For tens of millions of kids around the world, the new school year has begun. But why should students have all the fun? CANA’s here with the 3Rs to start the (school) year off right for your business! Reading: Data Tells a StoryI had the opportunity recently to present to a small classroom of savvy cemetery and funeral home managers. They hailed from nine states and represented a mix of nonprofits, for-profits, and combo business models. It was a remarkably diverse group that had one common struggle – getting good data out of their businesses. And why is good data important? Our business data tells us our past, sets expectations for our present and, if we’re lucky, can help predict the future. For instance, CANA’s research has taught us that so-called “direct cremation” consumers opting for no service are actually just choosing not to plan an event with the cremation provider and are conducting services on their own. CANA’s statistics data has helped us plan for a future in which cremation is the preference for a majority of consumers. Time and again, data from CANA and others has proven that the #1 reason consumers choose cremation is no longer price but personal preference. Cremation is the new tradition. It’s here to stay. What does your business data say about that? By now, you should know exactly what it costs to cremate a body along with all of the attendant administrative expenses. If cremation is a cheaper option you offer, it validates the public’s decision to keep up their tradition. Hence, the question I put before the class: Will you make it financially sustainable? ‘Riting: Disruption and Profitability / dis·rup·tion and prof·it·a·bil·i·tyBusiness models change. We live in a world where disruption is a business model and a widespread career goal. Think about how frustrated you are with new employees constantly asking “Why?” They aren’t disrespecting you. They are genuinely interested in understanding and also finding efficiencies and new ways to serve. CANA members have figured out how to make cremation profitable – and it can require disrupting some long-held processes. It comes down to a few simple rules:
This is easier to write about than it is to actually do. This kind of change is hard and time consuming. But, since urn sales will never replace casket sales, it means you must focus on services. Cremation families definitely memorialize their loved ones. The question is whether they will choose to do so with or without your help: your planning skills, your chapel space, or your cemetery placement. There is a continuum of cremation providers serving families, and you may own businesses at every point of that continuum, from online arrangements and storefront branches to brick-and-mortar full-service funeral homes on cemetery property. Or perhaps you only own one or two along those lines and are considering opening more. Or you could be in the uncomfortable position where your business offers cremation subsidized by casketed burial. That is the worst-case scenario, but it’s not irreversible. In order to sustain your business and serve your community, you need to seek sustainability and one element of that is profitability. Regardless of the size and scope of your current business, profitability pays your employees, feeds your family, and seeds future growth. ‘Rithmatic: Get Out Your CalculatorsNow we’re back to our company data and your homework assignment. Fortunately, it’s open book and you can turn to your neighbor for help. In fact, I encourage you to talk about your data, your challenges, and your success with the colleagues you trust. Our classroom was a great spot for discussion and so is the upcoming CANA Convention – anywhere you can network with professionals with experience in what you’re working to achieve. The remainder of this post is a series of questions for you to ask your accountants or attempt to find among your spreadsheets and software. I propose this process:
Below is the worksheet I created for class discussion. Challenge yourself to answer as many of these questions that apply to your business as possible. Think about and discuss the questions with your advisors and staff you trust. Attend a CANA meeting and network with attendees to learn new strategies. Then repeat in future years. Homework for Funeral Home and Cemetery Owners and ManagersComplete the following worksheet to the best of your ability. Prepare to discuss with your leadership team, accountants, etc. Complete as much as you can based on your business operations. If you can’t complete a question, ask yourself why. If you aren’t currently tracking that information, consider starting to do so. NOTE: All questions are related to cremation cases only. Funeral Home
Cemetery
Questions for further discussion:
Coach Kemmis Closing RemarksIn my family’s experience, cremation was a form of disposition that initially solved a dilemma and quickly became a family tradition. We didn’t “believe in it” or think about it much at all, but when my family made the switch 30 years ago, we did spend money, time and other resources on the services surrounding the cremation… just not with the assistance of death care professionals. I think this dynamic is more common than ever but does not support business sustainability. The key to sustainability is changing that DIY dynamic and remaining relevant to cremation customers. Many of you are working in funeral homes and cemeteries with generations of experience and it must be maddening to provide the same services you have traditionally offered but with different results. Cremation has changed the equation for many death care businesses. Now that you know your numbers, break it down further to understand how cremation has specifically impacted you so that you may effectively respond. Demonstrate your cremation expertise and the value that accompanies the disposition services you provide. Our profession is not easy, but that isn’t the goal. The goal is to make the hard things – like, serving an ever-changing customer base while sustaining a business – possible. You make the hard things bearable for your families every day, and you deserve the same experience. Remember that you don’t have to face this change and these hard things alone. You can turn to your neighbor for support there, too. Looking for a bit of community? You can find it in a Convention, a peer support meeting, or on the other end of the phone. Looking for some inspiration on handling the hard things better? Duke