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Author: Alan Creedy

Expert Opinion: The Need to Be Nimble

Written by Alan Creedy on . Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Practitioner Forum: Insights and Ideas. 2 Comments on Expert Opinion: The Need to Be Nimble

Earlier this year Rick Baldwin used a comment by famed hockey player, Wayne Gretzky, in his post: “How To Be Exceptional In The New Normal”.  Here Bruce Buchanan, CEO of The Buchanan Group adds his perspective to Rick’s.

Bruce Buchanan

As funeral professionals we are torn by two forces when we take on a client. One, we are asked to care for the body. In some cases, make it look realistic for grieving purposes. And two, we are asked to create a celebration of a life lived. These are clearly two different skill sets. And because they are so different we have a public that is sometimes confused by the “one size fits all” nature of the funeral home business model. Oh, did I forget to mention the religious component?

I assume you used the Wayne Gretsky quote because it illustrated his willingness to take risks. I would add another reason why he and other world-class athletes and businesses are successful. Nimble. The ability to change when conditions call for it. In the business world IBM is a good example of being nimble. It transformed itself from a maker of computer hardware into a consulting business. Isn’t the funeral business simply transitioning from a ritual based into an individualized service model?

This nimbleness applies to every aspect of our business. There was a popular phrase used a lot over the past decade – WOW.   If we WOW our clients we will know what we did right. To do this we need to start with a blank slate with every family we serve.

I believe that funeral businesses will start to diversify to meet the expectations of the distinct consumer groups that exist. The “lowest-cost” consumer will look for cremation and burial packages through businesses that embrace them. Yes, existing strong brands in a community will have their loyal following, though that number will deteriorate. The opportunity is the other 80% of the market that will seek a funeral experience that matches the value they see in it. The current challenge is to capture the aspects of the funeral service that is currently going to other providers, like caterers.

So, in the spirit of a current beer commercial –“stay nimble my friend.”

Bruce Buchanan is CEO of The Buchanan Group Indianapolis, In.

 

The Real Victims of Our Cowardice

Written by Alan Creedy on . Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 13 Comments on The Real Victims of Our Cowardice

In the past few weeks I have used strong negative language:

Cowardice…Fight… Neglect  

Please understand: this is not an emotional reaction on my part.  Instead, it is an intentional effort to call you out.  And it is this “intentionality” that I encourage you to undertake as well.  It is time we, as a profession, called out our “NaySayers” and detractors, our “doom and gloomers.”

Have I made you angry?  I cannot say I am sorry.  You should be angry.  At least I have created some emotion and out of that emotion may come some resolve and out of that resolve may come some action.

This past two weeks have taught me the difference between sadness and discouragement.

Thankfully, I am not discouraged.  But I am sad.  Very sad.  And sadness has an effect…an enervating effect.

I am feeling your pain.

That pain comes from having the answers to your client’s questions but facing an increasing number of people who are less and less interested in answers.  I have that same pain.  In most instances, I know what needs to be done to turn a business around.  A bold statement? Really?  In most instances, you know what needs to be done to best help a family.  Likewise, my experience and training enable me to know what needs to be done to solve most business problems.  In my case, if it is a parallel, our profession seems fixated on a direction that, for more than 30 years, has produced only more of the same…decline.  I have learned that tact and diplomacy can work; but not often.  So, I have chosen a tactic that I think you should adopt as well: Boldness.  After all, most of you have lost so much ground that you can only gain.

My sadness comes from the awareness that I can’t win them all.  My optimism, though, comes from my unwillingness to give up.  My willingness to fight for what I believe.  From the cold, stark fact that I know that if I give in (even just a little bit) the battle is lost.  More important, though, is the experience that the more I am willing to take a stand the more I win…some.

Never, Never, Never...Give Up

When someone attacks your profession you should be willing to stand up and defend it.  Whether you chose to be a DeathCare Professional or you inherited it, you are in it.  So, make the best of it.  Misery and embarrassment are pathetic alternatives.

How To TurboCharge Your Marketing

There is a principle in marketing…a turbocharger, if you will.

“When a product / service is becoming a commodity You can differentiate yourself by letting people know what you stand for”

Unfortunately, most DeathCare providers are too timid to take bold stands.   Bold enough, at least, to differentiate themselves in the market place.  Instead, they create sanitized vision and mission statements for hanging in lobbies that are quickly forgotten and largely ignored.  In fact, most vision and mission statements are so sanitized they are commodities themselves.

Steve McKee in his video interview on Narrowing Your Focus says we should never say we are better.  Instead we should say we are…different.

I challenge my clients and their staffs to do some real soul searching and develop a “Statement of Beliefs”.   Yes, I can hear you now:  “Could we see a sample?”  No!  A Statement of Beliefs has to be individual, real and personal to your firm.  You can’t borrow someone else’s and just “stamp” it on your door.  There has to be total buy in.  It is built through a process.  But here are a few of the questions I use to stimulate the process:

  • Do you really believe the quality of casket defines the value of the funeral?
  • Do you really believe that increasing the average sale price of caskets is going to save your business?
  • Do you really believe every 95 year old alzheimer patient who has lived in a nursing home for 3 years needs a full visitation, funeral, procession and graveside service?
  • Do you really believe that the family and friends of a 62 year old “pillar of the community” popular local businessman and former mayor are going to be well served by a direct cremation?
Here, also, is my personal Statement of Beliefs:
  • I believe every life has value
  • I believe every life deserves to be commemorated in a meaningful way
  • I believe those whose lives have been touched in positive ways both want and need a physical way to be comforted and / or to comfort
  • I believe that most people still perceive the dead body of those they love as a sacred object deserving of reverent care whether or not they are religious people
  • I believe that the best and most natural way to comfort one another is physically, in person, with touch and voice
  • I believe that some people need a permanent place to memorialize
  • I believe DeathCare makes a valuable contribution to society by providing a formal, socially recognized physically present means for comfort, affirmation and encouragement, in whatever form they choose, coincident with the time of a death.
  • I believe most DeathCare providers are good people who are capable of learning the basics of good business and management practices

I have put a lot of time and thought into these recent articles.  It is not my purpose to persuade you or to give you false hope.

