The future of funerals needs you. Yes you. You empathetic, bright, passionate person who wants to join in on the movement of where the future of funerals is headed. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been doing this for 30 years, or are considering a career in the funeral profession… you are the future of funerals. […] The post The Funeral Director Job Description of the Future appeared first on funeralOne Blog. The Funeral Director Job Description of the Future published first on YouTube via Tumblr The Funeral Director Job Description of the Future
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In an archived Reddit thread entitled “Today, I was high at my gramma’s funeral,” a Redditer confesses to delivering a eulogy at the wake and reading from the Bible at the funeral while under the influence of marijuana. “Seeing my gramma in her casket was surreal and because I was high, it seemed almost like I was hallucinating, but in a good way. […] I was able to hold conversations with friends and loved ones because trees has always made it so much easier for me to speak to people. And when it came time to read what I’d written, I wasn’t nervous at all.” In an edit to the post, the author thanked commenters for their condolences and clarified that she was a 31-year-old mother of two who taught high school art. With the rapid legalization of marijuana across the United States, more and more people are partaking both in private and in public for medical and recreational reasons. It was inevitable that cannabis would eventually creep into the conversation among death care industry professionals…or should I say creep back? The History of Weed at FuneralsCannabis as part of a funeral ceremony is actually not a new phenomenon. The Scythians, an ancient Eastern European tribe, used cannabis at funeral ceremonies to pay respect to departed leaders. Charred cannabis seeds have been found inside bowls in Romanian tombs and assumed to have been burned during ritual entombments. And in what National Geographic calls an “unprecedented discovery,” archaeologists have unearthed an “extraordinary cache” of extremely well-preserved, complete cannabis plants buried with a 2500-year-old corpse in northern China. The plants were laid diagonally across the body like a shroud, leading archaeologists to believe that the plants were grown and harvested locally. These cultures associated the use of cannabis and its psychoactive effects with spiritual well-being, believing that the drug opened communications channels between heaven and earth. Even today, some religions, like the Rastafari faith, “pass the pipe” during communal ceremonies to improve reasoning and their connections with God. Even those who don’t practice a traditional faith believe that cannabis can help them in ways they consider spiritual, like for reflection, personal growth, and expansion of consciousness. Cannabis at the CasketSo where does that leave today’s funeral directors? Should openly-high friends and family members be welcomed into the ceremony? Would you welcome marijuana-filled edibles at a post-funeral meal hosted at your facility? If the Reddit comments are any indication, you’ve probably been within close proximity of more than your share of under-the-influence mourners, whether you knew it or not. The cannabis plant comes in many varieties, or strains, some of which contain higher levels of cannabidiol (CBD), an active chemical compound that encourages relaxation. This property has helped cannabis become synonymous with “chilling” and encouraged its use for combating severe anxiety. While CBD is becoming more widely available legally in its purest, less-controversial extract form–without the THC compound that induces the psychoactive high of marijuana–many people still prefer to ingest their CBD with the added bonus of THC. Like our 31-year-old art teacher, some folks may need a little “something” to cope with the tremendous stress of losing a loved one or the increased anxiety of prolonged interaction with visitors or delivering a eulogy in front of a crowd of mourners. When prescription medications aren’t preferred or readily available, the soothing effects of cannabis might be the answer. In contrast to showing up to Aunt Betty’s visitation after downing a fifth of whiskey, it’s not likely that smoking weed prior to a funeral service will enhance the possibility that a person will act out in violence or otherwise disrupt the proceedings. Other attendees may not even recognize that the person is high; honestly, red eyes and altered emotions could be easily overlooked in light of the situation. In the end, it’s going to be up to you to decide how to manage marijuana within your organization. However, it’s still ultimately the domain of authorities–not funeral directors– to investigate the use of cannabis in states where it is illegal, so a quick call to local law enforcement might be in order. The post Should You Show Up Baked at the Wake? appeared first on Connecting Directors. Should You Show Up Baked at the Wake? published first on YouTube via Tumblr Should You Show Up Baked at the Wake? Passages International, Inc. has announced the introduction of its newest urn, the Biotree. This urn helps funeral homes meet the rising demand from families to “be a tree” after life. The urn has a premium, contemporary design while still being fully natural and biodegradable. After cremated remains are added and a tree is planted, the urn will remain intact and can be kept inside