University head coach Kara Lawson provides some words of encouragement. We can handle hard better together. With special thanks to my class at ICCFA U for being open-minded, asking questions that challenged, and engaging in thought-provoking discussion. Barbara Kemmis is Executive Director of the Cremation Association of North America. After more than 20 years of experience in association leadership, Barbara knows that bringing people together to advance common goals is not only fun, but the most effective strategy to get things done. A Certified Association Executive (CAE), Barbara previously served as Director of Member Services at the American Theological Library Association and Vice President of Library & Nonprofit Services at the Donors Forum (now Forefront). The national cremation rate has grown steadily and predictably for the last 50 years. Nothing has interrupted this pattern, neither recessions nor a pandemic, at least on the national level. CANA has tracked this national data for more than a century but has collected state level data just for the past 25 years. As we first reported in 2017, cremation growth rates follow a similar pattern that varies by region of the country and some demographic factors. These patterns emerge as S-curves, a common framework in statistics, representing growth in cremation over time. CANA’s consultant, Arvind Singhal, took this research further and created a model that projects cremation rate growth by state through the end of the century. Cremation and death numbers will vary and that's important to track for business planning: case volume influences staffing and capital investments. However, these projected cremation rates – percentages of the total – describe long-term trends. Besides being an interesting intellectual exercise, these predictions can also be useful in business planning. Though, if it seems like science fiction, you would be right. Projecting out further than 5-20 years introduces many demographic and other variables that make the projections less reliable, but still fascinating. CANA's Milestone Report, originally published in 2021, suggests a picture of continued cremation growth in a predictable shape. The Cremation S-CurveS-curves are a line on a graph that starts off rising pretty slowly and then ramps up quickly before eventually leveling off. This shape appears everywhere, often representing an innovation or adoption of new technology. Picture the invention of cars, televisions, or smart phones: just a few early adopters, it catches on and everyone starts using it, then the population that will adopt it does and there’s nowhere to grow. The S-curve looks more like a lazy, stretched S, but is distinct from other growth shapes such as straight-line or stair step. There are five phases to a trend that is depicted as an S-curve:
State Cremation Rate GrowthS-curves describe adoption of a trend or technology. When did cremation stop being a curiosity and start becoming a trend? In 1972. When did cremation become the majority of consumers’ preference? Nationally, the rate topped 50% in 2016—but, of course, it varies state by state. Some states hit the mark even earlier, before 2000, when CANA wasn’t yet collecting state-level data. Our first chart shows when individual states reach 50% cremation rate – reporting existing data or projecting forward. Since this report was first published in 2021, the cremation rate in Arkansas, Virginia and West Virginia have each surpassed 50% as predicted by the chart. By 2033, cremation is predicted to be the preferred form of disposition in every state. For 2023, CANA added a new color to the national heat maps to highlight the six states where the cremation rate is now above 80% – these states also predicted in the chart from 2021. The farther out a projection is, the more room error there is – we can’t account for world events, demographic change, culture shifts, etc. However, CANA statistics predict that more than half of the country will join these early-adopter states and surpass 80% before 2040 – less than 20 years from now. This CANA research shows each state’s projected cremation growth patterns as they reach two milestones: 50% (top) and 80% (bottom) cremation rates. Disposition DisruptionAs we conducted research for this article, we learned that trends are borne from trends. For example, the adoption of personal computers led naturally to smart phones as the next improvement of the technology. Personal computers plateaued when they were integrated into nearly all types of business, personal, and education use. Then smart phones somewhat leapfrogged over computer use in some areas of the world and in some professions. Turning to death care, it will be interesting to observe how new and existing forms of disposition may grow out of the adoption of cremation. Is alkaline hydrolysis an S-curve building on top of cremation? What about natural organic reduction? Only time will tell. For now, these new forms of disposition are difficult to track. That’s because half of the states offering alkaline hydrolysis do not differentiate between AH and flame cremation. If the legalization trend continues to redefine cremation to include AH and NOR, it will continue to be difficult to track these dispositions separately from flame cremation. Are You Ready?Are you persuaded? Now’s the time to embrace cremation. CANA has the tools to support your own growth as the cremation rate grows around you. Further ReadingThese blogposts are just skimming the surface of all the knowledge that the CANA network has to offer, the decades of research and reports, and generations of expertise in cremation success.
EducationReady to get to work? CANA’s Online Education Courses are on-demand and filled with practical takeaways you can put to work right away. Here are a few to consider.
This original research from CANA was first published in 2021 in Volume 57, Issue 4 of The Cremationist. Access to CANA research and magazine and archives are resources available exclusively to members. Not a member yet? Your firm can join for just $495 and gain the benefit of more than a century of cremation expertise.
CANA Research takes the stage at the 106th Annual Cremation Innovation Convention this September 11-13, 2024 in Chicago. CANA President Robert Hunsaker will share how The Answer is in the Numbers and identify strategies to remain profitable in today's market. See what else we have planned and register to attend the CANA Convention!
