…The problem is cowardice!!
There, it’s been said. Plain and simple: We have been unwilling to stand up for what we believe and now we are not sure we believe it any more. After all how long can you get beat up and still try to stand? So, instead of taking a stand we assume the “Bunny Rabbit” Position: we blame them. Society is going downhill. It’s not our fault. If they just understood… We are victims of society’s decline. And there it is… in a nutshell…we have come to see ourselves as victims.
Why do funeral professionals spend so much time fighting among themselves and never fighting for themselves? Why is so much time spent on fence building only to find ourselves fenced out instead of in? Why is so much emotional energy spent on not-losing-a-call and none spent on getting 5 more calls? Why so much antipathy among funeral directors and cemeterians? Why, so much anger toward the public “who doesn’t understand us” and no attempt to stand up for ourselves? Why obsess about the handful of families who don’t appreciate us like we would like while we ignore the dozens of families who sincerely appreciate how we have helped them? We have become “approval junkies!”
Everywhere I go I find funeral directors burned out, frustrated and in emotional pain. But I don’t find many who are willing to take responsibility and take a stand. We are confused and belittled by the growing rejection we feel when people “opt out”. But, I have come to believe that we are only telling stories to ourselves that we have never verified. Stories that help us explain what is happening to us. Stories that position us as victims and explain away our responsibility to fight for ourselves. These made-up stories, unfortunately, are self destructive and, worse yet, self fulfilling. We wonder why society seems to be rejecting, more and more, what we believe in and what we do for a living. Yet, who are we allowing to tell our story? We are so addicted to our “Mr. Nice Guy” image and so afraid of offending just one person that we allow people like Jessica Mitford and Lisa Carlson and a plethora of ill informed journalists to tell our story for us. In fact, I have come to believe we no longer know what our story is. Adding insult to injury, our behavior suggests that we agree with the stories our enemies (YES, they are enemies) are promoting and we must, in fact, be the type of people they say we are.
For more than thirty years funeral directors have told me that they are uncomfortable telling strangers what they do for a living so they “euphamize” their responses to hide their vocation. “it gets awkward,” they say. Or, “people don’t like to talk about it.” I have come to believe it is they who are awkward about it. I am personally proud to be associated with this profession. I believe we make a real contribution to society. So, when people ask me what I do I tell them I am in the funeral industry. In all these years that disclosure has never once resulted in awkwardness or discomfort. Many of my local friends have no idea what my true background is. They assume I am a funeral director. You know what? That’s OK with me. In fact, in almost every instance the individual who asks me what I do engages conversationally with questions or stories and frequently those close by get involved. My conclusion: PEOPLE HAVE QUESTIONS, THEY WANT TO KNOW MORE.
In the Christian World there is something called “Apologetics”. I have often thought that an unfortunate word. It connotes that we are apologizing for the faith. Nothing could be further from the truth. A Christian Apologist is someone who DEFENDS THE FAITH. They stand strong and they stand up. If you want a debate they will take you on. Where are the Funeral Apologists?
Many years ago I was exposed to a statement that literally changed my life:
“You are where you are…because that is where you want to be!”
What that means to me is that we, alone, are responsible for impacting our lives. No one can afford to be a victim. Yes, I recognize there is comfort in a victim mentality. But there sure isn’t any hope in it. If you look closely at our critics you will find they are either opportunists or they are bullies and frequently both. You can tell this because the support they offer for their opinions (and they are rarely more than opinions) is too often anecdotal. More important, they almost exclusively focus on attacking character. It is well known among debating circles that when an opponent attacks your character it means they have no substantive support for their position.
The average sale in our profession has been in steady decline in terms of real dollars since 1997. Today’s profit margins are literally half what they were 30 years ago and if we calculated profits over time in terms of “real” dollars it would be fractional. WAKE UP! If you think people will like you because you are their doormat (which they don’t) they will like you a whole lot less when you are a public failure. Your livelihood is in jeopardy. Your wife and your family’s livelihood is in jeopardy. What do you want? Platitudes? Website pictures of your overbuilt facility? A new hearse? The false comfort of a victim mentality? Or…. would you rather see the sales curve stop going down and start going up?
Call to Action: Let’s stop fighting among ourselves and start fighting for ourselves.
