and a USB flash drive that could hold photos and video, was my favorite.

I do like how ICCFA has the booths open while lunch is served in the same area (They could have used a few more tables and chairs so we didn’t have to find some friendly booth to eat in) The main speakers took place before and after that period and the booths did shut down when those took place. Plus the Cocktail hours on the floor make for great socializing while still wandering the booths.

Your friends at Eternal Space got more press coverage, but I didn’t notice a lot of activity there. I know you and Ryan, from Connecting Directors, are big fans of them but I must confess that it seems a little like “The Sims goes to the Cemetery” for me. I’m still holding out to see if the general public will get this or if it’s just something for the geeks.

I had a great talk with Rob Heppel. He interviewed me for his Funeral Gurus site so maybe soon I will be a big internet star like you, Tim . I also sat in on his Strategy talk. Rob could have skipped the strategy portion for me (I already had most of it downloaded from his site) and just spent 2 hours on tips, examples and new stuff to do on your web site. What I really got out of a lot of these talks was that educational marketing is the way to go and the internet and your web site is the perfect medium for doing this. I already took some of Rob’s advice and grabbed a couple of URL’s so I can become the Funeral Information Guru in my area.

As always it’s the sharing of ideas with fellow members that’s the best. Talking over issues, getting support and letting you know that you’re not in this by yourself and that there are others out there traveling the same road.

Lastly, I’d like to pass along a great YouTube video that Alan Creedy stumbled across and posted on his Facebook page. I liked it so much I put it on my own funeral home website. You’ll need a tissue or two for this one. It’s a great example of what a “good, meaningful and memorable” funeral should be like. It’s real, it’s funny, and it touches your heart. Because we know the best funerals always include great stories. Here is the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw0s4C0g5SM 

I hope this helps you readers.

Dale Clock
Clock Life Story Funeral Home
Muskegon, Michigan
http://www.clockfuneralhome.com

 

Department Store Kohl’s: Great Deals and Seemingly-Inept Customer Service

Here’s a letter I recently sent to the department store Kohl’s customer service email address:

Friends:

I recently planned a special shopping trip to your store in Tavares, Florida. While looking for watches, I was greeted by Cheryl (or Sherry, not sure) who was eager to help. She was great. I picked out a watch and she agreed to hold it for me as we shopped for other items.

Enjoying our experience, we decided to get a new slow cooker, some ties, a few water bottles for ourselves and some jewelry to give as Easter gifts.

We returned to the Jewelry counter and presented a 20%-off coupon (for purchases over $100) to Sherry. She began ringing us up.

Our total was $212.89. As I began to swipe my credit card, Sherry asked if I wanted to use my Kohl’s charge. I told her I didn’t have one.

When I asked her what benefit I’d get if I signed up for one, she said I would “save 15% on your order today.”

I agreed to the offer and we began the process. After a few computer snafus, I was approved for $1000 credit from your company. As she started to process the order, I asked her why my total had not changed. Obviously,
I only agreed to the credit card because she had promised over $30 additional savings on my purchase.

Sherry didn’t know why, so she asked another young lady to help her. This associate told her that I couldn’t get the discount because I’d already used a coupon. She offered me a coupon for my next visit.

Some people would call this a version of “bait and switch:” get the customer to agree to a purchase or agreement by promising a specific refund, discount or price, then change it up after the agreement or purchase is completed.

When I asked her to cancel my card, she told me she’d already charged it and I’d have to go to customer service to have it fixed.

HERE’S WHERE THE REAL TROUBLE STARTED.

At this point, I was merely inconvenienced. I headed over to customer service, certain that a level-headed store manager would see the issue and simply offer the promised discount.

I met another nice lady at the customer service desk and, after explaining the issue, waited as she called the manager to the desk.

The store manager, Bridgette Formor, met me in front of the desk (at first I thought that was a nice touch) and asked me to explain my issue. I did. Her answer to my issue was to explain that she wasn’t allowed to “double-dip” discounts and that I was misinformed by the employee.

I restated my claim that I was promised an additional discount and completed a full credit application based upon that promise. She pointed me toward a phone that I could use to cancel my credit card.

As I stared at her in disbelief, she told me that the back of the coupon I used said I couldn’t use it with any other discounts and I should have read it. I asked her “so a piece of paper trumps what your employee tells me
face to face?” She got just a bit “huffy” with me, reiterating that corporate would not let her give two discounts and insinuating that I instigated this problem by being greedy for discounts.

I reminded her that a Kohl’s employee started this by offering a discount and added that if a piece of paper held more weight than her employees, she “needs to do some training about that.”

It was at that moment that the lack of a desk separating us made me feel intimidated, as she raised up to her full height (she’s impressively tall) and let loose.

As her voice rose, she said “That girl’s only been here a week, but I wasn’t going to apologize for her because she’s new.”

Feeling cornered, I told her I didn’t feel like she “was apologizing at all” and that I just wanted to cancel my entire order.

Her response? “Good, we’ll be happy to do that for you.”

So ya’ll lost a $200 purchase, all because one employee made a mistake and a manager decided to back a customer down with intimidation and attitude rather than reason and courtesy.

Of course, this is my account. Why not talk to the customer service desk worker who witnessed the entire conversation or the jewelry counter worker who got chewed out on the phone because she made a simple mistake with me.

Here’s the reason why I won’t be shopping at Kohl’s if Bridgette Formor is the manager: I enjoyed every part of my experience until she decided to accuse me of ripping her store off. I even appreciated the actual remorse that Sherry showed after she realized she’d made a big mistake. At the customer service counter, I presented a difficult situation to the rep there and her attitude and demeanor made me believe that it would be fixed properly. But then I met Ms. Formor and lost all respect for Kohl’s.

Sincerely,
Timothy B. Totten

And here’s the canned email response their computer sent back to me:

Dear

Thank you for contacting us about your recent experience in the Tavares store.

First and foremost, I want to apologize for any frustration and inconvenience that you had experienced in your shopping visit. Your disappointment in regards to the conversation with the store manager is understandable. At Kohl’s we strive to have our customers “Expect Great Things,” and we want to know when you feel we have not lived up to that expectation. I have forwarded your feedback to the members from the Executive Team at that location for their review and follow up. Please allow several business days for us to contact you. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this situation may have caused.

We appreciate the time you took to contact us and we hope that you will allow us another chance to serve you again in the future.

Sincerely,

Meghan B.
Customer Support Representative

So here’s the email I just sent back to them:

To My Seemingly-Inept Friends at Kohl’s:

Thank you for the form letter your forwarded in April 16th.  While I spent a few minutes preparing an explanation of my issue with your store and the reasons why Kohl’s was no longer my preferred department store, you allowed a computer to respond with the heading “Dear” and no name following it.  The unfriendly computer goes on to tell me that my feedback was forwarded “to the members from the Executive Team at that location.”  Clearly, your computer has terrible comprehension issues, since even a quick review of my original email would reveal that my problems were with the Executive Team at that location.
 
