Tag: the new normal

Funeral Apologetics 101: Stop Clinging To Your Despair

Written by Alan Creedy on March 19, 2012. 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:

Look beyond your circumstances
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 March 13, 2012. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 16 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

Are Funeral Directors “Wired” to Lose in The “New Normal” Part 2

Written by Alan Creedy on January 9, 2012. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 2 Comments on Are Funeral Directors “Wired” to Lose in The “New Normal” Part 2

Last week, in Part 1 of this series, we explored the idea that funeral Directors, as consummate relationship builders, may be wired to lose in an environment that has changed radically over the past 30 years. Based on non-industry research we posited that the “Challenger” style was 13 times more likely to succeed in the “New Normal” than relationship builders.

Based on comments I received, it seems this concept has both struck a chord and may very well prove to be true. Brad Speaks of Speaks Memorial Chapels in Independence, MO. made this observation:

This is incredibly insightful. Ancedotal evidence in our firm seems to support your hypothesis, with some of our “old-school” FD’s (yes, they are consummate relationship builders!) yielding results to a group of “challengers” who teach and, perhaps more telling, don’t mind selling one bit. We see higher sales averages with the challengers, to be sure, but the thing that I find most interesting is that their individual survey scores are typically higher as well. In other words, despite being people-pleasers, the relationship builders don’t get the same results from the consumers. Our group is relatively small, with six full-time arrangers plus a manager, so it would be interesting to do a wider study. But my guess is that the results would be pretty similar.

If we follow the logic of the theory it would seem that, while people do like nice people, they may like people who expand their consciousness even more. I wonder if they interpret this challenger behavior as more professional and caring.

Now, in a profession (and I believe it has moved in the last half century from a trade to a profession) that is populated largely by relationship builders, it is essential that we understand that challengers are not conflict-oriented by nature. Nor is it their intent to upset the customer. Rather, they are teachers and they use teaching as a way of differentiation from competition. We often hear our profession saying “We need to educate our customers.” There is a big difference. What we really mean when we say “educate” is convincing people of our way of thinking. Challengers certainly want to accomplish that same thing, but they see their primary duty as helping clients explore options to help them make the best decision…even if that decision doesn’t necessarily include them. That may seem altruistic but not really.

Let’s take a common example for this brief article: Direct Disposition. For someone in their 60’s or 70’s with a large social network it’s a bad idea. You know it but they don’t because they don’t have the ability to think it through. But you actually have a responsibility to help them do that. For someone who is in their 90’s or even over 100 with a non-existent social network, however, it can make sense. But maybe a better option would be to have a small gathering of survivors and close friends for a goodbye ceremony. Or, let’s discuss the disposition of ashes (I think the word “cremains” is manipulative…sorry). When one of my friends tells me they just want their ashes scattered in a favorite spot I always respond that, while that sounds like a good idea, it is often not. That statement always leads into an exploration of why it is important to formally say goodbye and the suggestion that if they want their ashes scattered they should always keep a portion in case someone wants a permanent resting place later on. It never fails that they are persuaded to at least think about it more and, most frequently, they see the whole process in a different and more positive light. My style is not preaching but dialogue around common values like family, legacy and consideration for others.

In the foregoing examples was I being manipulative? No. Instead, I was using my expertise to help them make a better decision. I am never argumentative. Rather, I use my experience to get them to think and explore. Years ago, Joyce Newcomer, challenged me in a discussion of receivables collection. “Alan,” she said, “the mistake funeral directors make is they think people that owe them money still like them.” Perhaps we make that same mistake in other aspects of our business. Relationship builders are prone to mistaking being liked for effectiveness. It is a well established fact among researchers that a satisfied customer no longer correlates with being a repeat customer.

Before I close this week I should bring up an observation my friend, Brad Speaks, once shared with me. I had asked him how he merchandised his service charge. He responded with one word: “COURAGE”. Click here to view the video Courage: How to Merchandise your Service Charge. Sorry for the quality but when I did this interview I was just learning.

P.S. Several people made comments about the difficulty in challenging customers in a limited time framework. Having limited time to overcome resistance may be a challenge. But, that may also be why the physician metaphor is appropriate. If we have a broken arm, do we want the physician to take leadership and control and fix it or do we want to have him act like a psychiatrist and sort it all out over several visits. In all my years in this profession I have been repeatedly told that a good funeral director can identify within five minutes what will be best for a family. Why not develop that expertise.

But the point should be: Don’t make excuses why something won’t work because what we are doing now isn’t. Try it. Who knows? You may have fun.

Tune in next week for part 3 of this series.