But it is my hope that some of you will decide to become intentional and bold in your own efforts.

That some of you will begin to take a public stand for your profession.

That some of you will think deeply about what it is we contribute to those we serve and why our society will be worse off if it abandons what we offer.

Then, in your own words…for god’s sake…express yourself.  Be proud of what you do and the contribution you make to your community.  Let others see that pride.  Let the chips fall where they may.  The results will probably surprise you.

The next time you are out socially and someone blows you off by saying, “Oh, I’m just going to be cremated and have my ashes scattered.”   Are you willing to say, “Ya know, I realize that’s become popular but I’m not good with that any more and I would like to tell you why.”  Then tell your stories (I know you have them).  Make it non economic.  Speak to the heart not the head.  You may not win them over but you never had them in the first place.  So how you can you lose something you never had.  Yes, you do run the risk of alienating someone.  But something I have learned in 40 years of adult life:  There are, in fact, people who don’t like “Truth Tellers”.  and, you know what?  They just happen to be the people you don’t want to know anyway.  Then, when you have become comfortable with that experience begin challenging the direct disposition customers in the arrangement conference.  Remember challenge is different than confront.

Because The Real Victims of Our Cowardice (borne out of our neurotic desire to be liked by people that probably don’t like us any way) are the people we have pledged to help.

One Last Time:

Your livelihood is at stake!!  What do you want?? Do you want me to tell you it’s someone else’s fault?  Or do you want to get in there and fight for yourself and those you love?

“lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees; make straight paths for your feet…”

Hebrews 12:12-13a

“The noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands”

Isaiah 32:8

Expert Opinion: Game Changers

Written by Alan Creedy on . Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 3 Comments on Expert Opinion: Game Changers

Rick Baldwin

Game-changers are those events that intervene in our lives, on athletic fields, and in our businesses that forever change everything.

In our personal lives we identify marriages, deaths, and moving to a new city as the easiest examples of game-changers.  In baseball, a homerun changes everything. In business, innovation is the most thought-of example.  Look at Sony [and digital photography] or Apple [and their iPads and iPhones]. And speaking of digital photography, that innovation was certainly a game-changer for Kodak, too.

Sometimes, however, an unmet wish that customers have about the current status quo will change the game. This is especially true in fundamental businesses like ours. Starbucks changed the way coffee is served, even though coffee has been served the same way for years.  SouthWest changed the airline industry, even though airplanes and airports are the same. Since the 1920s, every house in America has had a bathtub because Sears sold cleanliness.

And what about funeral homes and cemeteries, where we are accustomed to things staying the same for generations, or when they do change, having the changes carried on the backs of snails?  Are we, too, being slapped with some express game-changers?

Reflecting on this point, I believe as an industry [lumping together funeral providers and sepulcher suppliers] we are in the mid-innings of a game-changer right now.  Here’s my evidence:

  • Over-capacity: Look around. Most funeral homes could easily perform twice as many funerals as they do now.  The hearse runs two hours per week.  Cemeteries still measure their undeveloped lands in acres [that are mostly a big non-producing asset], when those vacant corners near the front gate are the most valuable of all.  And all those anchors add layers of unavoidable cost.
  • Mature consolidation:  The big funeral guys already own most of the major brands in the country’s metro and growth areas, and don’t have any good prospects to buy more. Yesterday’s flagships are struggling with margins, their historic names long ago milked of their original brand values, and most of those formerly esteemed community stalwarts are now losing market share. The new ones they can acquire, scattered here and there, are generally small and don’t add much value.
  • Profitability challenges:  I sold my shares in Stewart Enterprises for $6.10 per share in 2001.  Friday, those same shares traded at $6.26 [more than 10 years later!].  And STEI is not suffering alone. The other publicly traded funeral companies have found it difficult to grow their share prices.  I speculate that their trading prices have stagnated due to narrow capacity to cut their costs, to increase retail prices, or to acquire large and agile operators.
  • Limited opportunity for personnel:  Industry owners must find fresh ways to align shareholder and employee welfares. Corporate directors cannot expect employees to work against their own best interests.  Board rooms must engage local management and pay them to build shareholder value, and then pay them a bonus when it materializes. A message similar to that sent by the ‘Arab Spring’ will need to be heard in the big chairs.
  • Most industry participants haven’t noticed: Interestingly, all over the country, business owners are acting as if nothing has changed. Their commercial models are the same ones employed by their grandfathers. At the same time, the memorial preferences of their customers bear little resemblance to those of their grandfathers’ customers.
  • New eyes are looking for opportunities, building on the back of the old and failing model: As over-capacity lingers, consolidators struggle with shareholder value, margins compress, employees struggle with employer loyalty, and board rooms ignore marketplace realities, new eyes are seeing opportunity. Be on the lookout for emerging industry names that you’ve never heard of before – ones that don’t carry the old baggage.

Yep, this writer thinks we are seeing the acknowledgment of a number of powerful game-changers that are likely to create unparalleled opportunity during the next ten years, as the innovative replaces the obsolete.

Let me know your thoughts on changing the game in our town. Write to me at rbaldwin@urgelborugie.com.

Sincerely yours,

 

The Secret Sauce: How We Might Resurrect DeathCare

Written by Alan Creedy on . Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 17 Comments on The Secret Sauce: How We Might Resurrect DeathCare

Is it possible that in some markets people no longer care?

