An avid fisherman in York County, Pennsylvania, made his last trip on his fishing boat as his coffin was transported from the funeral home to the cemetery, funeral director Ernie Heffner tells us. "I am proud of this exceptional personalization," Heffner says, and well he should be.

Read the story, printed on the front page of the York Daily Record, and see the photos here:

http://www.ydr.com/ci_15175368?source=most_viewed

"Wow! I hope whatever funeral home I use offers this."
"Should be offered everywhere."
“An amazing selection of options—most of which I've never heard of or seen before."
"Great service—everyone should do this."
"One of those ideas where one wonders: Why doesn't everyone do this?"
—judges' comments about entries in the 2003 KIP Awards

Everyone in the funeral and cemetery profession talks about personalization, but not everyone does something about it. The ICFA Personalization Subcommittee's Keeping It Personal Awards encourage those who do to write about it. The result is always entries that surprise the judges—coming from outside the cemetery and funeral service profession, they don't know what to expect—and provide ideas for others to consider. What can we learn from the 2003 winners?

1. Creating a personalized funeral really is about listening to the family. First place winner in the Most Personalized Service category and grand prize winner was Rick Trejo, Schoedinger Funeral and Cremation Service, Columbus, Ohio, for a service with a Native American theme.

The family had came to Schoedinger on an at-need basis, having heard the funeral home had previously handled such a service. The visitation and service were both held at the deceased's cabin in the hills rather than the funeral home. "We arranged to take a full set of equipment to the home, including lights, flower stands, a sign-in table, tissues, baskets for memorials and special memories, picture boards, casket biers and anything else we found appropriate," Trejo said.

After the service, pallbearers carried the casket to a fire ring Schoedinger had set up outside. An Indian priestess conducted the service, which was followed by a weapons salute by the deceased's stepsons. The following day at the cemetery committal service, “The family commented on our open-minded attitude about doing something so out of the ordinary," Trejo said.

2. A willing funeral director who goes the extra mile makes all the difference. Honorable mention in the most personalized service went to Elizabeth Baty, Evergreen-Washelli Memorial Park and Funeral Home, Seattle, Washington, for a service for a tow truck operator and local raceway celebrity. During the arrangements conference, the family mentioned that the deceased used to give rides on his John Deere tractor to his grandchildren, some of whom called him "John Deere Grandpa." Evergreen-Washelli happens to own a fully restored 1938 John Deere tractor, and the family was immediately offered its use. The widow wanted a "simple pine casket" (she chose a Batesville Finley Pine) but wanted to reline the casket with a premier velvet interior in a dark green color that would compliment the deceased's uniform and truck colors. The casket and interior were next-day shipped to Evergreen-Washelli, where Baty did the "reupholstering" herself to make sure the casket was the way the family wanted it in time for the viewing. The casket had a custom head panel with the deceased's name and tow truck likeness embroidered on it and was removed after the service for the family to keep.

Baty took a thumbprint and offered to store it so the family could order thumbprint jewelry later. Six weeks later, a granddaughter placed the first order for a necklace. The family found boxes of note pads and pens with the deceased's business logo on them, which Baty suggested handing out at the viewing and service—truly a memento to remind family and friends of the deceased.

The funeral procession included the tractor and about 40 tow trucks, inching along at less than 5 miles per hour and creating a traffic jam covered by the local radio traffic helicopter. In a final bit of irony, the deceased's tow truck would not start, so it was towed to the church and in the procession, right behind the John Deere tractor pulling the flower-covered trailer on which the casket was placed.

3. Memory boards are great, but giving the family photos they can take home is even better.  Eternal Hills Memorial Gardens and Funeral Home, Klamath Falls, Oregon, won first place in the Product that Personalizes category for the video CDs it creates. Using software from xat.com, Eternal Hills scans in photos provided by the family to create a video eulogy disc which can be played on a DVD player or computer CD-ROM drive.

Once the CD has been created, additional copies cost only about $1 a piece to make, so the family usually ends up ordering 10 to 20. On top of that, the funeral home gives the family a CD that includes the obituary, a copy of the video eulogy, the memorial folder, copies of all photos scanned in and photos of all flowers sent, listing who sent them. "Excellent, low cost, comprehensive," is how one judge summed it up.