Like the CANA's Annual Cremation Statistics Report, the statistical analysis and projections in this post were conducted by Arvind Singhal of Singhal LLC. Arvind earned his Bachelor of Engineering from IIT, Roorkee, Master of Science in Engineering from Western Michigan University, and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. In February, I attended CANA’s 2024 Symposium focusing on green practices. There were several presenters and vendors who provided information and products covering embalming, green burial, alkaline hydrolysis, and natural organic reduction. Everyone brought their best attitudes and willingness to learn about new ways to consider how we serve our families. As the presentations continued, it was clear that many people in the room had strong preferences and could argue clearly on behalf of the methods they preferred. It occurred to me while listening to these discussions that we have to have something to be against in order to have something that we support. Now, isn’t that the truth for humanity throughout our collective experience? In every story there is a bad guy and a good guy. A right way and a wrong way. This is how countries, political parties, religious denominations, cults, and, even, sports teams gain their followers. We’re number one and everyone else is a loser. Enemies in Funeral ServiceIn the 60’s Jessica Mitford was the objective of our collective anger. In her book The American Way of Death, she pulled the curtain back on the practices of the day. Some of her assumptions and accusations were inflated and unfair. Some of her statements were correct and on point. This exposé that outlined many problematic business practices drew the attention of the FTC and funeral service was put on notice that someone was watching. So, then we had a second point of pain and an enemy that we could all agree on. That meddling FTC that makes our lives so difficult. And then, along came cremation. Now this was something threatening that we could all rally against. What do you mean that you do not want to embalm the body, buy a casket and a vault and a burial plot? This is what we do. This is our entire business model. This is how we survive. So, for another two decades (and, for some much longer) many funeral professionals were less than engaged with the cremation family. The famous professional shrug and eye roll as we referred to the request as “just a cremation.” We hid the urns in a closet and only brought them out when we had to. As cremation continued to increase and it became clear that it was going nowhere, many funeral professionals learned to embrace and adapt and have successful businesses serving the cremation customer. But, if you listen closely when a group of funeral directors get together, there is still that collective sigh as they remember the good ol’ days. Just as we thought that we had figured out how to sleep with that enemy, along came green burial. “What? What kind of hippy dippy, tree hugging stuff is this? ”And, of course, Jewish and Islamic families all over the country gently reminded us that they have been honoring their dead in this manner for 2000 years. And this is when the enemies became divided. For those who were promoting and encouraging the natural disposition choices, formaldehyde and caskets and fuel-based cremation became the enemy. Bad for the environment. Bad for practitioners. Bad for the land. For those whose business practices relied on embalming or cremation, green burial became a threat to their established models and frustrating in the limitations of offering options. “Sure, I am happy to support a family’s wishes, but how do I find a cemetery that accepts natural burial? Or dealing with green-identified cemeteries that won’t allow burial of an embalmed body which means that families cannot be buried together? And what does green burial mean? A wicker casket? A shroud? Formaldehyde-free embalming? So confusing. Perhaps we can just ignore it and hope it goes away.” In the last decade, the landscape has gotten even more crowded with the introduction of alkaline hydrolysis focusing on the enemy: flame-based cremation. So much better to utilize water and sodium hydroxide and not pollute the air or use large quantities of fuel. At this writing, twenty states have legalized it, indicating a lag in professional support and urgency for making this available for families who would like to have that choice. Why create yet something else that we must deal with? And then, in 2019, natural organic reduction came on the scene. You could feel the collective gasp all over the country. “What? Another option? Turning bodies into soil? A truck load of remains? Are you kidding me?" At this writing, nine states have legalized this process and much of the pushback has come from religious and funeral professionals. “We’ve never done it this way before and it just doesn’t feel right. ”The best way to bring folks together is to give them a really good enemy. Are we the enemy?Personally, I am a fan of all of the above. I have had the privilege of working with such talented and dedicated professionals in all of these fields – embalming, cremation, green/natural, alkaline hydrolysis, and natural organic reduction. I am completely convinced that their life’s work has been focused on serving families in dignified and honoring ways and of supporting a funeral practice that serves the community. My question is – Why does anything have to be the enemy? Why have we been so resistant to accepting and enthusiastically embracing ALL of the options? Why must one thing be bad in order for our preference to be good? Clearly each method has pros and cons that must be considered, but there is no one method that owns all the pros nor one that is inherently bad. Why can’t we open up those doors and become proficient and conversant in every option that is allowed in our states? Why are we not having full and informative conversations with professionals, law makers, religious and lay communities as we consider what it means to take care of a person’s final disposition and honoring those wishes? What message are we sending to families who are seeking the best alternative that fits them and their lifestyles and convictions when we refuse to be the professional experts in all the ways we take care of bodies? Perhaps it is time to put down our We’re Number One foam finger and consider ourselves part of the death care team with everyone pulling in the same direction. Perhaps the best way to bring everyone together is not to create an enemy but to create a vision of progressive inclusion and expansive imagination. In that scenario, no one has to be the enemy. Everyone can be the good guy. Glenda Stansbury takes the stage at CANA's 106th Annual Cremation Innovation Convention this September 11-13, 2024. She'll talk about the value of listening and being open to all perspectives and responding to the needs of our communities. See what else we have planned and register to attend: cremationassociation.org/CANA24
This post excerpted from an article of the same name, originally appearing in Dodge Magazine Spring 2024 Volume 116 No. 2.
The loss of talent is one of the biggest challenges organizations face. In a competitive job market, managers can help ensure stability by intentionally creating a culture that people will be more likely to stay in. And, contrary to what is often assumed, it does not have to cost a lot of money. Here are 10 ways managers can create a culture people will want to join and thrive in:
Denise Reid and Martha Webb-Jones provide consultation on Human Resources policies and processes through Raven Plume Consulting. The mission of Raven Plume is to change the way people think about funeral service by sharing knowledge and expertise with funeral home and crematory professionals, clients, and the public. With Cremation Strategies & Consulting, part of Raven Plume Consulting, you can get a discount in developing your SOP Manual and reduce liability, improve employee training, and ensure operations are done correctly, efficiently, and consistently. Available free to CANA Members, the Crematory Management Program provides step-by-step instructions to build a Standard Operating Procedures Manual with the help of experts. Not a member? Learn more about why CANA keeps growing!