In this series on Funeral Apologetics I have pointed out that our real problem is cowardice and have endeavored to share some techniques that might help the profession fight for itself.  Several very thoughtful individuals (whom I also admire) have suggested that, in their market at least, people simply don’t care anymore.   In their opinion, the best that can be hoped for is to do more volume on a shrinking sales average.  But, I would ask: “Is it that people don’t care? Or, is it that people don’t care the way we think they should care?”

I need to make clear that my optimism on this subject springs not from rose-colored glasses.

  • Are we becoming irrelevant?  Possibly
  • Are our margins shrinking? Yes
  • Are we losing ground with every passing day? Yes
  • Do we know what we need to do? No
  • Is there a single solution? No
  • Is there any solution? I believe so, if we fight for it.

But this is not to dismiss the reality that the struggles and challenges faced on a daily basis by our profession, which confronts an increasingly disengaged customer, are both real and acute.  I am not suggesting that impacting this trend will be easy or quick.  It took us 30 years of neglect to get here.  Why should we expect overnight success?  That is specifically why I continue to use a “Fight” metaphor.  Because being passive is not working!  And doing nothing is cowardice.

What we believe and why we believe it is critical to our hope and foundational to our solution.  If we believe that people see us as irrelevant without exploring what lies behind that phenomenon then it ultimately becomes reality.  If we believe no one cares then…ultimately…no one will care.  Not because they aren’t wired to care but because they never knew why they should do some of those irrelevant things that…oddly…happen so spontaneously in tragic public and celebrity deaths.  

So, as painful as it is, it is up to us to care and to care very deeply.  And for us to care we must believe.

UNLESS someone like you

cares a whole awful lot, 

nothing is going to get better.

It’s not.

Dr. Seuss

Cognitive Dissonance

We all struggle with cognitive dissonance. But I seem to have an overdeveloped awareness of this human reaction.  Cognitive dissonance occurs when something happens in your experience that doesn’t fit your belief system or the facts as you know them.  What I believe and Why I believe it are tied directly to this Cognitive Dissonance.

First, A Parallel Example

More than ten years ago I began sharing the very distinct parallels between the “Megachurch” Phenomenon and trends in DeathCare.  I have often recommended that practitioners study local megachurches to better understand funeral trends.  The supposed “innovations” of video tributes, unconventional music and participatory services all have their genesis or at least their early signals in the “Megachurch” movement.

But here is the parallel that speaks to the issue of the decline of funeral service:  In mainline denominational churches, even today, across North America pastors and deacons are convinced that there is a decline in spirituality in America.  After all, you read about it all the time.  They struggle to fill the pews.  They compromise their standards to keep members and entice new members.  All to no real avail.  They conclude: “People just aren’t religious anymore.”

YET...and here is the cognitive dissonance…non denominational megachurches are exploding and growing to congregational sizes unimaginable 30 years ago.  More important, these new churches place GREATER demands and expectations on members than mainline denominations would ever dare.  People are excited to attend, they bring friends, they attend bible studies and compulsory home fellowships.  The message on Sunday is often stronger and more convicting.

What gives?

Some 40 years ago a young man by the name of Bill Hybels, struggling with the decline in church membership, did not say: “People aren’t religious any more.”  Instead, he began to study those who were not attending.  He found that they were looking for greater meaning, purpose and commitment…not less.

Now, the danger in drawing your attention to this parallel is the temptation to look at the cosmetics of this phenomenon and decide it’s about buildings or programs.  Those of you who are faith driven will at least know that the Holy Spirit had a significant leadership role.  But, I don’t have the time to go into the real drivers of the megachurch movement nor is this the place anyway.

Cognitive Dissonance in DeathCare

People point to the growth of the Celebrant movement in DeathCare as proof of the decline in religion.  Yet every celebrant I have spoken with tells me the majority of families ask for scripture and hymns even for someone who has never been to church.  Cognitive Dissonance.

When a celebrity like Princess Dianna, Michael Jackson, Elvis and Whitney Houston dies the spontaneous outpouring of emotion and the need to gather as a community takes on surreal proportions.  The need to permanently memorialize is deeply felt by people who don’t have the remotest personal connection to the family or the deceased.   Cognitive Dissonance.

When tragic deaths occur like the Virginia Tech Massacre or a high school driving accident, kids and their parents…the whole community… spontaneously pour out of their homes to comfort each other and total strangers with a touch a word…tears.  Cognitive Dissonance.

So, if people no longer care, if religion is dying why do these things happen?

My belief is that god has wired us to need to gather, to physically comfort and touch when we are stressed.  This is the NORMAL response.  Whatever need is satisfied by gathering…affirmation, love, comfort…it is only satisfied physically in the community of others.  There is also comfort in having a sense of what we can do and / or should do that restores some order out of the chaos.  And when there is a loss, we feel that loss needs permanent memorialization.  These are not “Madison Avenue” inventions.  They are human needs.  Real needs…Real values.   Today, If they go unmet, in most cases, the outcome is no longer traumatic.  But if they are met the outcome is much, much better.

THAT, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what we do!!

THAT is the contribution we make to society!!

So, how do we become a megachurch?  Well, I hope you don’t try.  Too many mainline churches have sent missions to study megachurches only to return with the building plans and programs while completely missing the drivers.  We have to ask and then answer our own questions and that is what “Fighting For Yourself” is about.  If no one cares anymore, why do people need to gather, call, visit?  If religion is declining why do families ask Celebrants to incorporate scripture and hymns?  etc. etc.

We have accepted as truth something that isn’t true: “People don’t care any more.” Think of it this way:  If we walk into a room and flick on the light switch and the lights don’t come on we assume that something is broken…the lightbulb, the breaker, the switch.   We do not assume that the nature of electricity has changed and it no longer lights a light bulb.  DeathCare meets a need in human beings.  It corresponds with basic…fundamental…human values.