It strikes me that this email might also be intercepted by the same incompetent computer, so if that’s the case, here’s my admonition:
 
“Stop stealing Kohl’s email, you bad, bad computer!  I’m sure that Kohl’s is a company that cares about their customers’ experiences and they don’t need some sniveling, form-letter sending, fake-apology offering lazy computer who can’t even figure out a customer’s actual complaint.”
 
Of course, if this letter gets read by an actual human, I’d love for someone to actually respond to my complaint.  Even if all I get is a “piss off” from a Kohl’s representative who goes on to explain that store managers are allowed to accuse a misled customer of trying to steal, I’ll be happy knowing that at least someone behind the cold, computerized curtain of Kohl’s customer service tried to reach out, even if it’s just to sucker punch a paying customer.
 
Oh, and I’ve never given you permission to spam me, so why in the heck do you program your computers to respond to a customer service complaint by sending unsolicited spam email to the person complaining?  Are you trying to guarantee that I never shop at your store again?
 
A customer who won’t be spending $3000 at Kohl’s again this Christmas,
Timothy B. Totten
321-287-0628
 
P.S.  You can read all about my struggles with your company on the blog I write for funeral directors:  www.finalembrace.com.

 

Lawyer/CPA Bob Cries “Aha! Gotcha!”

My second phone call from Lawyer/CPA Bob was really just an “Aha!” message saying he would accept the bet I offered in the post, An FCA Affiliate Speaks Up.

Except my exact quote was “I’d be willing to bet…” which, in simple English, means “I would be willing…with certain conditions.”

Here’s what I actually wrote:

I’d be willing to bet my salary and Mr. Slocum’s almost $50,000 salary  that Lawyer/CPA Bob doesn’t get out of bed at 2 AM for anything close to what the average funeral director makes.

In fact, the phrase “I’d be willing to bet” or “I’d bet” are common figures of speech or colloquialisms and are understood by most English speakers to be non-literal exaggerations.

Do we believe that a teenager who says “If I have to get braces I’ll die!” is actually afraid they will kill her?

Or that a man who proclaims a new device as “the best thing since sliced bread” is serious about the implications to society of the new gadget?

Should Lawyer/CPA Bob claim that I made an actual bet, I’d point out that the bet is difficult to distinguish.  Is he claiming that he does get out of bed at 2:00 AM for a sum close to what the average funeral director makes?

If so, we’ll have to figure out what the average funeral director makes.  Then we have to see how close Lawyer/CPA Bob’s salary is to the amount.

Of course, “close” is relative.  How will we determine if the amounts are “close?”  Is there an international designation for the specific amount the term implies?

And would Lawyer/CPA Bob have to prove that he actually gets up at 2:00 AM on a regular basis (at least as often as the typical funeral director does) or would proof of a few late nights a month be good enough for a court of law?

And who enforces bets?  Are we in Las Vegas, Reno or Atlantic City? 

I’d be interested in hearing some legal opinion on how a rhetorical comment in a editorial could be construed as an actual bet.

I’d almost bet… oops, can’t say that.  I’m fairly certain (in a non-threatening, editorial way) that I’ve got some protection under the First Amendment.  I also believe that I have not threatened or libeled Mr. Slocum, Ms. Bennett or Lawyer/CPA Bob in any way.

Mr. Slocum responded with well-reasoned emails and an invitation to call him if I wanted to talk more about his company.  Ms. Bennett offered her opinion and asked me “Since when is that wrong?”  I offered my opinion back to her in the post, An FCA Affiliate Speaks Up.

Now Lawyer/CPA Bob decides that mildly-harrassing phone calls, placed from a “restricted” number, are appropriate to the conversation.  He’s clearly calling for personal reasons, as he won’t reveal his last name or contact information.

He’s wrong.  Frankly, the only reason I can imagine that he would make such calls and vague quasi-threats is that it gives him some pleasure to intimidate others.

I am not intimidated, but  I understand his initial viewpoint:  he likes Mr. Slocum.

I’ll grant that many people may like Mr. Slocum.  Heck, after a conversation, I might like Mr. Slocum. 

But Lawyer/CPA Bob decided to sink to harrassment, while my main complaint remains the same:  FCA’s primary public interaction (with non-members – the vast majority of Americans) is fear-based.  FCA is best served when they get stories placed in news sources that scare the public into signing up for memberships or buying publications.

When 70% of your annual expenses pay employee-related costs (salaries, benefits, payroll taxes, etc.) the main purpose of your organization is to fund employees.

Are the employees still doing the work of the organization?  Gosh, I hope so.  Otherwise, they’d just be stealing from their members.

I’m sure that Mr. Slocum and others within local FCA’s believe they are doing important work.  Unfortunately, they equate choosing a funeral home based upon price as the most intelligent and savvy move.

They reinforce this by falsely accusing the majority of funeral directors of being greedy or crooks.

I disagree with that remark and I encourage all funeral directors to educate your community.

If you don’t, FCA will.  And Clearly, based upon FCA’s tax returns, it pays to do so.

 

People’s Memorial Association 2006 Tax Return

At the request of another reader, here is the information I was able to glean from People’s Memorial Assocation’s 2006 tax return, obtained from Guidestar and attached here:  peoples-memorial

$ 282,516   total expenses for 2006
$ 108,822   employee expense (salary, retirement, benefits, payroll taxes, etc.)
$173,694  to spend on program expenses

$ 282,516  total expenses for 2006
$ 208,099  revenue
$ 74,417  loss for the year

$ 20,417  dues paid to the national FCA (Mr. Slocum’s group)

How do they compare with the national FCA for the same time period?

PEOPLE’S MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION
38.5% of total expenses spent on employee salary/benefits/taxes
52.1% of revenue spent on employee salary/benefits/taxes

NATIONAL FUNERAL CONSUMERS ALLIANCE 
70.6% of total expenses spent on employee salary/benefits/taxes
84.9% of revenue spent on employee salary/benefits/taxes

 How about comparing them to the Red Cross?  Here’s their 2006 tax return:  red-cross

AMERICAN RED CROSS
30.5% of total expenses spent on employee salary/benefits/taxes
28.5% of revenue spent on employee salary/benefits/taxes

 

An FCA Affiliate Speaks Up

Ruth Bennett, of the People’s Memorial Association in Washington State, responds to our recent posts, Is The Funeral Consumer’s Alliance More “Predatory” Than the Funeral Industry Itself? and FCA’s Slocum and I (Hopefully) Have a Civilized Debate, with this comment:

As President of a nonprofit funeral cooperative, I know that we can provide a direct cremation for a family for $649. Other corporate owned funeral homes in the area charge from $1500 to $3500. Yes, we are a nonprofit, but that does not mean that we don’t need to cover our costs and provide a reserve, which we do, very well, at our significantly lower prices.