for several weeks before being buried. “This product is a game changer,” says Darren Crouch, President of Passages International, Inc. “Being able to keep the urn indoors for several weeks while the tree becomes established and the family starts the healing process, is very powerful and allows families to utilize the urn even during the winter months,” continues Crouch. Utilizing a nutrient-rich coco peat disk nested in Portuguese cork, the Biotree provides an easy growing environment for trees in any region. The remains inside the base of the urn are treated to help neutralize their pH, which normally would be far too high to allow healthy root growth. The urn includes a certificate with which families can redeem a free memorial tree sapling specific to their region. This tree is shipped to the family within 7 to 10 days of redeeming the certificate online. The Biotree also features an industry-first geotag, allowing families to mark the GPS coordinates where they bury the urn with their loved one’s remains, online. Friends and family of the deceased can then go online and leave memories, stories, and comments in an online memorial. The urn is now available to wholesale customers in both white and green. To learn more about this product and watch a video on how it works, please visit the Biotree section of our website at www.PassagesInternational.com/biotree. Passages International, Inc. has been leading the green sector of the funeral industry since 1999, with the largest selection of innovative, environmentally-friendly urns, caskets, and memorial products. For more information on green funerals and their benefits visit www.aGreenerFuneral.org. For more information on Passages products visit www.PassagesInternational.com. The post Passages International Introduces Biotree Urn appeared first on Connecting Directors. Passages International Introduces Biotree Urn published first on YouTube via Tumblr Passages International Introduces Biotree Urn West Des Moines, Iowa — Homesteaders Life Company, a national leader in pre-need funeral funding, is partnering with Drake University to offer the fifth annual Certificate in Strategic Business Management course for funeral professionals. The class will take place at Saint Louis University, May 8-10, 2019. The four-day course is designed to help funeral home owners, managers and candidates for succession adopt the most innovative business practices. Topics include business planning and strategies, marketing for the future, financial and legal strategies, business valuation and succession planning. Attendees will gain experience from case studies and interactive, application-oriented learning exercises. The curriculum also includes instruction on defining business success metrics. “We are very excited to offer a reduced registration cost for the fifth anniversary of the class,” said Judy Ralston-Hansen, Homesteaders Executive VP-Human Resources. “Our new class of graduates will benefit from this in-depth training that includes several takeaways they can put into practice immediately upon their return.” Chapel Hill Mortuary in Cedar Hill, MO, will be the destination for this year’s case study. Owner Brian May and his team are eager to welcome this year’s attendees. “I love to visit other firms, so I’m excited to host the group in the St. Louis area. We’ve recently made some renovations to our funeral home, and I’m looking forward to getting feedback from the conference attendees as well.” May was a student at the 2018 course. His biggest takeaway was the importance of focusing on strategy. “I’m working harder to avoid getting distracted by day-to-day operations. I’m coaching some of my key staff to focus on fewer, bigger issues at a time. We’ve implemented weekly management and staff meetings, which is something we weren’t doing before.” Homesteaders offers a limited number of two-for-one registrations, which are available for firms that register two staff members for the course. Qualified funeral homes may also use any acquired PartnerPoints® to offset the cost of the course. Learn more and register for this event at homesteaderslife.com/drake. Homesteaders Life Company, a mutual company owned by its policy holders, is a national leader providing products and services to promote and support the funding of advance funeral planning and end-of-life expenses. The post Homesteaders To Host 2019 Certificate In Strategic Business Management Class In St. Louis appeared first on Connecting Directors. Homesteaders To Host 2019 Certificate In Strategic Business Management Class In St. Louis published first on YouTube via Tumblr Homesteaders To Host 2019 Certificate In Strategic Business Management Class In St. Louis One of the most important aspects of any marketing campaign is your social media presence, but getting an active, engaged audience is far from easy. Too many funeral homes get stuck on brand and sales and forget the most important factor that drives both of these – the relationship that you have with your community and client families. This is where using generic content often falls short. It fails to build a unique relationship between your funeral home and your prospective clients. While generic content may get a couple of likes, it doesn’t do anything to convert a user from ‘liking‘ a post, to saying, ‘this is the funeral home I want my family to use‘. Ultimately, generic content doesn’t leverage people to choose your funeral home. So what does? The importance of organic contentOrganic (internal content