I don’t think that people no longer care.  I am not willing to accept that as a universal premise.  Instead, I think they have become disconnected from their need and from their values.  They are confused…and we are confused…about how to meet those needs and values and the options they have for expression.  Imagine, for a moment what it would feel like if your spouse of 50 years died and no one acknowledged it.  I think it might make you bitter.

Marketing Strategist, Steve McKee, Says: “Whenever there is confusion in the marketplace it means there is a misunderstanding.”  In my experience, whenever there is confusion in the marketplace there are plenty of people willing to jump in and straighten it out.  As far as I can see most of the people jumping in right now are not focusing on real human values.  They are opportunists.  They are only focusing on the economics.  Probably because that’s easy.  But it’s also temporary.

It’s your livelihood.  Are you willing to fight for it?

Our challenge is not to convince People but to reconnect them.  

Our task is not to lower our expectations but to raise theirs.

The MegaChurch Success: A hint

Megachurches are often thought to have been “Built and people just came.”  I know something about this movement.  You are not going to find a successful megachurch that wasn’t built with a heavy emphasis on prayer, personal sacrifice and hard work.  and so it will be for us.  But the real secret-sauce is their ability to connect people with Purpose and Values.   There is a direct parallel in DeathCare.  But I will let you, dear reader, stew on that…at least for a while.

The Problem is Not Cremation

Funeral Apologetics 101: Stop Clinging To Your Despair

Funeral Apologetics 101A: 8 Principles of Successful Optimism

Disenthrall Yourself of Your Dogma

Don’t Confuse Me With Your Facts

Don’t Confuse Me With Your Facts

Written by Alan Creedy on . Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 1 Comment on Don’t Confuse Me With Your Facts

Apologists must be aware of 4 generally accepted fallacies:

  1. Consumers think in a well-reasoned rational way
      1. In fact, emotions are closely interwoven with the reasoning process.  Most often they are dominant.
  2. Consumers can readily explain their behavior and thinking
      1. 95% of our thinking is unconscious.  Our rational mind serves mainly to make sense of behavior AFTER it is executed
  3. Consumer’s memories accurately represent their experiences
      1. In fact, consumers memories represent what they think about their experiences not the experiences themselves
  4. Consumers think in words
      1. We think in terms of images.  If I say the word “dog” you do not call to mind a biological description of a dog.  Instead, you bring to mind a picture of a dog.  And your dog is likely to be different from my dog

We Make Choices With Our Emotions…

We Explain Those Choices With Our Intellect

So we THINK consumers make choices and decisions with their rational faculties when, instead, they make them with their hearts.  We think (and, frankly, they think) they draw an imaginary “pro” and “con” chart and make the best decision based on The Facts.  When, in fact, they are rationalizing a choice already made in the subconscious.

Our emotions, by definition, are unconscious.  So, our challenge, as an Apologist, is to speak to those emotions.  So, never argue the facts, the evidence or try to be rational.  The doorway to this soul is stories.   And, if you have been in practice for long, you have lots of stories.

Your objective is not to persuade but to challenge their thinking.  My friend, Bob Speaks, insists on sharing all options with every customer.  I think this is why he is effective.   His professionalism dictates that he enable people to make informed choices by understanding all their options.  Epiphanies are not uncommon and you know this because you experience the same thing when people say to you:  “We didn’t know we could do that.”

The arrangement conference is not the best place for these conversations because it is typically emotionally charged and barriers tend to be up.  But, that is the hand we are dealt.  This is where the risk comes in.  But, let’s assume you are working with a family that is resistant and closed.  What have you really got to lose?  Most likely they don’t like you any way.  The damage is done so how is “damage control” going to help?  Why not stand up for yourself and share what you believe?

On the other hand industry veterans often recognize resistance as a challenge they need to rise to.

VIPS:

Valuable, Important, Permission, Story

My friend, William Bonacorda, shared a concept with me I have found works in awkward situations.  In a situation where two parties might disagree and there is resistance and tension I have learned to remind myself of these 4 steps.

Valuable: Acknowledge that their perspective is valuable and, in fact they are valuable.   “You know, a lot of people feel that way and even though I am in the profession I can relate.  I appreciate your sharing your viewpoint.”  Is a good opener.

Important: Acknowledge that the topic is important, not only to you and them but to their family and friends.  “Even though more and more people are choosing alternative services it is important that we work through the issues and understand WHY we make the choices we make.  Since we only get to make these choices once, it is important that we at least become aware of the options available to us.”

Permission: Ask permission to share.  Most will say yes, but if they say no, then that’s it.  “Would it be ok if I shared why I chose this profession?  I get a lot of personal gratification from helping families and I feel that if I could share that people might understand me better.”  You have personalized the issue in this case.  You have also made yourself vulnerable which many  people will interpret as trustworthiness.  Which, hopefully, you are.”

Story: This is where I put them in the picture by telling stories; and you have hundreds.  “I chose this profession because I think it makes a very significant contribution to society.  When a death occurs people, including friends and coworkers, are often stressed.  They don’t know what to do.  They anticipate it will be expensive… and it can.  But it doesn’t have to be.  They worry about losing emotional control.

My job is to bring order out of this chaos and restore a sense of dignity.  It saddens me that people are choosing to avoid it all, not because it is my livelihood but because we are wired to need human interaction in times like these.  And I get to see families and friends every year that have to suffer the consequences of poor choices.  In times of stress people need the comfort of others.  Both physically and emotionally.  We need to be touched and we need to touch others.  Let me give you an example, [fill in your own story].”

It is not my intent to create a script.  But I have found this process effective.  I know many of my readers have found effective techniques or approaches and it would be appreciated if you felt like sharing.

 

The Problem is Not Cremation

Funeral Apologetics 101: Stop Clinging To Your Despair

Funeral Apologetics 101A: 8 Principles of Successful Optimism

Disenthrall Yourself of Your Dogma

 

Disenthrall Yourself of Your Dogma

Written by Alan Creedy on . Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 6 Comments on Disenthrall Yourself of Your Dogma

“The Dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.  The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.  We must disenthrall ourselves, and we shall save our country.”