Too many, no all, but too many funeral homes guilt families into spending more than they can afford. If a family can afford to and wants to spend $25,000 on a funeral, then we support that decision, but to call that a “traditional” funeral and to make a family feel bad for not overspending is, at best, disingenious.

FCA and its affiliates provide truthful and useful information to families. Since when is that wrong?

Of course, Ms. Bennett, it’s not wrong to educate consumers.  I just wish you were telling them the truth.

You provide direct cremation for $649.  There are people in Florida who will do it for $399.  Why does your coop charge almost double for the same service?

Your own survey of 170 funeral homes (conducted in 2007) shows a range from $425 to $2800.  Why the $244 difference?

And how many cremations must you perform to cover your overhead?

I will never, ever begrudge a hardworking funeral professional the right to charge their own price in their own community.  And so I can’t really complain that you charge $649 to your members.

I would, however, be really upset if I was not a member of your organization and had to pay $150 more for a cremation.  (Link to pricing on the cooperative’s website)

How do you justify that big a difference, if it only costs $50 to become a member?  (Link to membership page)

(LONG PAUSE AS I ANSWER A TELEPHONE CALL)

Just got a phone call from a lawyer who’s clients are “1/2 to 3/4 FCA groups”.  I’m guessing he does some work for you, Ms. Bennett.  He was able to quickly quote how many members you have (100,000 according to his count).

Lawyer Bob (he wouldn’t share his last name or contact information and called from a “restricted” number) was pretty upset and started out the conversation by asking “what do you have against Joshua Slocum?”

He went on to share that Joshua does nothing but good work and that he gets knocked around a lot by the big, bad funeral industry.

Lawyer Bob also questioned my ability to read a tax return.  Turns out he’s also CPA Bob.

Then he got so upset that he told me he was going to make this topic a story in his client newsletter and that he was going to share this with his friends at the Pennsylvania Bar Assocation meeting for Eldercare lawyers, because whenever he gets an estate that’s been probated, the funeral home has ripped off the client by playing on their emotions and selling them things they don’t need because no one comes to their funerals.

He also pointed out that while there are only 22,000+ funerals in the U.S., there are hundreds of thousands of FCA members who clearly, in his mind, are going to win.

I reminded Bob that when each of those hundreds of thousands of members die, they’re not calling a CPA or lawyer at 2:00 AM to pick them up.  They’ll be calling a funeral director.

I’d be willing to bet my salary and Mr. Slocum’s almost $50,000 salary  that Lawyer/CPA Bob doesn’t get out of bed at 2 AM for anything close to what the average funeral director makes.

EDITOR’S NOTE:  The phrase “I’d be willing to bet” does not constitute an actual bet, which is illegal in my state (Florida).  Lawyer/CPA Bob just called to ask me if I’d actually bet him that amount.  Of course, when pressed for details about his experiences, he hung up.  I’m waiting for Lawyer/CPA Bob to share with me even one instance when he’s gotten out of bed at 2:00 am to help a grieving family.  I’d also like to see his own tax returns to compare his salary with industry standard for funeral professionals.

 

Michelle Carter Responds to Joshua Slocum

In response to our posts, Is The Funeral Consumer’s Alliance More “Predatory” Than the Funeral Industry Itself? and FCA’s Slocum and I (Hopefully) Have a Civilized Debate, New York State funeral director Michelle Carter writes:

Mr. Slocum wrote: “You may not like FCA’s message of consumer education and empowerment, but that does not give you the right to make untrue statements about how we operate.”

As a funeral director, I’m sure I’m not alone in wishing that our client families in general were better-educated about the funeral process and what their options are. A significant portion of every dealing with every family involves explaining all the options available to them so they can make the most informed decision possible.

Unfortunately, the number of families we deal with who have been misinformed and are confused about their options and costs seems to be growing, not shrinking. I blame part of this on the numerous websites and organizations like the FCA that make broad statements like, “Well, in most places you can do X, Y and Z…” but make no effort to provide information about specific statues. Every state has different laws and options vary significantly depending on where you are.

Like Tim, I also take exception with the FCA’s apparent belief that “low-cost” and “good” go hand in hand when it comes to funeral service. While that is sometimes true, it’s also true (as in every other industry) that you often get what you pay for.

If cost were the only thing people were concerned with, we’d probably all be driving around in Geo Metros. However, every individual and every family has different tastes, desires, and needs, and all of those things will influence how much they spend, and what they spend it on.

And I wonder why there is no mention in the FCA literature I’ve seen that the increases in funeral prices over the last 25 years have not kept pace with inflation. 25 years ago, funeral homes made around 11.5% profit on each funeral, according to American Funeral Director Magazine, compared to the roughly 6.12% in 2007. Expenses have grown 23% more than income has. By comparison, the average new home price has increased over 264% during that same period.

Mr. Slocum wrote, “If the worst elements of funeral service don’t reflect your business practices, why are you personally offended? Don’t you agree those elements should be exposed so honest businesspeople can separate themselves from scoundrels? You could do a lot more to help that cause by working with us than by snarking at a consumer charity.”

I agree with Tim on this point: in our capitalist society, the funeral homes or directors that take advantage of families, charge exorbitantly high prices or are otherwise bad will not stay in business that way for long. Word of mouth travels fast. However, when you’re part of an industry that gets slammed, of course you’re going to take offense. It’s the same as when good police officers, good mechanics, and good doctors are offended by those who paint them with the same brush as they paint the bad apples. It puts you in the position of being guilty until proven innocent.

But I’m also skeptical of the assertion that there are funeral directors who are giving extra discounts to members of the FCA. The funeral home’s expenses will remain the same, regardless of how much of a discount they offer. So are they making that up in overall higher prices? Are they charging non-member families more to make up for it? Is that fair?

I knew of a funeral director (no longer in business) whose GPL showed outlandishly high prices. However, he offered families a discount of 15-20% if they paid their bills before the day of the funeral. Personally, I’d rather work with someone whose pricing is straightforward and not so gimmicky.

As someone who sits on the board of a local charity, I also have issues with any organization that calls itself a charity, but spends so much of its income on overhead. The Red Cross has gotten flack for spending just $0.10 of every dollar on administrative costs, but it appears that for the FCA, that amount is significantly higher.

I think we can all agree that we want our consumer families to make the best, most well-informed decisions possible. The question is whether or not they are hearing all sides of the story.