4. Embrace the Web! Honorable mention in the Product that Personalizes category was Evergreen-Washelli Memorial Park and Funeral Home, Seattle, Washington, for its online funeral planner (http://evergreenwashelli.comlpreplannerlindex.cgi)

In addition to being convenient and encouraging preplanning, this online funeral planner mimics a modem arrangement where the funeral director says, ''Tell me about Mom," instead of simply going down a list of standardized questions. For example, under memorial requests, the online form says: "I suspect that it will be appropriate to talk a bit about my life. You might mention that I felt good about these accomplishments:"

"The first focus is on the need for, and the meaning of the ceremonies being planned," said Evergreen-Washelli President B. David Da1y, CCFE. The second focus is on distributing the plan—people are encouraged to e-mail it to family and friends, and they may keep it on the Web site and update it later. The gathering of vital statistics is the site's last focus.

5. Some of the best ideas may seem counterintuitive at first. Taking family photos at a funeral—doesn't that sound a bit off-putting? But stop and think about it:

Funerals, like weddings, bring together far-flung family members who may not have seen each
other for sometime. At a wedding everyone seems to have a camera stashed in a pocket or purse, while almost no one thinks to bring a camera to a wake, visitation or funeral.

The judges loved Nelsen Funeral Homes' practice of providing families with a disposable camera prior to the visitation. The Richmond, Virginia, firm includes free developing with the gift, a gesture sure to be appreciated. MKJ Marketing, Key Largo, Florida, helped Nelsen do what wedding planners often do—select an appropriate cover for the camera, in this case a tranquil garden scene for the front and, on the back, brief instructions on how to take good photos plus the Nelsen name and logo.

When presenting the camera to the family prior to visitation, "we explain to them that they may be surprised by the outpouring of love and support they will receive and by the people who attend," said company President Blair Nelsen.

6. A family already having to make dozens of decisions at an arrangement needs your help to avoid being overwhelmed by the options personalization adds. Krause Funeral Home, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in conjunction with MKJ Marketing, received a Magic Moments honorable mention for its Remembrance Services Book. "Items range from the most simple, such as memory tables at no additional charge, to the most elaborate, such as firework displays," said company President Mark Krause.

Giving the family a book to peruse, with an explanation and cost (if any) listed for each item, rather than having a funeral director read off a laundry list of available options: "Would you like a butterfly release? A scrapbook? Valet parking? Help with the eulogy? How about a live Internet broadcast?" (it's a very long list at Krause Funeral Home) also removes the funeral director from a potentially awkward situation. "We do not want to appear as if we are trying to push something more on them," Krause said. "We know today's consumer wants more control and interactivity. The book accomplishes this very well for us."
 
7. Anything you can do to help families who have lost an infant is especially appreciated.  When a life is cut so short, the family will have little if anything in the way of stories, photos and memorabilia to collect and treasure. "With precious little in the way of memories, families grasp for any tangible remembrance of the child," said Scott Sheehan, staff manager at EvergreenWashelli, which received a Magic Moments honorable mention for its practice of offering these families a Loss of a Child card. The child's footprints are taken, digitized and incorporated into the card. The family is given as many copies as they wish.

8. Personalization is getting more sophisticated. Celebritas!, Mill Creek, Washington, won first-place honors in a tough competition in the Innovative Personalized Product by a Supplier category for its Moving Lives documentaries. The company offers different packages, the simplest a DVD incorporating 20 photos and music. The most elaborate package includes documentary interviews on the tape or CD and a book written by or about the deceased.

The company's contest entry included several samples, including one titled "The Boys of Montana," about two brothers who left their Montana ranch to join the Marines, which included a 57-minute VHS tape and a matching book in one impressive package. Among the judges' comments: "Spectacular idea that is sure to generate a lot of revenue as well as wonderful memories," "I loved this," "outstanding," "fantastic."

9. It's not enough to personalize, you must do it well. Trigard, Danville, Illinois, won an honorable mention in the Innovative Personalized Product by a Supplier category with its Storybook Collection of precision engravings created from family photographs and/or stock images on bronze memorials. In one of the testimonials included with a product sample, a woman said she was hesitant to make the purchase, questioning whether a bronze etching could really have a photographic effect, but the result "is awesome," she said. "These are beautifully done," one judge said.

10. You can't offer families too many types of photo memorialization. Memory boards. Photo CDs. Photos on memorial folders. Photos in and on the casket. Photos engraved on the cemetery memorial. What else can there be? Zachary Douglass LLC, Orem, Utah, who received an honorable mention in the Innovative Personalized Product by a Supplier category, is among the companies that have newly discovered the funeral services market as a possible outlet for their products. Zachary Douglass produces commissioned art works incorporating photos and text which can be turned into a framed print or glass tribute, as well as being used on memorial folders.