                                       Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress 1862

We are held captive to our own dogma: “The only good funeral is a ‘traditional’ funeral.'”  (Except, we no longer know what a traditional funeral is.)  “Healing can only occur when the body is present.” is yet another.  We hold so tightly to these truths that we consider them to be self-authenticating and sustaining.  If people would just accept these things as we know them they would see the error of their ways.  While Our dogma may, in fact, be true and accurate it is “now inadequate to our stormy present.”  

Instead, we must see our role as expanding the world view of our clients.  In their world view the evidence is not self sustaining.  After all: “Jim Smith’s body wasn’t present when we went to his memorial service and no one seemed to be hurt.”  It is our job to understand that we must begin with their preconceptions.  My friend, Paul Seyler, points out that the best way to disrupt someones preconception is to surprise them.  But we make another mistake when we imagine that we know what their preconceptions are.  In listening to funeral directors it seems that there is widespread belief among the profession that the public sees funerals as irrelevant, too expensive, unnecessary, etc.  But, in truth, at the individual level, we don’t know that.  So, preparing a defense along those lines will frequently fail.

When we encounter resistant people it is always tempting to tell ourselves stories to explain what is happening.  Our failure to verify those stories is what leads us down unsuccessful paths.  Second to the apologists command of his subject matter is his / her ability to listen and probe.  To set the context and lead the conversation by introducing insights that his audience may not have considered.  All of this while making sure that he is creating and protecting a safe environment.  By listening we uncover both preconceptions and real needs.

A word of caution:

I think the reason we are where we are today relative to the decline in memorialization is our fear of creating tension and awkwardness in the arrangements conference.  That is why I believe our problem is cowardice.  If you are really trying to help people it will frequently be your job to create tension, to risk a relationship.  Learning and undoing false knowledge is sometimes awkward.  That is why creating a safe environment is so critical.  You are to teach not tell.  You are to facilitate enlightenment not judge.  You are offering options to meet a real need, not force-fitting people into some kind of standardized system.

I think the mistake we all make is that we think everybody in the arrangement conference likes us and that we need them to like us.  Heretical? yes.  But look at it this way:

If you are an order taker and later they have regrets it is highly unlikely they will like you for being a doormat.  People rarely accept the blame for their own mistakes.  On the other hand if you help them explore options that enable them to find an alternative or compromise that mitigates regrets you will not only earn their respect but they are much more likely to like you.

Principle #1:

People don’t know what they know or don’t know, they only know what they think they know.  We are all wrapped up in our prejudices, preconceived notions and biases. The job of an apologist is to allow his audience to become aware that their biases may be “inadequate to the occasion.”  Jesus did this through the use of parables, questions and stories.  Those same devices work today.

For example: A family may enter the arrangement conference believing you are going to try and sell them something.  (I wonder where they could have gotten such an idea?)  They also may believe that they must follow dad’s wishes and simply dispose of his body with no service whatsoever.  So, they begin the process in a resistant frame of mind.

As an apologist you must be sensitive to their emotional state but you must also remember that you have a purpose linked directly to your value system.  I won’t pretend to tell you what your value system is.  But, for me, it is the fundamental belief that every life deserves to be honored.  I have a lot of ideas how that should be done, but, in the end, that is an individual decision.  I am not the person making that decision I am only a guide.

Principle #2: 

An apologist must care more about the needs of his audience than he does his own.

“And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful”  2 Timothy 2:24

What you say must be part of your DNA.  If you are attempting to manipulate for your own purposes there is a high potential for backfire.  But, if you truly are trying to help…to teach, people will allow you to be far more assertive than you might imagine.  This is where the professional is separated from the tradesman.  Professionals take responsibility and that responsibility sometimes entails risk but their purpose is their goal not some imagined relationship.  They have no predetermined outcome except that the client is better off than they were before.  The conscious thoughts people bring to a high stress / high risk situation are rarely their real thoughts.  They are only reacting to what they think they know.

Pool of Shared Meaning: Creating an Opening Framing Statement

Patterson, Grenny, McMillen and Switzer, in their book “Crucial Conversations,” refer to the necessity of creating a “Pool of Shared Meaning.”  What this means is that when engaging in high risk conversations the leader (you) must first establish something that everyone agrees on.  For instance, a marriage counselor might gain agreement from a couple that the most important thing is preserving the marriage.  That becomes a pool of shared meaning.

This is especially effective when you are working with more than one person.  You develop the “Pool of Shared Meaning” by beginning with a framing statement.  This is, effectively, a “trial balloon.”  If it were me, once rapport were established, my framing statement would be something along these lines:

“Before we begin, I want to share with you that it is my belief that every life is sacred (I would use that word even with atheists) and that everyone deserves to be remembered. But, at the same time, I don’t believe that everyone needs or wants to do that in the same way.   So, it’s an important part of my job to help you explore ways in which you can honor your ??????’s life.  I am fully prepared to help you figure that out whether it includes our services or not.   Is that alright with you?

Notice that I make an affirmative statement: every life is sacred.  I realize some of you may not like using that word.  But, please understand that it is my personal belief that no matter how resistant a family is to the idea of a funeral, the vast majority consider the body of their loved one to have a sacred quality.  Regardless of your religious perspective I see it as both a cultural archetype and a personal unconscious belief.  You may not agree, but I emphasize it because it is part of my DNA.

I have also declared my role as expert and guide and finally I have asked permission which gives them the opportunity (if I pause for a moment for response) to redirect me if I am off base.

The framing statement is critical to the process not only because it sets a tone and expectation, but, if things get tense, it enables you to calm it down by going back to it: “Remember, the most important thing for us today is for you to honor your ________ in a way that best meets your needs now and in the future.”