Michelle Carter is the former owner of the Center For Transition, a grief counseling and funeral consulting company.  A licensed funeral director, Michelle is now the Assistant Manager of the E.O. Curry Funeral Home in Peekskill, NY.

 

FCA’s Slocum and I (Hopefully) Have a Civilized Debate

In response to the post, Is The Funeral Consumer’s Alliance More “Predatory” Than the Funeral Industry Itself?, Executive Director of the Funeral Consumer’s Alliance, Joshua Slocum, commented like this:

You may not like FCA’s message of consumer education and empowerment, but that does not give you the right to make untrue statements about how we operate.

You wrote:

“Maybe that’s because his organization’s 2006 tax return shows a $28,000+ loss and almost $120,000 in salaries/benefits paid to employees and officers.”

Please return to our Form 990 for 2006 (the IRS’ equivalent of a tax return for nonprofit organizations) and you’ll see:

A. We paid $111,896.54 in wages and benefits to three employees (including me), not $120,000. I don’t see how anyone could say such wages are excessive.

B. There was no – zero – money paid to “officers.” Our Board of Directors serves without pay. It’s hard to see how you could have missed that, considering that on page 4 of our return, we note “officers and directors are
not paid.”

Funeral Consumers Alliance has existed for decades before I joined them, and will exist long after I’m gone. Formed in 1963, we are a federation of 100 nonprofit groups, run largely by volunteers, with a membership approaching 400,000. Our goals have always been to educate the public on their legal rights and options in
the funeral transaction and to ensure they know how to find ethical, reasonably priced funeral providers.

Of course the entire funeral industry isn’t corrupt. Our affiliated groups have found hundreds of upstanding funeral homes local to them who are willing to serve our members and the public at fair prices for quality service. By the same token, there are deep problems in the funeral industry that come together to make
the funeral transaction more difficult, more mysterious, and more costly than it needs to be for families. Accusing FCA of scaremongering isn’t going to change that reality, and it doesn’t make the problem any better.

We’d much rather work together with ethical, concerned members of funeral service who agree with us that ethical business practices should prevail in the industry, and who wish to rout the bad guys that give everyone else a bad name. If the worst elements of funeral service don’t reflect your business practices, why are you personally offended? Don’t you agree those elements should be exposed so honest businesspeople can separate themselves from scoundrels? You could do a lot more to help that cause by working with us than by snarking
at a consumer charity.

Joshua Slocum
Executive Director
Funeral Consumers Alliance
http://www.funerals.org
802-865-8300

Here’s my response:

To calculate the total salaries and benefits paid to employees and officers, I simply added the line items from their 2006 tax return.  Mr. Slocum claims that I overstated the amount by roughly $8000.  But then he reminds us that he only pays three employees, adding credence to my assertion that his group exists, at least partly, to collect enough money to pay his own salary.

Of course, you are correct, Mr. Slocum, that I missed the line that officers and directors are not paid.  Of course, as your title is “Executive Director,” how do you explain your own salary?  Maybe I just don’t understand what constitutes a “director.”

I could continue with the semantics (the first half of your response is just that) but my major problem with your organization contains two serious and substantive arguments:

1.  You seem to link “ethical” with “reasonably-priced” in your response (twice, in fact) and in the materials on your website, as if the two concepts must always go hand-in-hand.

However, the respected magazine Ethisphere ranked groups like BMW, American Express, Google, GE and Nike in their list of most ethical companies in the world.  How is it that a company that makes $80,000 luxury vehicles can be considered the most ethical car company in the world, if your thesis is to be accepted?  That’s not to mention $150 sneakers, Super Platinum Exclusive credit cards, the latest in jet engine technology or the high salaries paid television stars (G.E. owns NBC).

We live in a free society that embraces capitalism.  A funeral professional is welcome to charge any amount she chooses, so long as her community accepts it.  If the community disagrees, they choose a competitor or another disposition option, like cremation.

You’d like to see funeral directors offer lower prices (at their own financial peril) but do you also warn consumers not to pay too little?  Will you provide a guarantee to funeral directors that if they offer a lower price, you’ll discourage their clients from choosing a lower cost disposition option or going to a lower-priced competitor?

At what point is a businessperson (the funeral director) allowed to make a profit?

I get very defensive when anyone suggests that anyone “owes” them something, like lower prices for services rendered.  What if your members decide that your own price is too high?  Are you willing to give back a large portion of your salary, Mr. Slocum?

2.  Your own salary is paid by scare tactics.  You claim a membership of 400,000 but yet you pay the majority of your income to three people.  Then you work really hard to get scary, fear-filled headlines into the press. 

Newsweek’s online story could have been a positive discussion of the benefits of home funerals, but their discussion with you turned the article into another “big, bad funeral industry” expose, complete a few horror stories.  Even in your response to my comments, you mention only a “few hundred” funeral homes that your members have found that you consider ethical.  Then you claim that there are “deep problems” in the funeral industry without providing real examples.

Sir, nearly 2 million Americans die every year.  There are 20,000+ funeral homes serving those families.  If the problem is so widespread and people are being so mistreated, why are there not more news stories?  The local and national press loves a good sob story, hence the premise behind the Newsweek article.  If even 10% of all funerals were badly handled or the families horribly mistreated, there would be 200,000 stories each year and the FCA wouldn’t need to pay you to drum up fear.

Simply put, your claims ignore that consumers already control the industry.  When they choose a firm to handle their arrangements, they “vote” for that firm to exist.  Companies that abuse the public or charge outrageous prices don’t usually last.  The same is true for small-town funeral homes, which make up 90% of the industry.

Personally, I think it’s important for honest, trustworthy funeral directors (the vast, vast majority) to stand up for themselves and make sure the true story of funeral service is heard.

 

Responses to Post About Tributes.com

The article I wrote about Tributes.com, titled Serious Money is Coming to Online Obits. And Why it Won’t Work., has generated a lot of discussion lately.  I’d like to share my own thoughts on the words offered by several readers.

Dale Clock, of the Lifestory Network of funeral homes, shares:

…we open the paper and scan them over to see who died.  We aren’t looking for a specific name, we’re looking for a name we might know.  So how do you do that nationwide?  I don’t want to scan every death that happened yesterday.  I’d need to narrow the list down by location. And if the list is incomplete then it’s no good to me.  So unless they can get every paper and/or every funeral home on board it’s not an option for me.

Another reader, Jodi, notes:

Jeff Taylor is a brilliant and innovative individual,(I had the opportunity to visit with him personally) – in his niche. His niche is not funerals. Yes, he changed the face of how people look for a career, and even made what was the standard of job hunting obsolete. Funeral service is a different animal and his customer base…the funeral director / industry is not looking to add to their already high overhead, they are looking to lower it.

Yes – a national achieve would be great, but realistically, even if it was free, I doubt you would find funeral home owners participating.

