In my last post I talked a little bit about “Other Services”. These are the things that we do for people that are not tied to the body or the box (casket/vault). As time goes on I’m positive that these other services are going to be as important to the success of the funeral industry as the traditional services we now provide.
Some of these “other services” include Reception Planning, Reception Setup and Cleanup, Catering, Master of Ceremonies, Celebrant, Scanning photos, Retouching photos, Printing Photos, Graphic Design and Print product production. Life Story Information gathering, Life Story Writing, Video production, Video recording, Video Presentation, Video Broadcasting, Digital Music procurement, Music Playlist production, Display design for personal items and memorabilia, Aftercare/Grief Counseling, Transitional Care, Benefits processing, Insurance processing, Contributions processing, Website entry, Social media entry, Web site maintenance, Post funeral follow-up, Cremation product customization and more. Plus providing and maintaining all the equipment necessary to do all of those services.
That’s a pretty long list, huh??? I’m sure some of you could add some other items to the list. These are the “other services” that many progressive funeral homes are providing now. 25 years ago I didn’t provide a single one of those services and now I do them all and I’m trying to make them my signature services. Yet none of these are taught in mortuary school or require a funeral directors license. In fact, people can get all of these services elsewhere or do it themselves. And there in lies the challenge. When you take away the “Spook Factor” (see previous post) people can put on an event without us. Our challenge is to show people that we are still the affordable right choice for hosting that special event.
So how do we do that? I’m not exactly quite sure yet. But here are some thoughts.
If the true value of a funeral is 1. The gathering of people and 2. The telling of stories, then those two things need to become the focus of what we do. They have to be the “Main Thing” and everything else has to compliment the Main Thing. Does your facility and its layout make it easy for people to gather and share stories? Is it open and inviting? Do you serve snacks and beverages? Or are the chairs arranged so it’s easy for you to set up the room in straight lines for tomorrow’s service?? And do you force people to stand in a receiving line instead of spreading the family out so guests can visit with the family members that they know or even just talk to each other. Remember it’s about telling stories.
Do you encourage other friends and family members to speak at the service? Do you spend an extra hour with the family gathering the stories of their loved ones life and then act as the Master of Ceremonies and share some of those stories with the guests. Or do you just get Pastor Bob to give sermon # 3. Do you get 50 photos from the family and drop them into the standard slide show program with the nature scenes and the heavenly flight intro? Or do you take the time to put captions on the photos so the slide show tells a story and is more than just pictures of people the guests may not know.
I could go on with dozens of more examples but I think you get the gist if it all. Think about everything that you do and see how it relates to the 2 Main Things. My theory is that if we can show the public that we can help them, better than anyone, put on the kind of gathering they want and make it easy for them to tell their stories and for them to hear other people’s stories, then our businesses will continue to thrive. If we don’t then people will continue to use us only for the disposition of the body and look elsewhere for someone to help put on the party they want.
I’m Dale Clock. Thanks for listeneing.
Dale-Time 
Dale, good insight. One of the main areas we all periodically fail in leadership is “making the Main Thing the main thing” For far too long the main thing has been the casket. I don’t blame us or the casket companies. When we only sold one thing (traditional funeral) that was enough. But, today, caskets are not the main thing…people are.
Yes Alan, the main thing is The People. The live ones. And that’s not to say that prep room work and caskets and doing all the good stuff we have always done are not important, they are. But the Main Thing has to be making the event work for the people, not us.
Goods points.
One big challenge we face is that mortuary science programs are for the most part, still teaching the same stuff they taught in the 1950’s. Couple that with the thought that most people entering funeral service aren’t doing so to be videographers and event planners…they enter to become undertakers as they know it. Licensing requirements exacerbate this as each state has set up their own turf boundaries, making it difficult to recruit.
Unfortunately, most firms are not large enough to support multiple positions for all these specialties, making it most difficult for us owners to manage our resources. In the end, we do it.
I would also like to reference your thoughts about memorial videos. We have been using “Memories by Design” for about 6-7 years now… 18 photographs, six minutes and no sub-titles/descriptions. We also sell an average of 2-3 copies for each service and have made as many as 30! What happens is the it supports telling stories, so when people are watching it and don’t know what a picture is, there is usually someone standing there that can tell them the story. It is not uncommon for us to have 20 people standing around the flat screen talking and laughing and no one standing by the casket, 30 feet away…kinda sad in a way.
RJV
Ray, Same thing at our place. The video always has the biggest crowd. And our Life Story Videos do tell the stories with words on the screen with the pictures. It’s really cool.
But don’t lament the fact that there are more people looking at the video than the casket and body. Just learn from that observation. Give the people more of what they want.
Mortuary schools and future funeral directors need to understand that the body prep skills are just a small part of the story. At 60% cremation, I need a funeral director with Photoshop skills more than I need embalming skills. And that the Video Images and Printed Images are every bit as important, if not more, than a good looking body in the casket.
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