Remember, also, I am not attempting to persuade but to inform.  You know hundreds of ways to honor their loved one.  They know only what they have seen, experienced or imagined.  You also know the pitfalls of decisions they might make.  As a professional you have an obligation to help them work through those choices.  Even if they still choose something not in their best interests there is a chance they may remember you told them it wasn’t a good idea.  Again, sewing seeds for the future.

If they ignore me that’s ok. I have sewn a seed that may bear fruit in the future…and maybe not.  But if I don’t sew it it will be definitely not.  This is NOT a win / lose encounter.

Tune in next week for “Don’t Confuse Me With the Facts”

See other “Funeral Apologetics” posts in this series:

The Problem is Not Cremation

Funeral Apologetics 101: Stop Clinging To Your Despair

Funeral Apologetics 101A: 8 Principles of Successful Optimism

Funeral Apologetics 101A: Eight Principles of Successful Optimism

Written by Alan Creedy on . Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Leadership. 7 Comments on Funeral Apologetics 101A: Eight Principles of Successful Optimism

How interesting! As I step out to encourage this profession to not give in but take a stand and fight for itself I find more than I expected joining the cause.

Apropos of everything my friend, Bruce Buchanan, brought an article to my attention published via The Wall Street Journal that succinctly expresses many of the points I am attempting to make in my most recent series of posts.  Here are a few excerpts to underscore the relevance of the comments in this important article.  I recommend you print it out and tape it above your desk, or wherever you sit the most, to remind yourself.

“You may have heard the world has a few problems…It’s easy to accept the standard story of the future: it’s all going to be rubbish…Luckily there are enough human beings that don’t accept this narrative, who believe things can change for the better and, crucially do something about it…Pragmatic Optimists, who admit the scale and nature of challenges ahead of us but still resolve to do something anyway should have more of our support.”

Click here to read the Eight Core principles of Successful Optimists

Funeral Apologetics 101: Stop Clinging To Your Despair

Written by Alan Creedy on . Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Leadership. 13 Comments on Funeral Apologetics 101: Stop Clinging To Your Despair

[Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, “speaking in defense”) is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of information.]

Much of my career has involved business turnarounds.  This experience serves me well as a funeral home consultant.  Over the course of more than 30 years I have learned a lot about human nature.   Here is a simple elegant expression of one of the most significant lessons you must accept if you are in trouble:

“If you think you can, or

if you think you can’t 

You are right!”

                               Henry Ford

There is an anomaly in human nature that appears during prolonged stress.  In recent years it has been the attention of much study.  These studies have all concluded that their is a specific attitude or mindset that correlates directly with the ability to survive bad situations and another that correlates directly with failure.  But more on that later.  What I found in my experience, and became subject to myself, is the propensity for people to give up, to become cynical 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 in the middle I think it best to begin at the beginning and lay the foundational steps you must embrace for an effective business turn around.

How I overcame my own victim mentality.

Some 20+ years ago I was leading a protracted turnaround.  It seemed to take forever and was beset by passive agressive resistance from the staff.  (Life Lesson: “when you emerge from the phone booth to fly to the rescue don’t be surprised to find the very people you are trying to help standing on your cape”)  I found myself feeling increasingly depressed, demoralized and hopeless.   Then during my daily quiet time one day I felt compelled to write out in my journal everything I was afraid of.  There were 6 items.  They included such things as never being able to retire, not being able to send my kids to college, the shame of failure, etc.  Then I felt led to identify that which I was MOST afraid of and it changed my whole perspective.  The thing I was most afraid of was simply this: “Nothing would ever change.”  Well, I decided that if that was my greatest fear then sitting around clinging to my despair was going to guarantee that would happen.  I deliberately stopped caring about the naysayers and critics and self-styled experts.

To shake off the victim mentality and take control of your future demands you do two things:

  1. Look beyond your circumstances
  2. Ignore those who are clinging to their despair

For some reason people find comfort in convincing themselves that it’s not worth the effort.  I don’t pretend to understand this mindset, but I found that I simply could not afford to pay attention to hand-wringers.  Overcoming adversity takes an awful lot of emotional energy.  Trying to convert the unbelievers takes too much out of me or anyone else and is a distraction anyway.  Besides these “happy failures”, as I have heard them called, have learned how to be discouraged and they like it.  Their type is not unique to DeathCare.  They exist in every walk of life.  They find some kind of meaning in their misery for sure, but, still, I can’t afford that kind of thinking.

So I decided to leave the conversion job to Billy Graham.  What this means in your case is this: those who say it’s all about money and that no one cares anymore are simply making excuses for their failure.  Personally, I think it is way too early for that.  People who study organizational dynamics all conclude that effective people must believe their work has meaning and purpose.  That is how I overcame my own discouragement.  I came to believe the profession I am in (DeathCare) makes a rock solid contribution to society.  The only problem, as I said last week, is that there are a lot of unbelievers in our profession.  But Before you get upset, unbelief, given all we have been through and are currently experiencing, is to be expected.  It’s just that unbelief will never get you into the promised land (to borrow a biblical metaphor)

Think about what I have said, and if you are old enough, you will remember that this is exactly what Ronald Reagan did for us as a nation.  He adopted a new attitude…a can do attitude… and after Jimmy Carter’s Malaise Era he changed our direction, gave us hope and the rest is history.  In fact, for a long time Reagan had to “lend” us his hope and beliefs while we struggled to overcome our own despair.  Franklin Roosevelt did the same during the dark days of the Great Depression and Winston Churchill stood alone during the early days of World War II.  You will have to do this same thing for your business and your employees and your family until they catch on.  But there is another human anomaly that will help you.  People don’t like despair and if they see a way out they will start moving toward it.