Both Dale and Jodi run funeral homes on a daily basis.  In her comments, Jodi tells us that she tried to start a similar service when she worked for Lifefiles.com.  Her insight, as a funeral director and past Internet vendor, is unique.

Later, Respectance.com co-founder, Richard Derks, offered his perspective:

Your arguments are totally right from an industry point of view. But I for one, dare to claim that the industry is not always the best to know what their clients need. They might indeed be more concerned with their way of running a business, than with listening and researching the market.

In the end (!), some will embrace us, and these people and companies will be the leaders of tomorrow. Otherwise, there would never have been Starbucks, iPods and wii.

He also shares that I’ve gotten some information about his company wrong.  I researched and found that I misunderstood the venture capital press releases his company has sent to several online news aggregates.  Rather than adding $1.5 millon to their original capital of $250,000, they have merely gathered a TOTAL of $1.5 million to fund their company.  I’ve corrected it in the post.

On his own blog at Respectance.com, he presents his case in a post titled Finally, Embrace New Ideas:

Funeral Home Companies are deciding what people need, and how they will provide the services. They are intractable on this point. It’s all about the profit margin (and as a business person myself I understand profit), but without innovation this industry is being left behind.

There are memorial websites that charge $300-$500 to set up a tribute. Absolutely crazy. At Respectance people do it for free. They control their tributes and a simple Google search lets everyone find the tribute.

Tim points out that at heart we are still small town people. Now I will agree that we might feel like small town people, but most of us don’t live in a small town any more! Many don’t live where they grew up, some move several times as adults and establish friendships and acquaintances throughout the world. We don’t get the daily paper from each town we have friends in.

The premise that we like to peruse obits in the paper may be true, but we don’t get the papers anymore. In this big small world, we get our news instantaneously. Without emails from people I wouldn’t know whether someone had died half way around the world.

Remembering friends and loved ones with online memorials are the way the world is heading. The sooner the old guard in the Funerary Business tune in the farther ahead they will be.

After reading his words here, I knew I had to share an industry perspective with him.  Here’s the comment I left on his blog:

Thank you for your kind words on my blog.  I’m glad you can see the funeral industry’s side on this issue.  As usual, consumers will drive the online memorial market and will do a better job than funeral directors can.

But while you admonish directors for their unwillingness to embrace the global aspects of this issue, it’s important to remember that the funeral industry, at least the nuts-and-bolts part of preparing and burying/cremating the dead, is very much a local industry.  And the majority of funeral homes in this country still deal directly with customers who have known them for years and chosen them based upon a personal relationship.  For that reason, the industry is still very “small town” and will remain so for a long time.

Yes, there is a part of our future that includes living much of life online, but many smaller sized funeral homes are not even on the Internet (either having a website or even having high-speed access!) and don’t see a need for it.

In truth, sites like yours provide a very important service to those who have chosen to make the Internet a part of their everyday life:  you provide the opportunity to share the information and emotions of loss with others who are similarly connected to the Internet.

But your love of the Internet and the amount of time you spend on it cannot simply be transferred, like downloading an iTune, to someone who doesn’t “get it” yet.

There ARE still people who get the newspaper.  Even many Internet-savvy folks in my neighborhood get the digital version of their local paper and peruse the obituaries.

I think one of the biggest issues of Internet connectivity, at least for this industry, is keeping it local.  How do we use the Internet to augment our local connections?  How do we use our websites and online obituaries to connect, as funeral homes, to our community?

I still sense a tone of anger at capitalist funeral directors who expect to make a profit from their work.
Fortunately, I know that money paid for services represents the value a family sees in the time, effort and skill expended on their behalf.  On average, a funeral director spends several years in school and apprenticeship, only to emerge into a profession that pays less than $50,000 a year to work long hours (many, many 2 am trips to the hospital and countless more evenings spent at the funeral home for viewings after long days in the office) and miss major family events.

And if a funeral director is fortunate enough to build up savings and open her own firm, there’s even more responsibility and expenses before any real cash starts flowing.

The business model for a funeral home (and any service business, for that matter) requires a certain amount of work to be done for each dollar made.  Internet companies are able to attract large amounts of investment capital because webservices require a lot less management after an intensive initial setup.

The sad truth for new services like yours is that most funeral directors know how to do their job and they know what pays the bills.  They know that overhead stays the same no matter whether they provide 20 funerals a month or 2 a year.  Because there’s such a big risk involved in negatively affecting the stream of funerals coming in, most directors are slow to change their formulas for success.

Haranguing a funeral director for being “intractable” or warning them that they’ll be “left behind” does not help and will usually, at least among the “old guard” funeral directors I know, elicit a laugh and a dismissing wave of the hand.  After that, you get ignored.

I admire the service you provide for your clientele.  But relying upon funeral directors to spread the word about your service, when there’s no real return on the expenditure of their time, strikes me as foolhardy.

Keep up the good work.  Your service is necessary (evidenced by the number of people who already use it) and beautifully designed.

I certainly hope that Richard understands the angle from which I approach this issue.  I am speaking as a member of the industry, not as a consumer, when I protest the strong words he directs at funeral directors.  I doubt that he is expressing anything more malicious than frustation that the industry is so slow to react.  Unfortunately, Internet technologies have encouraged many businesspeople to expect an immediate response, since such a response is often the case.

But that instantaneous response is mostly driven by consumers, not industry.  Excoriating the funeral industry for sticking with what has worked for 100 years is a lot like banging your head against a brick wall:  they wall is not damaged and you’ve got nothing to show for it but a headache.

I think Respectance.com is a highly-effective consumer site.  Unfortunately, Tributes.com is trying to be an industry-driven site, where revenues are generated from funeral homes.  I wonder if Tributes.com will run their own obituary or if someone will have to set up a Respectance.com memorial for them?

 

American Airlines Needs a Discount Brand

Jodi Clock of the Clock Life Story Funeral Home, responds to my thoughts in the post, Discount Selling and Full-Service Don’t Mix, by saying:

In my opinion I do agree that AA doesn’t know what it wants to be, however I do agree that there is room in the airlines and even with AA for a discount brand or version.Major hotel chains have proven that model Marriott, Courtyard and Fairfield for example. It seems AA’s debacle isn’t brand confusion it’s a cash issue combined with consumer panic. AA are desperately re-acting to gas prices, lack of customers and their bottom line. Sound familiar? How many funeral homes do we see panic and re-act to the competitor,rather than stay on course?

Photo courtesy of Flickr User smenzel

Jodi has a point:  many companies have discount portions of their brand.  However, most have found it necessary to separate their discounted brand.

TED is the discount version of United.  Instead of separate compartments, they have separate fleets.