On Leap Day 2024, CANA joined Wake Forest Law Review for an opportunity that comes around even more rarely than February 29: this gathering of thought leaders from across the death care spectrum — practitioners, reformers, lawyers, advocates, and more--to talk about the biggest legal and regulatory topics in the profession. While the Law Review hosts similar events annually, the topic varies and this happened to be a banner year to talk about changes to death care. The goal was to develop scholarly content and discussion on legal and regulatory topics in death care. This was a law symposium after all, and there are myriad legal questions related to disposition, licensure and the Funeral Rule that are in the news--and sometimes in dispute--right now. If you were unable to attend in person or via livestream, recordings are available. Additionally, the Symposium will be covered in an issue of the Wake Forest School of Law Review to be published in fall 2024. This post will be updated with a link at that time. The result of our day together was discussion that covered familiar, progressive ideas from the profession and new takeaways from reformers. Panelists were passionate about their topics and outright disagreements surfaced around licensure and the Funeral Rule, but arguments were thoughtfully presented and everyone walked away with new ideas to consider. When I reflect on my involvement in planning, implementing and presenting during the Symposium, I have identified a number of takeaways and questions that remain. Let this post capture some of those thoughts and questions and serve as fodder for future conversation. New Ideas with Roots in Funeral HistoryCaitlin Doughty served as keynote for the day and delivered a thoughtful, researched and provocative assessment the historical influences on the modern funeral profession and death-curious community. I won’t attempt to summarize her talk in this post, but invite you to listen to the recording. Funeral service as a profession has been stubbornly gendered since its inception in the mid-19th century. It was a gentleman’s profession that embraced embalming and developed many of the customs and traditions that endure today. There are parallels to this trend within cremation and in cemeteries. Women have always been involved in caring for the dead but, until the last decade, were not well represented among licensed funeral directors and embalmers or cemeterians. Professional funeral service is now proving attractive to women, and 80% of new mortuary school and funeral service graduates are female in 2024. When other professions, such as teaching, nursing, librarianship, have shifted from largely male to female, it has resulted in lower pay or a diminished reputation for its workers. There is such a shortage of licensed funeral directors currently that this seems unlikely, but the danger remains. While many women enter traditional mortuary science and funeral service programs as students, many others are carving out their own studies and career paths to become death doulas, death educators and consumer advocates. Both groups cite leaders like Caitlin as inspiration to embrace caring for the dead. Can we, the death care profession, provide a career path for new workers to satisfy their impulse to serve? Irreconcilable Differences?It may seem counterintuitive that funeral reformers and practitioners could find common ground, but we managed to agree on some of the elements of the most controversial topics in death care today. LicensureIf the more than 700 registered attendees at Wake Forest, in the overflow room, and on the livestream are any indication, interest in death care is high. But for those uninterested or unwilling to pursue licensure as a funeral director, a career path is unclear. The profession is experiencing a workforce crisis. The number of new licensed funeral directors has held steady in recent years, but that is not sufficient to offset the higher rate of baby boomer retirees and, eventually, baby boomer deaths. Discussions during the Symposium continued to come back to this topic and raised questions without easy answers: Do licensure requirements accommodate and support new dispositions and prevent scandals? The assertion from reformers and some practitioners is that the current licensure system is somehow insufficient. That is true in the sense that criminals will ignore laws and regulations and will be stopped by enforcement. Licensure and regulations are designed to create barriers to entry and establish minimum levels of competency to promote public safety. This is a good thing, but also up for interpretation as to the nature of those barriers and definitions of competency. The path to legalization of new forms of disposition is not without barriers, but our elected officials and the funeral profession are responding positively to consumer interest in greener technologies. End-of-life care is evolving, are current laws and regulations keeping up? Why is it important for a funeral director to also be an embalmer? Roughly half the states allow one license for a funeral director and another for embalmers, while the other half require a funeral director to do both to be licensed. There was much discussion about “ready to embalm” requirements, including licensure and specific equipment at establishments, that raise costs for businesses and barriers for entry into the profession for new professionals and companies. For businesses that offer embalming, it is logical to have trained professionals, equipment and facilities to offer embalming. But for an increasing number of establishments that offer direct cremation, arrangements only, or new forms of disposition, a requirement to be “ready to embalm” runs counter to their business practice. Is discussing funeral arrangements a matter of free speech or consumer protection? A recent lawsuit in California and an ongoing lawsuit in Indiana raise this question in relation to the work of death doulas. The answer will impact the future of licensure for funeral professionals as well as career paths for death doulas and educators. Can we find a way to meet in the middle and identify a path to employment for death curious people, as well as future funeral directors, embalmers and cemeterians? MoneyThe Funeral Consumers Alliance is dedicated to lowering costs for consumers and is promoting revision of the Funeral Rule to require online price posting to accomplish this goal. Funeral professionals remember that the original Funeral Rule implementation did not result in lower prices overall and any new Rule provisions or revisions are unlikely to do so. More regulation increases costs for businesses that are passed on to consumers. Funeral poverty is a real concern and any funeral home owner knows it as they scan through their accounts receivable. What the public does not see is the common practice of discounting services for veterans, children or victims of crimes. There is a larger societal pattern of lower savings and insufficient financial planning for retirement or common emergencies. If the average American does not have enough savings or credit to pay for a flat tire, will they be able to afford an unexpected death? This reality was on full display during the pandemic and resulted in discussions about potential solutions. Dr. Victoria Haneman shared the strongest argument for preplanning and preneed that I have ever heard from industry insurance and trust professionals. Dr. Haneman then laid out her proposed solutions, centered around income tax and savings incentives. These ideas are fascinating and likely to proceed as expansions of HSA or 529 plans. The NFDA has sponsored a bill that has attracted bipartisan support and would represent progress toward addressing saving for end of life expenses. Public TrustThe Funeral Consumers Alliance asserts that the funeral profession is routinely harming consumers via high prices and confusing practices; however, there is little evidence of harm as measured by complaint volume at federal or state level or via consumer ratings and feedback. Funeral practitioners have high online ratings and positive customer feedback survey results. The FTC identified funeral related complaints to be #29 in their rankings. This disparity in experiences is hard to reconcile, but we must continue to communicate the value of funeral service. Posting pricing online is a