How To Look Beyond Your Circumstances and Find The Soul of Your Passion:

Throughout my career, and especially now that I am involved in funeral home consulting, I have found the first step…the step that must be taken before any other…is to understand the “why” of what I am doing.  It is this grasp of the “Why” that enables me or any one else to become a “Funeral Apologist”.  It’s easy to see the “what.”  Not easy to understand the “why”…and, yet, that is the very essence of any product or service.  Finding the “why” is an iterative process and can take months. The why is very personal but when you finally find it it becomes the key to everything else.

I know in asking you to start at the beginning instead of the middle that I run the risk of losing many of my readers because most people are not comfortable with the patience it takes for this step.  But please bear with me.  It will be worth it.  In fact, I can help you with it. (a shameless allusion to my work)  Through my relationship with The Center For Creative Leadership I have access to resources that can significantly accelerate this process by extracting the core value system from the unconscious mindsets of your team.  This enables you to build on the intrinsic strengths of your firm.

How to get leverage

The video below explains this concept better than anything I have seen.  At about 12 minutes into his talk the presenter uses a bell curve chart.  Later in this series I will write about why you must narrow your focus.  For now, this chart will serve as an illustration.   In any turnaround my target audience is always represented by the two segments on the far left.  I know from experience that if I can reach them and they begin to experiment and find success then the rest will follow.  This leverage is how you get organizations, societies and even industries to change.  Remember, I leave the conversions to Billy Graham.  Later the presenter uses the example of TIVO.  As you listen to this you might think about parallels to our profession.

The Problem is Not Cremation…

Written by Alan Creedy on . Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 15 Comments on The Problem is Not Cremation…

…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

 

 

Book Review: When Growth Stalls

Written by Alan Creedy on . Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Practitioner Forum: Insights and Ideas. No Comments on Book Review: When Growth Stalls

When Growth Stalls, How it happens, why you’re stuck and what to do about it.

By Steve McKee, Jossey-Bass 2009

“when growth stalls, everything begins to break down.  Confidence wanes, and it can be difficult to tell which problems are cause and which are effect.”  This simple statement hits too close to home in an industry where stalled growth has become the rule rather than the exception.

Based on research involving 5,696 businesses across a wide variety of industries and spanning several years, the author identifies 3 external factors that catch us all off guard and 4 internal factors that make things worse.  He found that stalled companies were more likely to have high turnover, lower margins and weaker customer loyalty.   Compounding this is a correlation with unhealthy internal dynamics including: issues involving trust and respect, inability to make lasting decisions, a tendency to overthink things and, in a strange dichotomy, a propensity to either resist change or switch directions frequently.

But wait, it gets worse.  Stalled companies also “unintentionally build mediocrity into the system by losing the best people, hiring “C” people and hiring on the cheap.”

External Factors

Economic factors include both price resistance and increased cost of doing business.   These occur over time and aren’t always noticeable until long after the trend is set.   McKee warns us about cutting expenses: “You can cut your way to survival but not success.”

Aggressive Competition introducing new ideas or factors into the market place.  In our case, examples might include cremationists and low-price providers.  McKee offers this advice:  “Keep close tabs on your competition…outthink rather than outspend them…and consistently look for ways to enhance and protect your differentiation.”

Changing industry dynamics:  “The marketplace has changed and [players] no longer know their place in it.”

McKee offers this interesting insight: “When there is change there is a ‘misunderstanding’ that can be capitalized on.”

Internal Factors

Lack of consensus: “When growth stalls…people choose sides, challenge each other…and begin to doubt…”  The focus shifts from “what do we need to do” to how can we all get along.

Loss of focus:  “McDonalds stalled out when they became too intent on adding restaurants to customers rather than adding customers to restaurants.”  Loss of focus leads to the wasting of limited resources rather than optimizing them.   Things are always changing.  So, “either a company moves or the market moves.”

Loss of nerve:  Leadership is especially difficult when a company is adrift.  Self confidence wanes because it is confusing, discouraging, contagious, paralyzing and wearying.  It challenges a leaders whole notion of self worth.  The risk of change seems greater than the risk of standing still.

Marketing inconsistency: leaders begin to be reactive with emotional hot spots and use advertising in a point-counterpoint fashion with competitors instead of consistently staying on message.  People trust brands that have consistent approaches to their message.  Companies don’t know who they are if they keep changing their message in a fruitless search for a silver bullet that will solve its problems.

The Take Away

  • Know you are not alone
  • Knowing the seven factors that lead to failure gives us focus and courage to pick up and move forward
  • The “Top Box” concept gives you an excellent template for follow-through
  • It will require focus, discipline and perseverance
  • Find a way to “Mean something to your market and it will reward you.”

I strongly recommend this book to DeathCare professionals who really want to build a thriving business.  It will take discipline and focus, strength and leadership but McKee’s advice will give you a very strong backdrop to make it happen.

Video Interview

Click here for a video interview of Author Steve McKee focused on the application of his concepts to funeral homes.


 

 

EXPERT OPINION: How Are Funeral Directors Like Bankers?

Written by Alan Creedy on . Posted in The Creedy Commentary. No Comments on EXPERT OPINION: How Are Funeral Directors Like Bankers?

Rick Baldwin

I serve on the Board of Directors of a community bank based in Orlando, Florida. In that capacity I receive frequent educational correspondence and one I received this week highlighted the striking similarities between what we do and banking.

The author says:

  • “Bankers often forget that they are in a retail business where people have choices.”

  •  “Bankers should be hiring people with retail backgrounds and not with just teller-line experience.”

  •  “By and large, bankers fail to recognize the importance of branding what they do.”

  •  “In the wake of the current financial crisis, customers differentiate between the banks they perceive as greedy and ones they perceive as trustworthy.”

  •  “The best way to silence a room of bankers is to ask them to describe themselves without using the words ‘people,’ ‘service,’ and ‘community.’

  • “Bankers are unaware that their brand is no different from every other bank in the country.”