Courtyard by Marriott is a lower priced version of the famed hotel chain.  But Courtyard’s rooms aren’t housed in Marriott hotels; they’re in separate facilities.

Anderson-McQueen operates their lower-priced Cremation Tribute Center separate from their funeral homes. 

Except at super-mega-dealer properties, General Motors separates their Cadillac and Chevrolet dealerships to reduce confusion between their luxury and discount brands.

And almost every company that offers full-price services and discount versions also keeps their marketing efforts separate.

Ads touting the luxury of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel will neglect to mention the great prices at Hampton Inn, even though both are part of the Hilton family of brands.

When typing your needs into the carfinder at the Lexus website, you will not find a single Toyota or Scion in the search results, even though all three belong to the same megacorporation.

If American Airlines wants to continue appealing to full-price and discount buyers, they’ll need to separate their disparate business models.

It seems to me that the only reason to charge discount fliers more to check a bag is to further alienate them so they will stop buying your product.

Why not simply stop selling to them?

 

Jodi Clock Weighs in on Funeral Homes and the Internet

In this day and age, I can’timagine a business not having at minimum a website, let alone an interactive site that engages clients or potential customers.

At Clock Life Story Funeral Home, we believe in technology so strongly that outside of our several bricks and mortar operations, we have created a separate business where the entire value proposition is 100% online.

Families & friends now come to our primary website www.lifestorynet.com to share a thought or a memory.  They also are invited to visit www.eCrematory.com or the www.Todaycenter.com, which are both websites where consumers can (and do!) drive down the cost of their funeral through actively completing some of the functions they are legally able to complete (a self directed funeral, if you will).

Our website engages thousands of consumers daily and millions throughout the year.

In my opinion, funeral service as a whole has barely scratched the surface embracing technology.  We’re doing a dis-service to families.

In closing, I’ll quote Todd Van Beck and with his infamous Mr. Heefy stories, “nothing has changed the face funeral service since the replacement of the gravity based embalming machine!”, when he was referencing the introduction of www.LifeFiles.com, just one of the pioneering funeral technology companies.  We can not ignore technology!

 

Brian Hanner of Geib Funeral Homes Responds

In a recent post, titled Do Funeral Homes REALLY Need the Internet?, we mentioned the funeral blog of director Brian Hanner of Geib Funeral Homes in Ohio.  Brian read the story and agreed to share his thoughts with us.

He wrote:

Imagine the surprise I got while surfing through the Final Embrace blog to find… my blog referenced. (Gulp)

I thought that a little context would be helpful for those of you debating the “blog or website” topic.

I believe that every business needs a website. It is the modern phone directory for Americans of all ages who have a computer squarely plopped in their kitchen, or bedroom.

For consumers, selecting a funeral director is about relationships. I think for those in funeral service who want to be positioned online and in their community as a provider of responsive, knowledgeable and a nurturing brand of funeral service, that a blog is a perfect compliment to an existing website.

We know that much of the traffic generated on a funeral home’s website is destined for online memorials and obituaries. My hope was that the blog would capture the interest of visitors to the site.

Knowing as well that the visitor to our site has most likely come from another funeral home website, or newspaper obituary listing, that we have to make an excellent impression, or we will be toast in the mind of the consumer.

For the record, we receive about 460 unique visits to our website daily. The top destinations from our tracking software:

1: online obituaries

2: contact us (yes – it is the link in the
top left of the page for EASY/QUICK location)

3: blog

4: Why Choose Geib

5: What to do when death occurs

6: Employment with Geib (note that we are not always seeking applicants, but this does give shoppers another place to peek behind the curtain, and gain an understanding of the culture that we endeavor to maintain.

7: Geib Pet Crematory

8: Geib In Touch (Our community outreach and aftercare calendar of events)

While I can’t point to many additional calls that the blog has secured, it’s early… and like most advertising, will never be cited by consumers as the reason for choosing their funeral care provider.

The blog gets its highest traffic on Monday’s – when all of the working folks return to the office and catch up on the web surfing they didn’t care to do on their own personal time.

Content is posted on about any day that ends in a 2 or a 7 – to ensure a fresh topic with regularity.

Don’t expect readers to get involved on such a public blog. The questions I receive are often personal, and not the type of thing that writers would want to sign their name to on the internet.

Do expect to promote your site – and the blog as part of the site.

Finally, Remember thy audience. These are future/potential customers. It is not the space for blowing off steam, or compromising the integrity of funeral service. I usually resist the temptation to post on personal topics, but made an exception when my daughter was born in October… we reside in a small enough community that news of that nature is welcome – and humanizing. If you visit the blog, click on the “It’s a Girl” thread to see me in scrubs, holding a precious little gal, and beaming… Watch out Rob Heppell

Good Luck Future Bloggers!

You can access all the pages that Brian refers to in his letter by visiting the Geib Funeral Homes website.

 

Spencer Guiley Answers “Do Funeral Home REALLY Need the Internet?”

Spencer commented on the post, Tim and Robin Discuss “Funeral Home Blogging”, and was gracious enough to answer my last question:  Do funeral homes REALLY need the Internet? 

First off, allow me to thank Tim for such a great blog, and for the opportunity to write this post.  I’m not a writer so please bear with me as I try to bring out some points that I believe are important.  I believe that Funeral Homes are just now starting to see the plus in getting a website.  My goal is to make it something that they find useful, something that helps their business.

Since this post is about Blogs and Web Site, let’s look at the meaning of both words:

Blog:   A frequently updated journal or diary—the first thing that pops into mind is: happenings in everyday life: such as….a funny thing happened today as I was driving down Elm St…….

Web Site:  A website collection of pages of text, images, and other files (such as audio) that make up a company online presence.

I would like to take a look first at what a website should be, or is, to a business.

Bill Gates once said: “There are two types of businesses in today’s world.  Those that are failing, and those that have an online presence”.

Your online site is much like a fingerprint—it marks you, and there are parts about each site that are different.  With blogs it is harder to customize it to fit YOU.  With ONE look when you first go to a site you can tell if they are using Blogging software, Front Page (or something close) or if they have a custom, professional website.   A website must FIT you.  If it doesn’t, you won’t have good success with it.

With the World-Wide-Web there has been unlimited possible ways for people to get their message out for others to see.  There is the younger age, “personal” way of blogging it, and there is the professional way of doing it through a traditional website.

Funeral Homes have always been a place of dignity, and a place where respect is given to the family that has lost a loved one.  That dignity must not be thrown out the window for the sake of keeping up with the 21st century or just to save some money.   A professional website speaks of care, and something that takes work, and maybe some money, to put together and keep up.  While a blog is, and can be a lot of work, in most cases it is free (or very low cost), and can’t be customized to where it can be like a fingerprint.