focused solely on your firm and your people) content is what builds relationships. Organic content will build a relationship between you and your audience. This will increase your transparency which builds trust, and that is the major component of driving pre-need leads. Sales and brand awareness are by-products of the relationship that a customer has with you (your firm). Everything revolves around the relationship you have with your customer and this has to be nurtured over time. Again, you’re establishing a relationship and relationships take time and they take effort. You can’t automate the building of a relationship. Schedule a Demo with RyanPeople buy from people, not faceless entities, especially in relationship-driven businesses like funeral care. 80% of funeral home business is relationship driven. Organic content featuring real people will nurture the relationship you have with consumers and in turn, your call volume will increase. An effective way to do this is to introduce your staff on your social media audience. This shows that you’re not going to provide a generic, one-size-fits-all funeral, but that you’re able to personalize the occasion to each individual’s unique needs. Some companies think that using a stock photo and a generic “meet our staff” quote is enough to achieve this, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Using a real picture of your team has been shown to be much more effective at building relationships and increasing engagement. That company that you’re buying generic content from…needs to be kicked to the curb. We will prove why below. 1. Meet Our StaffFirst, a generic post with a blurry stock photo and the quote ‘Meet our staff we’re dedicated to serving you’. This post reached 119 people and had 16 engagements. Compare this to 3381 people being reached, and 500 engagements by a post that was the exact same but with a photo of the staff in the post. You can’t get this if your ‘buying’ generic content. 2. Honor and remember each lifeAnother post with a generic photo and the quote ‘Helping you honor and remember each unique life’ was posted and reached 391 people and had 13 engagements. This was compared to an organic post of a ‘Harley Hearse’ that the funeral home offered. The organic post reached 11791 and had 1341 engagements. Organic content shows how you’re unique, it’s visual, it’s real, not everyone could use this photo, it shows how you’re different. 3. Helping families honor veteransA funeral home wanted to show that it honored veterans so they posted a generic quote ‘Helping families connect, honor, and remember’ and then some original content of their team having a Memorial Day lunch in honor of those who served (not only saying they honor veterans but actually doing it). Both of these posts talked about the same subject but the one with the picture of their team reached 1675 people and had 336 engagements while the other reached 214 people and had only 6 engagements. Organic content gives you the opportunity to show what your funeral home can do and does, and clearly shows how you are different from other funeral homes in your area. It establishes relationships, shows real people, and shows that you do something not every other funeral home can do. It reiterates that your company is unique and makes you more approachable. It’s important to make your posts easy to relate to and show what makes your company unique. The power of videosA great way to showcase your original content is through videos, as they get significantly more engagement than any other post type. Videos tend to get around 75% more engagement than generic quote posts and live videos do even better. Facebook prioritizes live videos in the news feed giving you even more exposure. The video doesn’t have to be fancy or extravagant. A short clip with you simply answering common questions that come up can still build trust and be incredibly valuable. Let’s look at some examples of this – 1. HalloweenTo promote during the Halloween season a generic quote was posted saying ‘What’s your favorite Halloween tradition’. This reached 73 people and had only 1 engagement. Compare this to a video that was posted with the workers inviting people to stop buy the funeral home during trick or treat, which reached 1384 people and got 418 engagements. 3. Fall festivalTo promote for the fall festival we can compare a generic image announcing that the funeral home is sponsoring the festival with a Facebook live video that has real people inviting others to come to the festival. The live video reached 1264 compared to 343 and had 517 engagements compared to 19. 3. Learn about cremationWhat makes using videos even more valuable is the time that’s spent actively watching your content. Infographics can get a lot of engagements but videos always outperform them. You can really see this with examples, look at how a generic quote saying ‘Learn about the cremation process’ performs against a Facebook live video where they answer questions viewers have about cremations. The first reached 213 people and had 6 engagements while the live video reached 3726 people and had 311 engagements – a huge difference. How to increase your posts exposureNot everything you post gets viewed the same amount, it’s exposure will be affected based on many different factors including, the time that you post and the day of the week that you posted on. Check your posts to see when has been the most effective time for you to post in the past and replicate this in the future. Test