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presents
"Recipes For Success"
January 9-11, 2008
Hilton New Orleans Riverside
New Orleans, Louisiana
Hotel Information: The ICCFA has reserved a room block with discounted rates at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside. Book your room early by visiting http://www.hilton.com/en/hi/groups/personalized/MSYNHHH-CFA-20080108/index.jhtml; or call 1.800.HILTONS and refer to "CFA Block".
Download Conference Registration Form
Download the printed brochure (Large File)
Wide World of Sales Conference Program:
Wednesday, January 9
6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Welcome Aboard Reception
Get your first taste of this high-energy conference and begin networking with hundreds of your colleagues from throughout the industry.
Thursday, January 10
8:00 - 8:30 a.m.
Coffee and Networking
8:30 - 8:40 a.m.
Welcome
Gwen Mooney, CCFE; John Bolton, CCE; Stu Irwin
8:40 - 9:40 a.m.
The Secret Sauce for Creating Results
Daniel Grissom, internationally renowned speaker and author of the book, "STEP UP! How to Win More and Lose Less in Business."
Your customers expect more from you. They have more choices than ever before, and so you need to find new ways to continually distinguish yourself. ICCFA Top Chef Daniel Grissom has a secret sauce for solving these challenges and more. He will reveal the six ingredients that will help your company win more and lose less. Learn effective methods for:
- Raising the bar on performance
- Developing results action plans
- Reducing team conflict and improving teamwork
- Enhancing client value
- Improving decision-making
9:40 - 10:10 a.m.
Seven-Layer Dip: Scooping Up a Good Hire
Terri Bannister, director of corporate Training, Funeral Directors Life Insurance, Abilene, Texas
Hiring counselors requires objectivity, honesty and a true understanding of the skills, behaviors and attitudes needed for the job.
There are seven steps to cooking up a good hire:
- Conduct a skills analysis.
- Select skills.
- Develop questions.
- Build assessment tools.
- Conduct the interview.
- Rate the candidates.
- Make selection decision.
You'll walk away with a step-by-step process you can introduce to your organization to more effectively hire employees and thereby enhance productivity, reduce turnover, reduce discrimination and legal liability, and increase teamwork!
10:10 - 10:30 a.m.
Break
10:30 - 11:20 a.m.
A Sales Soufflé Without the Sweat!
Dan Isard, president, The Foresight Companies, Phoenix, Arizona
Discover five baker's secrets to generating more advance sales and increasing market share. You'll learn how to guarantee profits soar and don't deflate! Preparation is the key, so we'll take a look at your overall marketing plan and provide simple and inexpensive steps to increase your results while decreasing your costs.
11:20 - 12:00 noon
Radio and TV Advertising
Tim Thompson, director of marketing and public relations, Mount Royal Commemorative Services, Montreal, Quebec
Tim Thompson has created and developed a preneed division that generates millions of dollars in revenue. In his seven years with Mount Royal, he has initiated a highly successful educational advertising program that has generated approximately 7,000 leads. In addition, he has produced and hosted a talk radio program on the cemetery and funeral business.
In this session, he'll show you how to build your advertising program through:
- media choices...the power of broadcast media
- positioning...your unique selling proposition
- frequency...how often and for how long
- tracking...what is working and what isn't
12 noon - 1:30 p.m.
Networking Lunch
Included with your registration!
1:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Good Chef/Bad Chef: Cremation Dos and Don'ts
 
Ernie Heffner, CFuE, (left), is president of Heffner Funeral Homes & Crematory in York, Pennsylvania. Mark Krause, CFuE, (right), is president of Krause Funeral Homes & Cremation Service and Informed Choice Funeral & Cremation Options in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Do you want to provide your cremation customers with five-star sales and service or are you looking for a quick, short-order cure to meeting their desires? In this session, Chef Heffner and Fry Cook Krause will discuss the dos and don'ts of marketing cremation to the new funeral consumer.
2:00 - 2:40 p.m.
Super Sales Salad
Patrick Downey, CCE, president, The Downey Group Inc., Henderson, Nevada
Top Chef Patrick Downey will share the ingredients for the "Super Sales Salad" he has been perfecting for more than 30 years in the prearrangement sales kitchens of America.