When visiting a business website most people are looking for something pertinent to that field. If you go to a Hotel Website, you are most likely looking for rates, and maybe photos of the rooms. If you go to a Funeral Home website most likely you are looking for an obit, or directions, or to learn more about the place you are interested in making your arrangements.  This is all much more possible, and easier with a website, than a blog.  You can control the inner workings with a website with ease, and you can make it work FOR you and not you for it.

With a website you have much, much more freedom to add, and work on your website to make it reflect YOU. Adding forms, photo galleries, download galleries, video files, email lists, guestbook, calendar, Shopping Cart, and audio files are much easier, and some of those might not even be possible with a blog.  Some blogging software doesn’t allow the owner to have Java script, or Flash.  This isn’t to be something you have to work around…this should be a tool that works for you.
 Since the first blog (I believe the first blog was started in 1997) there has been a place and a time for a person/company to have, and use a Blog.  

Blogs have been and always will be an important item in today’s online world, there is no denying that.  As of Dec. 2007 there was an estimated 112 million blogs.  But the traditional website still has the major role in the online world.  

I feel that in most cases a blog’s usefulness ends at the place of Professional Business.  As I think about it, a blog might be best suited for a Funeral Director.  The Funeral Director can update it with either pertinent information or everyday like facts.  If a link is placed on the Funeral Home website to that blog, that is up to the Funeral Home.   Maybe the best way to mix a blog and a website for a funeral home is the way Dale’s friends at geibfuneral.com do.  I must say I was impressed with the way the blog was integrated into the site.

In the last post by Tim, titled Do Funeral Homes REALLY Need the Internet?, he says:

Does this mean that funeral homes should run out and get the latest, greatest technology, just because the kids have it?  You can answer that for yourself (hint:  NO).

But it does mean that the day is quickly approaching when those 20 and 30 year olds will be deciding which funeral home to use for dad’s service or grandma’s memorial.  And they don’t pick up phone books anymore.

I agree!  The people you are serving today are the ones who use the internet to do their searching.  If you aren’t there….how do they find you? 

I guess my ending line would be: Your site should be YOU.  If YOU and your Funeral Home are more of a tech savvy, updated FH, then blog it baby!

As I type this my company is in the process of developing some new software that will help funeral homes with the issue of websites.  When it is completed I hope to send a sample to Tim and let him check it out and give us his thoughts.  I think he will be impressed with the ease of making, producing, and updating a website.

 

Do Funeral Homes REALLY Need the Internet?

I’ve sparked a bit of a controversy amongst a few readers with my post, Tim and Robin Discuss “Funeral Home Blogging”.  While some of my readers were busy discussing Robin Heppell’s beauty, Spencer took me to task for suggesting that funeral homes could benefit from blogs and not focusing on the need for a regular website.

Dale quickly lept to my defense and reminded Spencer that funeral homes can do good work with both a website and a blog.  He even pointed to his friend, Brian Hanner at Geib Funeral Home who has both.

So which is it?  Are blogs great for certain funeral directors or are they a waste of time?  Can a funeral home operate without any connection to the Internet?  Or will such a firm shrivel up and *poof* cease to exist?

I’ll offer my opinions here, but I caution you to take even my suggestions with a few thousand grains of salt.  Every time I hear someone offer insight in to the future of anything (but especially technology) I’m reminded of those supermarket tabloids that endlessly herald new year’s predictions from some quack astrologist, with the requisite Nostradamus clipart and tales of upcoming death and destruction.

“There will be a huge earthquake in late November that kills 100,000 people!” 
“Balinese woman will give birth to the Anti-Christ!” 
“Major U.S. investment firm will go bankrupt, company sold for pennies on the dollar to maverick cult leader!”

Seems no one has a crystal ball that clearly predicts the future.  So why do we all like to make such predictions?  Because it’s fun!

So here’s my take on technology and the funeral industry.

The Internet is HUGE.  Absolutely mammoth, with billions upon billions of websites webpages touting everything from wigs for cats to organic burial. 

And the Internet isn’t just about selling products; sites like MySpace and Facebook attract millions of visitors each month and have become, for the youngest among us, the #1 destination on the web.  Fact is, while many of us used to hang out behind the gym to catch up with our friends, kids today hang out just as much on their friends’ MySpace pages.

I can already hear the phrase “So what?” coming.  And I can agree, to a point.  Does it really matter that kids today use the Internet to keep in touch with their friends?  Don’t older generations still make telephone calls to stay in touch?

Of course they do, which means funeral homes are perfectly safe from technology changes, right?

Consider, for a moment, the way an elderly person, a middle-aged person, a 30-something person and a 20-something would get a message to a friend living in another state:

ELDERLY:  Write a letter on paper.  Stuff it in an envelope and mail it.  Might call, if it’s important, but won’t want to spend money on long distance call.

MIDDLE-AGE:  Pick up the phone.  Or fax a letter.  Or email.

30-SOMETHING:  Call on the cellphone (many 30-somethings have dropped their home phone line).  Instant message via Internet.  Send an email.

20-SOMETHING:  Text from cellphone/mp3 player/video player.  Send instant message on Internet.  Write post on MySpace blog.  Send friend request on MySpace.  Check out friend’s Facebook account.

To serve elderly or middle-age folks, you’ll just need a phone and a mailing address.  And while the more progressive ones might want to send you an email, most older folks think a computerized message is too impersonal and not appropriate for important communications like funeral arrangements.

But when 20- and 30-somethings routinely use cellphones and text messages to break off a relationship, shop for a car or propose marriage, we have to take notice.

Does this mean that funeral homes should run out and get the latest, greatest technology, just because the kids have it?

You can answer that for yourself (hint:  NO).

But it does mean that the day is quickly approaching when those 20 and 30 year olds will be deciding which funeral home to use for dad’s service or grandma’s memorial.  And they don’t pick up phone books anymore.

An article by Jennifer Bingaman, from the Indepedent Florida Alligator (University of Florida) describes the death of phonebooks for the university crowd:

Andrea Booher owns a phone book, but she never uses it.“It’s a waste of paper,” Booher said.

The 20-year-old aerospace engineering student said she usually uses the Internet when she needs to look something up.

In response to another online article, titled Please Stop Delivery the Phone Book to My House, David says:

I cannot believe advertisers actually still pay to be in it…I would think that throwing my money on the ground with my company named typed on it would be more beneficial to them!

This trend would suggest that funeral homes need at least some presence online, in an Internet Yellow Pages perhaps?, to reach the younger crowd.

But how does anyone search the Internet for a funeral home?  Do they go to a Yellow Page website?  Or do they use a search engine like Google or Microsoft Live! or Yahoo!?

In my opinion, funeral homes need to control their online advertising the same way they control their off-line advertising.  And while funeral homes often cede a lot of control about the way their yellow pages ad looks or the exact structure of an ad in a church bulletin, there’s a lot more control to be had over the look, feel and content of a website.

