ConnectingDirectors.com - Funeral Industry Articles By: Ryan Thogmartin

I was recently at an open house for a local funeral home client of mine. The funeral home has been in business for over 75 years, but the building recently fell victim to the process of old age and needed redone. The funeral home was completely gutted and remodeled. The process took over 15 months to complete, so to celebrate their new building they had an open house for the community. What I found to be a priority when the building was remodeled may be surprising to you.

The open house was on a Saturday afternoon. My wife was working and I could not get anyone to watch my two girls so I got them all dressed up and explained to my two year how important it was for her to behave. I am sure she fully understood!! When I arrived to the funeral home I was greeted at the door by the funeral director. We have a very good business relationship, but he has never met my girls. I explained to him why I had to bring the girls and that I would leave before they got to restless. His reply caught me off guard. He said, “I am glad you brought them, they are going to have a great time.” My first thought was the only way they are going to be having a good time is if you don’t mind them running wild, screaming at the top of there lungs, and jumping on all of the furniture. I didn’t say it but man I sure was thinking it. Seeing the fear of disaster in my eyes he said, “Bring them back here, they are going to like this”. Again, not sure what to expect, I was just thinking disaster.

Read more: Bring on The Kids!

As many of you may know, I write a monthly commentary column for Mortuary Management. My articles are to be based off of the most popular articles posted on ConnectingDirectors.com each month.

I submitted the below article to the publisher last Friday. Early Friday evening I received a call from the publisher informing me that my article was not going to be published because it was not relevant to today's funeral directors.

My article focused on the "Finally, an Obituary Worth Reading!" article that I posted last week. The article received over 1300 views and generated tremendous feedback. I assumed this must mean this article was relevant to today's funeral director.

I was told by the publisher that my article was off base - wasn't relevant to the industry as a whole and didn't follow in the direction the magazine thinks the industry is headed.

The reasons given as to why this article was not relevant to today's funeral director were:

Read more: Obituaries Are Dead, Article Rejected By Industry Print Pub?

When I used to tell people that I worked in the deathcare industry, they would all say the same thing: “I guess you will always have plenty of business.” And I assumed they were right. I’m sure many people in this trade have thought the same thing. Who would have believed that the economy could affect the one thing in life that is guaranteed?

In just the past few months we have read about a handful of cases where families have failed to pay the funeral home for services, and the funeral home has held the body for an extended period of time. We have read about families never coming back to pick up the remains of a loved one because they didn’t have the money to pay the funeral home for the cremation. Even in the “Bible Belt” of North Carolina they are seeing higher cremation rates than ever before. Is this really all because of the economy, or has our society become so careless about death and dignity that they don’t care about the remains of their loved ones?

Read more: Is the Economy Really Putting the Deathcare Industry In a Recession?

Are you still pushing for pre-need contracts? Is your community open to the idea of pre-paying for their funeral service? The funeral industry has been taking quite a hard hit over the last few years regarding pre-need funeral contracts. It seems that every day there is a new story bashing the industry and funeral directors, because of pre-need contract scandals. The collapse of NPS and the recent multi-million dollar pre-need debacle surrounding the IFDA has given the industry a “Rocky Balboa” sized black eye that is steering millions of Americans away from the pre-need market. It is sad that the mistakes of few are affecting an entire industry.

It will be virtually impossible to bring the trust of the American public back to the level it was when pre-need was thriving. The industry as a whole is suffering…not just funeral homes. Cemeteries are reporting record lows for pre-need sales as well (partly due to their own scandals). So where do we go from here? Do you continue to push for pre-need contracts to the American public who is continually reading about industry scandals and is also suffering from a monumental economical downturn that probably has evaporated the very monies they would have used for a preneed contract?

I have an idea. Why not concentrate more on pre-planning than pre-need contracts? I know pre-planning does not make any money for you up front, but it can result in a more educated client who will spend more money during an at-need arrangement than they would have as an uneducated pre-need client. Are you scratching your head and thinking I am crazy? Let me explain.

Read more: Pre-Need Scandals Tarnishing an Honest Industry. Let’s Make a Change. By: Ryan Thogmartin