often and readjust. What kind of organic content is best to make and use?The most powerful strategies focus on people. People relate to people, it feels more real and more organic. We’re social beings and we want to engage with others and know other people, this doesn’t change just because you are a funeral home. Our tendencies as human beings and our buying habits don’t go out the window just because it is a funeral. Make yourself engageable. Focus on relationships and transparency. Generic quote graphics will not build relationships, they may build some awareness for something you offer but they won’t build trust and they won’t convert a user into a client family. The best way to build trust and relationships is through using real people in your marketing and creating a content strategy that is goal based and focuses on organic content. Having a social media vendor that is selling you generic content or better yet, giving you FREE content, will absolutely fail you, 100% of the time. Schedule a Demo with RyanThe post Most Funeral Homes Are Failing In This Area and Your Marketing Company Isn’t Helping You appeared first on Connecting Directors. Most Funeral Homes Are Failing In This Area and Your Marketing Company Isn’t Helping You published first on YouTube via Tumblr Most Funeral Homes Are Failing In This Area and Your Marketing Company Isn’t Helping You What happens when you bring together three funeral directors from very different cultures, across the world from each other? You gain a lot of insight into the beauty, as well as the challenges, in each culture. And, therefore, gain insight into the global trends happening in our wildly changing world of death and dying. At […] The post A Look at Cemetery Customs, Challenges And Changes Around the World appeared first on funeralOne Blog. A Look at Cemetery Customs, Challenges And Changes Around the World published first on YouTube via Tumblr A Look at Cemetery Customs, Challenges And Changes Around the World Funeral consumer rights to know before someone dies, death discussion movements, and the basics of preneed funeral planning are covered in this TV interview. via Tumblr Video: Consumer Funeral Planning Issues You Need to Know Funeral homes have to die in order to win. This model of making decisions for the short term cash play isn’t sustainable. You cannot continue to ignore what the masses (consumer) are doing because you aren’t comfortable with it. Your comfort is being tied to where your money has always come from and what has gotten you by thus far. Guess what? The game has changed and you’re just starting to feel it. Many funeral homes will die on the ‘comfort sword’ before others start to understand that playing the long game is how to win. The long game: Looking at 15 years ahead, instead of focusing on what worked 5 years ago, is the only way to move forward. __________________________________________________________________ Ryan Thogmartin is a death care entrepreneur and the CEO of DISRUPT Media and creator of ConnectingDirectors.com. | Follower of Christ | Husband | Father | Entrepreneur | Host of #DISRUPTu! and #FUNERALnationtv | About DISRUPT Media: Most deathcare companies struggle with Facebook marketing. We provide a process for creating personalized Facebook content that will drive community engagement and measurable leads ensuring growth and profitability. Learn more about DISRUPT Media: https://www.disruptmedia.co The post Why Funeral Homes Have to Die to Win | DISRUPTu! 061 appeared first on Connecting Directors. Why Funeral Homes Have to Die to Win | DISRUPTu! 061 published first on YouTube via Tumblr Why Funeral Homes Have to Die to Win | DISRUPTu! 061 Inman Shipping Worldwide Inc (“Inman”) announces a new partnership with Park Lawn Corporation (“PLC“) to become the exclusive provider of reliable, respectful and cost-effective Travel Plan products for the PLC group of companies. Travel Plan by Inman is a travel protection product offering families peace of mind in knowing loved ones will not have to worry about details or cost should they pass away while traveling or living away from home. “We appreciate the opportunity to work with Park Lawn Corporation,” said Dave McComb, Inman Shipping Worldwide CEO. “It truly is an honor to be associated with death care industry leaders and their vision for the future of funeral service.” “Our mission is to be a progressive, growth-oriented company that delivers high quality products and services to meet the changing needs of the families we serve,” states Jay Dodds, COO of PLC. “Inman’s industry leading customer service and product offering fit well with our outlook for future growth.” About Park Lawn Corporation About Inman The post Travel Plan by Inman Shipping Announces Partnership with Park Lawn Corporation appeared first on Connecting Directors. Travel Plan by Inman Shipping Announces Partnership with Park Lawn Corporation published first on YouTube via Tumblr Travel Plan by Inman Shipping Announces Partnership with Park Lawn Corporation The Commander becomes the sidekick on this episode! Jeff goes on-site at Cold Hands Studio to talk new embalming techniques and family education with Monica Torres. Ryan is back in his naturally cold habitat. The post Embalming Talk with NXT Gen | Funeral Nation 144 appeared first on Connecting Directors. Embalming Talk with NXT Gen | Funeral Nation 144 published first on YouTube via Tumblr Embalming Talk with NXT Gen | Funeral Nation 144 |
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