Of course, this still fails to answer the question:  Does a funeral home need a blog or a website?

So my answer is maybe/maybe not.

Stumped, aren’t you?

To put it more simply, it really depends upon the funeral home.

You should know that I also don’t think every funeral home needs a yellow pages ad.  And many funeral homes have billboards that don’t work for them.  Still others sponsor little league teams when they shouldn’t, while others have an email address they don’t need.

Fact is, many funeral homes can’t even figure out the basics.  Ever seen a truly hideous brochure for a funeral home?  I have.  More likely, you’ve seen a bunch that are boring. 

Brochures, newspaper ads and flyers are meant to be exciting, like Sunday brunch.  Imagine you dress up in your finest clothes, drive down to the local lakeside inn, pay $20-40 each for a scrumptious brunch and find out that the buffet line features nothing but cream-of-wheat, oatmeal and grits. 

You’d be disappointed, right?

The same thing happens when a potential client opens your brochure and sees clunky writing, dark and boring pictures of chairs in your funeral home and a history of you and your firm where they were expecting to find out what you can do for them.

How can we expect that firm, the one that can’t even figure out how to design an effective brochure, to create and maintain a moderately-successful website designed to bring in customers, not scare them away.

Here’s a disappointing experience I had lately:  Searching for contact information for area fire departments for a special project, I got frustrated clicking through page after page to find phone numbers, addresses and email addresses for the organization which had created the website.  In some cases, the contact information was buried three or four pages into the site, with specific clicks on each page required to reach the next blockade.

Funeral home websites are usually just as bad, with multiple clicks required to get to the “Contact Page”.  Even worse, many of these sites are built by high-priced web designers.

But back to the main point:  Do funeral homes REALLY need the Internet?

If they want to succeed in the future, they do.  Of course, using the Internet means figuring out HOW to use the Internet.  Otherwise, spectacular failures lie ahead.

More on this later, as our readers continue to discuss how important both blogs and websites can be in the industry today.

 

Readers Concur: Robin Heppell is Good-Looking

I guess I picked the right picture of Robin from his website based on the comments the post, titled Tim and Robin Discuss “Funeral Home Blogging”, has generated.

Here’s a selection of the things readers have been saying:

“Wow, what a strikingly handsome fellow that Robin Heppell is!”

“He can give me business advice anytime.”

“I feel almost embarassed to say it, but that Mr. Heppell is a strikingly handsome man. Thank you for sharing his picture!”

And for those of you who can’t get enough of Mr. Heppell, here’s another shot:

 

Why Your Firm Needs a Lawyer

A recent email conversation with a Final Embrace blog reader has revealed the age old wisdom that some of us have forgotten:  every business needs an attorney.

This funeral director, who I won’t name until he shares the outcome of the legal matter, asked me for an opinion on whether he should hand over funeral arrangement paperwork (contract, embalming authorization, etc.) to the attorney representing his client family in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Concerned that he might damage his relationship with the client family or be included in the lawsuit himself, he wanted to figure out what to do as quickly as possible, so as to lessen any impact it might have on his community standing.

Unfortunately, the issue was clouded by the law firm which requested, in addition to these documents, that the funeral home lower their bill (for services already provided) by almost 20%. 

The director was, at least in my mind, rightfully unsettled by this request, as he did not cause the death and had a signed contract for the services he provided at the price he quoted.  (I think that the attorney is trying to either free up money to fund his own work or wants to look like he accomplished something for the family to justify his fee.  If he/she operates a “no fee unless you recover money” type practice, this reduction of the funeral service bill might qualify as a “recovery.”)

But because I am not a legal scholar, I suggested that he get an attorney immediately. 

Let’s face it, if a client family turns over their affairs to a lawyer or one of those “consumer reporters,” it’s time for you to add a similar layer of support to your firm. 

Just remember, the best time to choose an attorney is NOT when you need one.  Take some time to audition lawyers now, before you need one.  And make sure you find one who can be there when you need him/her.  Because lawsuits, “Action News Reports” and angry families don’t happen when your schedule is most conveniently organized.

 

Michelle Carter Answers Dale Clock

A recent article, “Is the Future Really So Grim?” by Michelle Carter elicited a reasoned response from Dale Clock of the Life Story Network of funeral homes.  Here’s how Michelle responded to his remarks:

I agree with what you’ve said- it is going to be a challenge. I am a bit familiar with the Life Story network, and it seems as though our philosophies and the services we offer are quite similar.

As for the impact all of this work and innovation is having on funeral directors, I think we’re going to have to find a balance between what we’re willing and able to do on our own, what we can farm out, and what we’re simply not able to do.

Here in NY, it’s both a blessing and a curse that we’re not legally allowed to serve food or drinks in the funeral home. Organizing a reception for me usually just involves a few phone calls.

I served my residency at an independent firm that handled nearly 600 calls the year I was there. I was on call 6 days/week. I lost count of the number of 12+ hour days I put in, got called out in the middle of the night, only to get little sleep and do it all over again.

We were fortuante enough to have a phenomenal office staff who did a lot of the more time-consuming clerical work, like scanning photos for tributes, ordering supplies, etc.

Now I don’t have that luxury, and I think most of us are in the same boat. We really are going to have to weigh what services we’re willing to offer, can handle offering, and whether the return is worth it. While I may choose to promote certain offerings over others, my families are aware that we can accomodate most requests, or offer a reasonable or even better substiution.

Having to do more with less is a trend that isn’t unique to our industry. After all, we no longer get meals on airline flights, we check out our own items at the grocery store, and fewer social workers are handling a more extensive caseload, etc., etc.

There’s no reason funeral directors have to do more than we’re able or willing to do. If you can’t stand video tributes or hate making memorial candles, then don’t.

But if you don’t offer it, someone else will.

I attended visitation at another funeral home not long ago for a family friend. The deceased’s daughter-in-law had recently lost one of her parents, and she had a DVD tribute made at the funeral home local to her family.

When my family friend died, his family used that other funeral home to create a DVD for this man. Sure, it was less work for the funeral home handling the funeral, but it also meant less revenue. Even worse, when impressed mourners told the family they enjoyed watching the tribute (on a TV the family brought from home), the family members often replied, “Yes, we got it from XYZ Funeral Home, isn’t it great?”

I agree that we’re moving from a merchandise-based industry to an experience-based one but it’s not going to happen overnight. The only way to do it, however, is to do it, and let people see it and appreciate it.

After all, we didn’t move from home-based funerals to funeral home-based funerals overnight either. There were a few families who gave the funeral home a shot, and it was only from others seeing it done, that they concept began to spread.

So yes Dale, I’d say we’re in for quite a ride.