Next Week: Some steps that will take us there. I become a Funeral Apologist
Wow! Every funeral professional needs to read this, print it out and keep it on their desk as a reminder. Great message Alan.
Alan,
Great observation, Alan.
Through 160 years of tradition, unaffected by progress, we find ourselves in defensive/reactionary mode. While society walks around with iPhones in their pockets, we proudly show off our rotary phone hanging on the wall.
Our apologists have either lost their lives or lost their stage. There is a great, national void there.
Many of us have looked outside of funeral service with varying degrees of success, but it takes a huge, concerted effort to change the course of a river I look forward to reading about your solutions.
Right on Alan!! More power to you as you continue to carry that Funeral Apologist mantle!
Wow Alan,
Great article with an MRI into the mind of the funeral director/owner! Many funeral directors believe that they are where they are, “because we have been here for over 100 years”. A firm will do almost anything to keep a call, but still does not understand how to get a call! A Call: the basis on which we judge ourselves! It is our inward pride that we have one more call. When will this great profession get out of the box and know that their success is going to be measured by how we adjust to the NEW buyers? The Boomer is not going to be loyal but is willing to pay for what they want, not what the funeral firm wants. That is one reason we see that competition is eating up the old carriage business. Have we lost our edge? Do we continue to pay our dues?
Tim Hougenkamp would do a seminar on “Would I call me?”.
We need to get back to looking inward to what we do and ask families what they want, not just offer what we have.
I know your artilcle will wake a few up. There are still many in Rip Van Winkle mode!
Excellent article. I run into the same in my profession, pastor. Yet, shouldn’t we be proud of who we are called to be. It took courage to write what you did. I don’t know you, but am proud of you! Blessings
Alan;
I just shared your commentary with the staff at lunch. You are correct; many, probably most funeral directors are wimps!
I keep preaching the difference between transaction (what a cremation society may do) and experience (what we do). Once they know this, then they can communicate the same to a family. Once properly and passionately communicated to a family they know and appreciate the value of “experience” and prefer it over the low standard of simply a “transaction”.
Most families are telling us that lowest price is not their ultimate goal; most families want to know that we believe in what we do!
AMEN!
Alan,
Hearing you speak at the annual ICCFA convention several years ago, I was struck by your ability to research, analyze, draw logical conclusions and clearly articulate for this industry what those meant. Now I thank you for your willingness to confront weakness and to hold high a standard so deservedly worth holding high.
Not too long ago Americans viewed a “victim mentality” as unacceptable, even shameful, rather than tolerable or understandable. The national attitude embraced the “struggle and conquer in the face of difficulty.” I’m not attempting to wax poetic. Rather, I want to draw attention to the response being generated by your having taken a stand to struggle and conquer this wrong. It obviously impacts those that hear it. Many just need to be reminded what that looks like, and the right emotions it stirs when somebody stands up to fight a fight worth fighting.
Thank you for embracing and exemplifying real “traditional” American values and leading from the front. This industry needs a rallying and that takes somebody taking the lead in teaching this industry how to communicate. I say this not as a funeral director, but as a leading provider of the modern communication tool so many funeral professionals use to make their first impression upon shoppers with — so I am intimately acquainted with the character of the messaging currently visible in the market place, which begins to shape the next experience shoppers will have with a funeral home and the industry. That is why I believe this industry needs to hear what you have to say, and hear it repeatedly until it sinks in. If “repetition is the best form of emphasis,” then please keep repeating your battle cry until it becomes the new overall emphasis in what is one of America’s most wonderful industries. Because I want deathCARE to still exist 20 years from now, even if the national average is 100% cremation.
Please just write a book about the “Industry.”
[…] and actually embrace victim mentality. I realized from some of the comments to last weeks post, “The Problem is Not Cremation”, that a few of those who responded had given in and given up. So, rather than begin this series […]
I explained to you a couple of weeks ago that I was a fan of yours and this type of article is the reason. You are real, the problems are real and the industry is asleep or living in yesteryear. Great article!!
[…] and actually embrace victim mentality. I realized from some of the comments to last weeks post, “The Problem is Not Cremation”, that a few of those who responded had given in and given up. So, rather than begin this series […]
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