current practice for many practitioners, and may soon be required by the Federal Trade Commission. No one likes to be told what to do or how to run their businesses, hence the opposition to this requirement. Practitioners also know that price posting alone will not increase consumer knowledge about end-of-life planning or make it easier. Price is only part of the equation. When choosing an end-of-life provider (death doula or funeral director), trust is more important than price for most people. Scandals also undermine public trust. Caitlin Doughty asserted that additional regulation and licensure may not be the solution to avoid scandals as we have seen in recent headlines. She suggested instead that inspections and enforcement of existing laws could have a major impact. This dynamic is playing out in Colorado right now with a bill to require individual licensure under consideration as well as debate around funding enforcement of existing laws. What did we leave out?Whether intentionally or not, we lacked the time to cover every death care topic of interest to participants. We didn’t convene a panel about green burial or burial conservation trusts. These are established dispositions with fewer outstanding legal questions. But are they viable dispositions in the future of death care? Absolutely! We hoped that the Symposium would bring together passionate people who don’t often interact and we succeeded. The following is a quote one participant shared in the post-event evaluation: I appreciate that the symposium included views from the legal community and what I would consider funeral-adjacent professions and organizations. We don't often get outside of ourselves at funeral association classes/meetings/conventions, and at times risk becoming echo chambers. But there is so much to learn from other professional communities. I would love to hear more from professionals in the hospitality industry (which I consider funeral-adjacent, as we're all just creating experiences) that have been transformative in their businesses and industries. Thank you, for creating the opportunity to hear new--and sometimes uncomfortable--perspectives through this symposium. I share this hope that these conversations continue and we satisfy our mutual interests to advance death and end of life care. The Wake Forest Law Review is a student-run organization that publishes five issues annually. The Law Review also sponsors symposia. In 2024, the Symposium arranged their Spring Symposium on The Future of Death Care in America. Through the publication of articles, notes, comments, and empirical legal studies, the Law Review provides the profession with timely evaluations of current problems in the law and serves students as a valuable educational tool. The Spring Symposium was livestreamed and recordings can be watched here with students' publications on the topics to be published soon. When planning the Symposium, we knew that Professor Terry Brock’s research and work on abandoned cemeteries did not fit neatly in the theme, however we recognized that if we don’t study our history, we are destined to repeat it. Look for a future post to CANA's Cremation Logs blog on this interesting and important research.
This is the sympathy business. On a regular basis, we’re expected to offer up our condolences, well wishes, and sympathy. But empathy, a word which often gets confused for the same thing, is even more important to our success. Sympathy is defined as “feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune.” Empathy, on the other hand, is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” In short, you can be sympathetic without being empathetic. But empathy will make you not only more effective at caring for the bereaved, but at managing your business. The classic “burial-or-cremation” dichotomy is illustrative of this point. Even those who know better often let our language betray the misunderstanding that there are essentially only two kinds of people in the world: the conservative, religious, pro-burial traditionalists; and the liberal, postmodern, pro-cremation rebels. While it’s perhaps a step in the right direction to understand that not everybody wants the same thing, it’s not nearly a step far enough. IDEALS® ResearchThe reality of how the modern American — your customer — sees the world and your business is far, far more nuanced. McKee Wallwork’s proprietary research methodology, IDEALS®, asks thousands of people across the US hundreds of questions on their Interests, Desires, Emotions, Attitudes, and Lifestyles to discover market Segmentation. This psychographic segmentation research conducted by my firm has shown seven segments that people statistically sort themselves into, and each is much more complicated than a simple preference on burial or religion. For example, if I were to tell you that a heavily tattooed atheist was about to walk through your door to make arrangements, you might have some assumptions about that individual. But the 14% of the population who my firm has nicknamed “Free Spirits” (the most likely segment to have tattoos, and the most likely to identify as atheist) is also the most likely segment to have posted condolences on your firm’s website, the most willing to talk about their own funeral plans, and the least likely to express opposition to a viewing (that’s not a typo). In many ways, the individual you’re liable to write off as a direct-cremation loss is actually highly interested in what you offer. Or, while 40% of the market (a rapidly shrinking number, by the way) is what you might call a traditional funeral consumer, roughly a third of that group is motivated primarily by the quality, and even status symbol, projected by the funeral; another third is motivated by local ownership; and another third is motivated primarily by religion. These three sub-categories look very similar (in life and on paper), but confuse them at your own risk, because the reality is they will prioritize very different needs. At the other end of the spectrum is who we call the “Distanced and Decided.” These are the classic cremationists, but our research revealed an interesting nuance: community size (household size, proximity to family, frequency of communicating with family) seemed to be a driver in these folks’ decisions just as much as politics or religion. In other words, they’re prone to cremate primarily because they don’t believe anyone would come to their graves. This kind of insight reveals how our profession is impacted by societal and cultural shifts, and how new products and services will always be needed, tailored to evolving subcultures. Or, consider the youngest segments planning funerals. They split statistically into two camps: one, the “Resolute Rookies,” are more removed from death than perhaps any group of people in human history: they don’t know anybody who has ever died, and they think they can avoid the whole business as a result. But another cohort their same age is a funeral director’s dream: they understand that funerals are for the living, represent a post-Boomer pendulum swing back toward tradition, religion, ceremony, and viewings, and represent perhaps the most affluent category in recent memory who is ready to spend on funerals (long driveways and long bills). Empathy Applies to All SegmentsThe point is this: there’s no silver bullet, and while there is value in letting go of the “all-things-to-all-people” concept that is a burden and a distraction to your business, there’s even more value in thinking really intentionally about empathy. When we look closer than the simple choices and assumptions, we’ll be able to venture a guess at not only what people are asking for, but why. And when we do that, we can lead them toward the considerations and options that not only make for good business, but good grief. We don’t have to be a profession or a business. Our success will only come insofar as we do both. And the better we become at listening, looking deeply, understanding motivations, and seeking to provide people with what they really need (as opposed to what we think they should ask for), the more successful we will become — both as business owners and as servants to hurting families. This post looks at just a piece of the IDEALS® research, presented in Eric Layer's session Targeting With Data at CANA's 105th Cremation Innovation Convention in Washington, DC in August 2023.