“There is a familiar refrain among the people who handle branding campaigns and advertising for a living — banks just don’t get it. They are a commodity and they all sell pretty much the same things. They sound the same. They look the same. They just don’t realize it. Or, they just don’t care.”

I couldn’t help but notice that most all those qualities apply to the operation of funeral homes as well as banks! It made me think: maybe we just don’t get it either, or we don’t care either.

Here are some other important statements made by the author that I think also apply to us:

  • “Many bankers equate advertising and branding together.”

  • “Branding is much bigger than advertising, which simply supports the brand.”

  •  “Strong brands have these qualities: knowledge of market, focus on aligning products and services to fit their target market, an internal delivery system that is top-notch, and service consistency.”

  •  “Many executives falsely assume that they can pay for an advertising campaign that defines their company one way without worrying about whether the company actually is who it says it is.”

  •  “The best brands tend not only to influence customer choices, but also attract the best employees.”

  •  “The best brands tend to build on themselves — with the best people.”

As with bankers, our funeral brands are what people think they are, not just what we say they are.  Thankfully though, we all have the opportunity to influence and change what our brands stand for, each and every day!

Rick Baldwin is currently CEO of Celebris Memorial Services of Montreal (29 funeral homes / five cemeteries / five crematories / brands are Urgel Bourgie and Lepine Cloutier) and owner of Baldwin Brothers Cremation Society in Florida / Director and shareholder of BankFIRST of Orlando / Board of Directors of ICCFA / Director of UCF Foundation.  Earlier in his career he founded Baldwin-Fairchild Cemeteries and Funeral Homes in Orlando, Fl which he later sold to Stewart Enterprises where he enjoyed a successful career until his retirement in December 1999.  He served as President of Stewart’s Eastern Division and, later, as President of Corporate Development.  He is past President of CANA and the Florida Funeral Director’s Association.

EXPERT OPINION: HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR SHARE-OF-WALLET

Written by Alan Creedy on . Posted in Practitioner Forum: Insights and Ideas, The Creedy Commentary. 2 Comments on EXPERT OPINION: HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR SHARE-OF-WALLET

Scott Meierhoffer

A few years ago we came to the realization that there was a real necessity to review our system.  Not all calls are equal in service type, in merchandise and in revenue.  The old system indicated that direct cremation had the same market share value as a traditional burial.  In a sense that is true.  Every individual death accounts for a decision made by a family on the choice of a funeral provider.  In the strictest sense calculating market share would be accurate.

However, we devised a system to track a broader range of information, and in a fairly easy and cost-effective way, to clarify what was occurring in our market.  In so doing, we still track market share but we added the component of revenue and service type share to the study.

To initiate the process we identified the various service types that we were interested in tracking for both the traditional burial and cremation services.  These included the following service types: chapel service, church service, graveside service, cremation with visitation and memorial service, cremation with memorial service, cremation only, ship-in/ship-out and miscellaneous services.

We then itemized the charges for each service type from our own General Price List.  When funeral merchandise was included we used our average casket, outer burial container and memorial package in our computations.

The next step was to obtain our competitors General Price Lists and build the same packages for each competitor.  In these computations, we selected merchandise as close as possible to the merchandise we included in our own packages for comparative purposes.

After sending all of this information to our resident Excel expert to build an appropriate tracking spreadsheet, we began tracking information from the local obituaries daily and then auditing our results at the end of the month with the competitors’ websites.  For the most part, traditional services are simple to track and input into the correct service type.  Traditional burials in the chapel, church or graveside service categories are easy to detect from the obituary.  Determining cremation services has been more of a challenge.  The question is raised particularly often when the memorial service is held at a church following cremation.  It is difficult to discern if the funeral home is involved in these services or not.  Do we book the case as a “cremation with memorial service” or “cremation only”?

When reviewing the information now, we are not only able to see the true market share of which percentage of deaths went to which funeral home in our area, we can now see the percentage of the revenue expended those same funeral services among our competitors.

For example, in a given time period of a month, our firm may have accounted for 41% of the market share.  But based upon the call mix for that period, our revenue share may account for 47% of the dollars expended on funeral service.

Although we understand these are not exact figures, because we are comparing averages in regards to merchandise selected, we feel confident that this study gives us added insight to what is occurring in our community.

From the data we enter we can look at traditional burial separately from cremation, and look at each service type alone to see what families are choosing from all of the funeral providers in the area.  It becomes a clearer way to see trends developing in service types and the funeral homes families are choosing to provide them.

Two additional bits of data we are collecting are age of the deceased and if the memorial gifts published in the obituary call for donations to the funeral home to help pay expenses.  This information gives us more anecdotal results.  With the first we can calculate the average age of the deceased for each of our competitors.  The second gives us an indication as to the ability for families to pay for the services they select.

For example, if a competitor shows 21% market share and 18% revenue share with a high mix of cremation and a large percent of the families asking for donations to help offset funeral costs we can extrapolate that that competitor may have an accounts receivable issue which may be affecting their business model.

Much of this is unscientific and speculative to an extent, but it does clarify our community and what is happening with the dollars expended in our industry.

Scott Meierhoffer is currently Chief Executive Officer of Meierhoffer Funeral Home & Crematory in St. Joseph, Missouri and its affiliates which include: Pettijohn & Crawford Family Funeral Service, Mound City, Missouri; Bailey & Cox Family Funeral Service, Plattsburg, Lathrop and Polo, Missouri; Family Service Group, Horizon Cremation Center, Family PALS pet Crematory, St. Joseph Memorial Park, Mount Auburn Cemetery and Ashland Mausoleum, all of St. Joseph, Missouri.  Operations at these facilities include traditional funeral, cremation and cemetery services as well as pre-arranged funeral planning, pet cremation, reception and catering services and floral and gift shop.  A licensed funeral director in the State of Missouri since 1994, Meierhoffer is a member of Selected Independent Funeral Homes.