Many sales counselors and managers can serve up a decent meal to the customer. But precious few know the right combination of ingredients and the proper preparation and serving techniques to get a prospect's mouth watering. Find out how to turn a bland counselor into a scintillating producer.
2:40 - 3:00 p.m.
Break
3:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Breakout Sessions
3:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Breakout Session
Turducken: Your Three-Meals-in-One Prospecting Formula
Mike Leaf, Special Projects Manager, Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Archdiocese of Cincinnati
The recipe for "turducken" was invented in New Orleans. Believe it or not, this crazy combination of fowl can teach cemetery and funeral sales professionals everything they need to know about how to prospect for success.
T = Three...the ideal number of working prospect sources at all times. Pick three at which to be great.
U = Unwavering pursuit of prospecting efforts, not when you need to, but all the time
R = Referrals...obtain them consistently through a set routine
D = Deeds, or delivery of documentation of any kind
U= Utilization of in-office files...a goldmine if used correctly
C = Cloverleafing...who has space around the 'open' areas of your cemetery?
K = Kids/Kin...family heritage and family service
E = Events... Arbor Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Mother's/Father's Day, Candlelight Services, Seminars
N = News and notification...Web sites, newsletters, etc.
Breakout Session
Selling Cremation Memorialization
Mike Eddy, director of sales and marketing, Osceola Memory Gardens Cemetery and Funeral Homes, Osceola, Florida
A licensed funeral director for 22 years, Mike Eddy made the switch to sales nine years ago. In an area with a high cremation rate, his firm has found a way not only to survive but to thrive. Find out how they are marketing and selling cremation services and memorialization, and why a cremation garden is a must have for every cemetery (and may not be a bad idea for stand-alone funeral homes either).
3:30 - 4:00 p.m.
Breakout Session
Recipe For Customer Service Success
Greg Simard, Parish Team Leader, Associated Catholic Cemeteries, Archdiocese of Seattle, Washington
Simard will share 7 1/2 principles for fostering better customer relations. Each principle contains a 1/2 Wow Factor-something extra you can do to that your customers don't expect. It's that WOW Factor! that can win their trust, respect and loyal repeat business for a lifetime.
Breakout Session
Using the Direct Mail Lead in Your Presentation
Tom Holland, vice president of sales, Assurant Preneed, Atlanta, Georgia
Are you conducting a direct mail campaign now or do you have one scheduled in the future? There is a right way and a wrong way to follow through on these great leads. If you follow up the right way, not only can you expect more preneed sales, you will get new customers from other sources.
Friday, January 11
8:15 - 8:45 a.m.
Coffee and Networking
8:45 - 10:10 a.m.
Present and Sell, or Shop and Buy: Why It Doesn't Have to be an Unhappy Choice
Doug Gober, executive vice president, The York Group, Kenner, Louisiana
Most of our industry is built on the idea of "Present and Sell." It defines our showrooms, our training and our entire approach to sales. Our families, on the other hand, spend their lives learning how to gather information and make decisions - to Shop and Buy. This presentation explores the implications of the Shop and Buy mentality, and how we can turn it to our advantage in creating meaningful services.
In this multi-media presentation, we'll take a look at the retail expectations of the average consumer and find ways to serve them painlessly. Specifically, you will:
- Learn to recognize the Present And Sell approach, and how consumers respond to it
- Understand the typical consumer's learned buying behaviors and how to serve them effectively
- Understand the principles that govern the design of retail environments
- Explore how those principles can be applied to cemetery and funeral service
10:10 - 10:30 a.m.
Break
10:30 - 11:00 a.m.
Cookin' With Heat
Robert Ulch, general sales manager, Memorial Cemeteries and Mortuaries, Salt Lake City, Utah
Many sales presentations teach counselors to focus on information that may or may not be important to the consumer. This is what can be referred to as "cooking on low heat." However, Cookin' with Heat is what happens when your counselors know the right questions to ask - questions that allow them to then customize their presentations to each prospect and involve the prospect in the discussion.