I think it's important we talk about disaster planning and emergency management coordination. It is important to know how a disaster is defined, because that is how we react and how we are deployed. A disaster, by definition, is a serious disruption of your community, and it's when you exceed all the capacity and resources that your community has, or is allowed to have, in coping with the situation. That’s how we define it, and it's how we are deployed, and it's how we react whenever the time comes. We've all seen or been through disasters and you know it is chaos at the time. how are we deployed?When something happens, there's a lot of adrenaline. There's a lot of people in charge, or that’s the way it may look, but truly it's what we plan for. To be able to rehearse and go through different situations. There are several different levels of jurisdiction for a disaster event, depending on the severity and the resources available. Disasters can range from extreme weather events, commercial transportation wreckage, and mass shootings to—as we’ve seen recently—pandemic devastation. When a disaster strikes, how are we deployed? Who decides where we go and what resources are available? Most of that information is compiled with what is called an Emergency Management Coordinator. An Emergency Management Coordinator is someone in your community – on a state and local level – who is the first get a complete analysis of the disaster or the event, and who is then responsible for appropriating different resources to that event that are necessary. Each type of event has a different need. With a mass shooting, you're in a rescue and triage situation. There's a lot of different things that we train for, depending on what the event is. We were recently in hurricane season, so we in Texas and other coastal areas can understand and know the devastation of a hurricane, and we have trained and gone through several different hurricanes in our area. Big, catastrophic events, such as the Oklahoma City bombing or 9/11, are handled at the federal level. Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams (DMORT) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) work together to take charge of those situations. I'm chairperson of the Texas Disaster Team, which is affiliated very strongly with our Texas Funeral Directors Association. That is a very strong bond that we have together. It's where all of our volunteers’ training is done, together through that organization. Other states have very similar organizations that are part of their state funeral director association. So, if you’re not a part of your state association, I would encourage you to get involved, because they play an important role in coordinating resources. Our association is affiliated with the state of Texas, and we are contracted by the state for all of its mortuary assets. So, all mortuary assets go through our association that we manage for them, so when any type of deployment comes in our area in the state of Texas, our funeral directors are the frontline resources available that go out. how we helpLet me give you a few of the incidents in our area that we have been a part of. Our team was the lead agency in for the West Fertilizer explosion back in 2013. We were the lead agency that took care of 13 of the 15 bodies that were killed. It was a small town, so we came in not only as search and rescue and transportation, but we also have a funeral director element of our team that came in and assisted the funeral home. Recently, we faced the pandemic. Our team was deployed to the Texas Valley in 2020. We spent three months there. We took over full mortuary operations for the Texas Valley, including the intake and transportation of bodies. We handled over 1,300 deaths there in two months. It was a 24-hour operation there. Our team, some of whom are here in the room today, were also very active in the Uvalde school shooting. We went into Uvalde and we assisted taking care of that situation. So, we have been a part of a lot of different disasters. As a funeral director, cemeterian, cremationist, you are on the front lines, and your resources are valuable to emergency management coordinators. So, if you are not currently part of emergency planning in your area, I encourage you to do so. You're the expert. You know, on the front line almost all disasters, you're dealing with death, you're dealing with transportation of bodies, you're dealing with temporary morgue holding facilities, so I encourage you to get involved with that. be preparedThree things I want to leave you with, because when disaster strikes, it's too late to plan, so be prepared.
Before I got involved in this, and then after seeing on the other side, I know our importance, our value to the county and state officials when a disaster hits. Because it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. We all know that, and we see it daily on the news. So, be part of the response and get involved to be able to help when the time comes. This post excerpted from the panel presentation Regulate, Recruit, and React: A Quick Take on Current Issues at CANA's 105th Cremation Innovation Convention in Washington, DC in August 2023.