Memorial Cemeteries and Mortuaries operates five cemeteries and eight mortuaries in Utah as well as four funeral homes in the Phoenix area and a cemetery in the San Diego area. The 40+ counselors in the Utah operation are on track to write $7 million in sales in 2007. Robert Ulch will show you how to heat up your team's production to this roiling boil.
11:00 - 11:30 a.m.
Funeral Packaging: The Perfect Dish Starts With the Right Ingredients
Marty Strohofer, director of strategic marketing, Aurora Casket Company, Aurora, Indiana
From simple to sublime, this session will examine various flavors that leading funeral homes are using to develop and present funeral packages. While the ingredients are unique, the results are delicious: simple arrangements for families and improved revenue for funeral service operations.
First, we'll take a look at the ingredients of a successful packaging program:
- Review of the market trends toward packaging
- Extending local tastes and traditions with new services
- Spicy additions to funeral packages
- Determining the right flavor for your families and the firm
- Presentation is everything
Next, your preparation instructions:
- Determining your objectives for offering packages
- Examining considerations of what to include in packages
- Helping arrangers explain and present packages
- Best practices for burial and cremation packages
11:30 - 12:00 noon
Cremation: Mix It Up for Results
   
Panelists: Dave Burton and Karen Burton Horstman, Burton Funeral Homes, Erie, Pennsylvania, and Bob Gordon Sr., CCFE, and Tim Lancaster, CCFE, Eternal Hills Memorial Gardens & Funeral Home, Klamath Falls, Oregon
Tired of the "same old, same old"? Looking for something besides leftovers to add a little pizzazz to your cremation sales and marketing program? Learn some new ideas that work to help you better meet the needs of cremation families.
Find out why Burton Funeral Homes added Whispering Pines Cremation Garden to its property and how they market this option to their customers. Learn how Eternal Hills presents cremation options in a way that consistently leads to memorialization rather than direct disposition.
12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Lunch (on your own)
1:30 - 2:30 p.m.
Qualities of a Master Sales Chef
Gary O'Sullivan, CCE, president, Gary O'Sullivan Company, Greenville, South Carolina
Having the right ingredients for an effective sales organization is one thing, but mixing them together, cooking them properly and getting the desired result is something all together different. Recipes for sales success are plentiful, but the people who can qualify as a master sales chef are scarce.
In this session you will learn the five qualities possessed by a master sales chef that are required to devise an award winning sales recipe You will learn how masters sales chefs:
- Pick only the right ingredients
- Develop the correct methods
- Determine the correct temperature
- Alternate dry to liquid
- Create a winning presentation
2:30 - 3:00 p.m.
Topping Off a Fine Meal: The Aftercare Dessert
Nancy Weil, director of aftercare, Mount Calvary Cemetery, Cheektowaga, New York
The ingredients for any effective aftercare program include:
- 1 part planning
- 3 parts compassion
- A touch of writing ability
- Personal or borrowed graphic design skills
- Imagination and creativity in equal doses
- Add in a dash of public relations and advertising
- Top it all off with the clients you serve
You'll leave the session with all of the necessary components to start an aftercare program at your cemetery or funeral home, as well as an understanding of its importance to their clients, the benefits to their business and the impact aftercare can make.
3:00 - 3:20 p.m.
Sweet! 20 Ideas in 20 Minutes
Everyone knows, when you take desserts in to the office, staff scoop them up with glee. This year's session will send you off with 20 sweet sales treats to take back to your location and give to your team to put to use immediately.
3:20 - 3:30 p.m.
Wrap Up and On-Time Prize Awards
Must be present to win!
Saturday, January 12
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Tour of Lake Lawn Metairie (optional)
Lake Lawn Metairie Cemetery and Funeral Home was hit hard during Hurricane Katrina, suffering incredible wind and water damage. Just two years later, Stewart Enterprises' flagship property has been restored and rededicated to serve once again as one of the nation's most historic, beautiful cemetery, crematory and funeral properties. If you are planning to stay in New Orleans for the weekend, be sure to take advantage of this free Saturday morning tour, sponsored by Stewart Enterprises.
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