4 REASONS HR AND MARKETING SHOULD WORK TOGETHEROver the Christmas holiday, I joined a few million other Americans by watching the second season of Netflix’s The Crown. We in the USA have an odd fascination with the British monarchy, reliably gobbling up anything related to the UK’s Royal Family. The differences between our two governments can be simplified as form and function. The UK has a Prime Minister to govern (function) and a sovereign to serve as a living symbol of the country (form). The American Presidency rolls these two jobs into one. But Americans, ironically, divide the two components when it comes to business. Hiring is one of a company’s most impactful decisions for its brand, but is made by one of its most insulated and quantitative departments. Like every election, every hiring decision impacts the corporate brand. So, it’s high time marketing and HR got together. After all, Americans talk a lot about qualifications and experience, but we tend to vote for the candidate we’d rather have a beer with. Below are a few arguments for “the special relationship” between Marketing and HR, inspired by both sides of the Atlantic. Your audience sees your employees as brand ambassadors, even if you don’t. Americans are less comfortable with pomp and spectacle than our British cousins. That’s why we can’t quite get our heads around the monarchy. We can understand hiring for experience, but hiring for image seems downright undemocratic. But image—even spectacle—are sometimes exactly what a brand needs. From Branson to Bezos, some of the world’s most successful executives are masters of show business. At every level, your brand will be judged by the people you send into the room to represent it, both internally and externally. Even if you keep him away from clients, that hire with savant-like expertise but abysmal interpersonal skills will take his toll on your company’s culture and morale. On the other hand, the individual with an innate ability to inspire might just be able to learn the technical details. It isn’t lonely at the top. Like the monarch, CEOs and celebrity spokespeople are the faces most carefully selected and cultivated for their ability to inspire. But commoners change history too. Executives and paid actors don’t have the only—or even the greatest—impact on a brand’s value. I can’t name the CEO of Home Depot, but I can tell you all about the terrible customer service I received last week. Ritz Carlton understands this. Their “ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen” mantra has helped the brand become synonymous with the very best in hospitality and dining. Compare that to the night shift at Holiday Inn: instilling form versus function at every level makes all the difference. People failures are brand failures. The Crown’s sophomore season dove into the scandals that have plagued the royal family, providing another important lesson for marketers and HR pros: The best spokesperson arrangement in history can’t protect you from the spokesperson. Tiger Woods went from brand gold to brand anathema literally overnight. The Most Interesting Man in the World, one of the most successful campaigns in advertising history, was ultimately toppled simply because an actor wanted to retire. It’s never wise to put all your eggs in one basket. If every hire is an investment in your company’s brand (and it is), then it’s wise to diversify that investment. A brand embodied by lots of faces means less disaster when one of them screws up or calls it quits. Good form can enable good function. Repeatedly in The Crown, the precocious queen broke with tradition to influence world events, armed with nothing but her signature grace and eloquence. While her classically-trained advisors wanted to stick to traditional diplomatic channels, they were always left in admiration when she achieved what they were unable to. Don’t underestimate the hard results of soft skills. Does that sales role really require industry expertise, or do you actually need a masterful relationship-builder? Which would you rather have at your front desk: the consummate hostess or an MBA? When you’re desperate to hire someone who can do the job, remember that “the job” almost always includes representing your company—whether externally or internally. That goes beyond a résumé, a degree, or a certification. Too many front desks and front doors are manned by the most disengaged, disinterested person in the company. It can be helpful to think of those positions in terms of how much charisma they require, not how little technical ability. You likely won’t have the luxury of hiring purely for ceremony, but putting Marketing in HR’s seat for a moment might yield some fruitful discussions—and might help you build a brand worthy of kings. This post originally appeared in the McKee Wallwork Insights blog in January 2018, reprinted with permission. If you're hoping to find your next great hire, check out the CANA Career Center!
Deathcare has experienced a transformation in the last three years. It’s been intense – and grueling at times – but the future is bright and full of opportunity. Over the past decade I’ve been in deathcare, I’ve seen trends solidify right before my eyes. Obviously, the pandemic moved the needle quite a bit. I can’t honestly say I was quite sure of what was going on while it was happening, but with hindsight, as with most things, it all made sense. After such a chaotic time, what trends did I most want to learn about? I wanted to dive deep into the changes in customer expectations around online arrangements and see how firms are implementing technology to help serve all of their families better. When Tyler Yamasaki (CEO of PartingPro, an online arrangement tool and case management system) and I delved into the data from his company on, we learned a lot by analyzing customer behavior during the pandemic. We saw what shifts cemented as a trend and presented these changes at length at CANA’s 2023 Cremation Symposium and The Secrets Behind The Most Successful Online Cremation Businesses episode of The Direct Cremation Podcast we co-host. Now, while it’s cool to learn that “Bob” is the most common first name entered into PartingPro’s decedent database, it didn’t really give us any insight into the industry changes we were hoping to track. Nope, for that we had to look at other data – mainly data centered around consumers’ willingness to work with providers online. What we found was…interesting. The Tipping PointThe biggest changes we found were in customer willingness to complete online arrangements and do forms online. Here’s a look at the increase in arrangements during that period. You see a huge spike right in March of 2020. Well, there’s no surprise there! But the surprise is that the levels never went back down to pre-pandemic levels. In fact, it’s holding a new line of support at about double the levels we saw pre-pandemic – and clearly look to be trending upward from there. I think this step-function change is here to stay and reflects the huge increase in all e-commerce trends in the economy at-large. Companies were forced to adapt to online management systems and this shows that the implementation of those systems is here to stay. Now, I’ll admit that this spike doesn’t tell the whole story. At that time we’re looking at, there was a large increase in overall deaths, given the presence of COVID-19, so we had to dig a little deeper. Online vs. In-Person ArrangementsWe needed to break down the cases into two cohorts: those who completed arrangements online and those who completed arrangements in person. What Tyler found was that prior to March 2020, about 33% of arrangements were completed online – a very respectable number in my opinion. After March of 2020, that jumped to 66%. The proportions completely flipped! It’s hard to say how much of this change is attributable to funeral home staff pushing online arrangements versus a family’s proactive choice to start and complete online arrangements. I think it’s a combination of both, but I was curious to see if there was any data that would give more insight into customer behavior itself regarding online arrangements. Luckily, Tyler had an answer for me. Tyler shared that prior to March 2020, about 11% of imminent and at-need cases were completed through online arrangements. He asked me to guess what that percentage jumped to after March 2020. I guessed that it had doubled, at least. I was wrong! It rose to 16.3%. Admittedly, I was a little upset I was so wrong. I had been doing so well on Tyler’s data quiz at that point I had a lot of confidence. However, after some reflection, I had two takeaways:
The entire conversation with Tyler really showed how important tech is to a funeral business in a post-Covid world, but it doesn’t mean that technology’s goal is to make us cold and uncompassionate. Technology is just a tool, and good tech implementation simply allows you to meet more customers where they are and free up your team’s time to deliver for those families that need the most attention and compassion. This post excerpted from Efficiency or Die: A Gentle Fireside Chat with Will and Tyler at CANA's Cremation Symposium on February 8-9, 2023. If you missed it, you can still catch some of the insights they shared on The Direct Cremation Podcast, particularly their episodes exploring The Secrets Behind The Most Successful Online Cremation Businesses.
Be sure to save the date for the next CANA Cremation Symposium coming February 14-16, 2024 to The LINQ Hotel + Experience on the Las Vegas Strip!
Ever wonder what it was like to be a buggy whip maker during the rise of the automobile? Look in the mirror. Numerous trends are converging to create the dramatic change we’re experiencing today, including the generational shift away from Boomers, the splintering of cultural norms, and the unnerving impact of late-stage digital industrialization literally changing how everything is made, sold, and delivered. We may not be buggy whip makers anymore, but we’re experiencing a similarly historic change in the fundamentals of our economy. And just as businesspeople in the 19thcentury bespoke economy had to learn the new rules of industrialization, we must learn a new way of conducting modern business. Below are five new rules for our new economy. Together, they are a foundation for generating momentum for businesses and value for customers in our transforming world. 1. SYSTEMS BEAT SWITCHESWestern civilization champions individualism and the use of the scientific method to parse out discrete problems, identify “control” variables, and pursue solutions by manipulating one variable at a time. This perspective views problems as if they are light switches in a home that can be isolated and manipulated room by room. Silicon Valley, on the other hand, champions a worldview more prevalent in the East that sees reality as a series of interconnected networks in constant flux. Think Butterfly Effect minus Ashton Kutcher’s 2004 film of the same name. Winners in our digital economy (not coincidentally, built by those Silicon Valley engineers) embrace a view of business rooted in Systems Thinking. It’s not just a light switch, but a house filled with wires, a city-wide infrastructure, a regional power source, and a national electrical grid. The truth is that business and life are dynamic. Reality is a complicated web of interconnected systems. It’s unrealistic to isolate variables and turn them on and off like a light switch in the real world. So don’t pretend to. 20th century companies think in switches. 21st century companies think in systems. 2. FLEXIBILITY BEATS SYNCHRONICITYBusiness models that thrived under mid-stage industrialization were built on synchronicity. Break the product into its component parts, get everyone and everything set up perfectly on an assembly line, then keep everything running as smoothly as possible. Like a symphony, when this model worked, it was beautiful. But late-stage digital industrialization has changed the game. The internet fragments everyone and everything, creating many little pockets of change occurring simultaneously at incredible speed. This new world requires an entirely new approach to business that emphasizes flexibility over efficiency. Ditch the assembly line and burn the conductor’s baton. As I’ve written before, the future belongs to jazz. 3. VELOCITY BEATS SPEEDFast. Faster. Fastest. Speed is on everyone’s mind because technology is enabling such rapid change. According to our latest research among business leaders across the country, nearly 30% of companies today are suffering from stalled growth or commoditization. Companies (and even industries) are moving through the Disruption Cycle so quickly it’s making everyone feel dizzy. But trying to stay competitive by just running faster isn’t enough. Speed is simply a measure of how fast something is moving. But speed alone can just as easily hasten decline as keep one competitive. Velocity, on the other hand, is the measure of speed with direction. You can move quickly in circles, but it gets you nowhere. Add direction to your efforts. Speed is only part of the solution. Growth requires velocity. 4. CONFIDENCE BEATS CERTAINTYThe comparably slow rates of change enjoyed in the past enabled a powerful illusion. Because one could count on culture and technology gradually changing over years or even decades, looking back at historical data had some value in predicting the near future. This illusion provided confidence by removing uncertainty. And now it’s going away. Because the modern economy moves exponentially faster, looking at historical data has limited predictive power. To avoid losing their nerve, organizations need to find ways to get their swagger back. Agile methodology, customer-centeredness, and prototyping are all techniques to stay in the now and make confident bets. As an executive of a Fortune 100 corporation recently stated to a colleague of mine, “It used to be test, test, test, test, then rollout,” he said. “[Now it’s] test, rollout, learn, modify…” Certainty was yesterday’s illusion. Confidence is today’s way of doing business. 5. MOMENTUM BEATS PERFECTIONDuring Facebook’s rise it famously painted “Done is better than perfect” across its walls. As digital technology transforms the economy and increased speed-to-market becomes a price of entry for business, it’s imperative for leaders to throw off the fading luxury of perfection and embrace a new ethos. Today’s leadership must foster a shared feeling of growth and improvement in their organizations best referred to as momentum. Businesses that pursue momentum instead of perfection are more concerned with customer problems than internal navel-gazing, appreciate the power of organizational health, and understand that if a group of people feel like they will win, they often do. Perfection was last century’s lie. Momentum is this century’s imperative. The incredible change we’re living through doesn’t have to lead to doom and gloom. If you research a little more about the horse and buggy industry, you’ll learn that many companies actually successfully transitioned to the automotive industry. But it wasn’t easy. Just as our forebears navigated the Industrial Revolution a century ago, it is our turn to navigate change. With the proper focus on systems, flexibility, velocity, confidence, and momentum, you can ditch the horse and buggy too. Few organizations understand the internal dynamics that can keep them from maintaining momentum. Take the 60-second self-diagnosis survey (based on research conducted among thousands of companies) to diagnose your company’s trajectory and give you a sense of what factors are helping, or hindering, your momentum. How do company culture and employee relations effect earnings and financial success? Jonathan Lewis leads a compelling discussion on understanding the holistic picture of your company's health during his Culture Compass workshop session at CANA’s Cremation Symposium this February 8-10 2023! The 2023 Symposium is here to energize passion and purpose in the new year with a focus on staffing retention and efficiencies. Plus, Jonathan serves as event emcee, offering insights and activities that keep ideas and conversation flowing. See what else we have planned and register to attend: goCANA.org/ignite This post originally appeared in the McKee Wallwork Insights blog in November 2018, reprinted with permission.
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