11. An annual, life-affirming event can bring people of all ages to your facility and generate publicity and goodwill. Buchanan Group Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana, spends big bucks ($50,000) on its annual Play It Safe, Life Awaits children's bicycle helmet giveaway, held at 17 Indiana cemeteries and funeral homes, but more than 15,000 people attend. This program was recognized with first place in the Events Over $1,000 category.

Local managers at the funeral homes and cemeteries contact schools, which are happy to cooperate in publicizing the event, also advertised through press releases and ads. The budget covers promotional efforts and the purchase of thousands of helmets. Fire, police and sheriff department representatives are recruited to help with crowd control and fitting the helmets, which come in three sizes.

Children must be accompanied by a parent, grandparent or guardian, so thousands of adults visit one of the funeral homes or cemeteries, and many more hear about Buchanan's community-minded campaign. ''We saw many smiles and received many a thank-you for sponsoring such an event,” said Buchanan President Bruce Buchanan. "We were even recognized by the city of Indianapolis with a special citation."

12. Meeting the needs of your families may mean planning events that honor the traditions and holidays of a variety of ethnic, cultural and religious groups. Cypress Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary, Colma, California, serves immigrants from all over the world who have brought with them their own traditions, including ones which express reverence for the dead. At Cypress Lawn, two Chinese remembrance festivals are observed, including the Chung Yeung Festival, for which the cemetery received an honorable mention in the Special Events Over $1,000 category.   "Also known as Autumn Remembrance, Chung Yeung is a practice dating back 1,000 years," said Cypress Lawn President Kenneth Varner, CCFE. "In China, people journey to the cemetery to clean their ancestor's grave sites and pay their respects."

The cemetery invites Buddhist monks to perform special ceremonial services and sets up a large tent for this purpose. The back wall is designated as a remembrance wall. A Chinese calligrapher is available to write the names of loved ones on yellow ribbons, which are placed on the wall, and the monks bless the names. After the ceremony, the ribbons are burned with paper money and paper clothes offered to protect the deceased and make them more comfortable. After the ceremony, food is served.

When they ceremony was first held in 1991, only a handful of people attended, Varner said, but now the Chung Yeung Festival attracts thousands of people "who are grateful to Cypress Lawn for providing the ritual expression" so they can continue their tradition of honoring their ancestors.

13. There's no rule that says a remembrance service has to be scheduled in December and have a Christmas theme. The Tribute Co./Pinelawn Memorial Park, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, holds semiannual remembrance services based on different themes. It received first place in the Events Under $1,000 category for its spring Grief Garden service.

Families who had had a burial at the cemetery during the past year were invited to a "casual service ... in memory of your loved one" and in recognition of "your recent loss as well as those that have occurred in the past." Facilitators and guest speakers were brought in from a voluntary grief and bereavement support group operated by a church near the cemetery

Among the thank-yous Pinelawn received from families after the service were a bouquet of flowers sent to the office the next day and, during the ceremony, a verbal thank-you from a family who had buried five members in six months' time for "putting up with them through this horrific time in their lives," said Pinelawn Vice President Christine Toson Hentges.

14. People's deep connection to their pets provide another avenue for reaching them with your message. Chandler Funeral Home, Wilmington, Delaware, had held estate planning seminars, grief seminars and cremation seminars and found that many of the participants said they came away with a better appreciation of the funeral home and of preplanning. When they sensed from talking to families that some were struggling with the loss of a pet, they decided to address that need.

"Though we do not have a pet crematory, we wanted the families we serve and the community at large to understand that our role as death care professionals includes sharing all types of information," said Anne Rowan, Chandler's director of advanced planning. With the help of MKJ Marketing, Chandler advertised the event and put together a pet loss brochure and packet of information to hand out at the seminar. At the local university, Chandler was able to locate an expert in pet bereavement counseling who prepared a program.

"It was amazing to see how many people came," Rowan said. "Men and women of all ages and all walks of life openly shared stories of the special moments they had with their pets, often while clutching pictures of their beloved pets." The attendance for this seminar (approximately 60) was higher than for any previous seminar, Rowan said, so the funeral home has continued to schedule more of them.

15. To win, you must enter. As you were reading Nos. 1-14, did you say to yourself at any point, "We do that' or "We do something better than that"? As in any contest, judges can only rate the entries.

For an entry form go to www.iccfa.com or call 1-800-645-7700. Winners will be recognized at the Annual Convention & Exposition and in ICFM magazine.

Why do people choose cremation?
What is most important to families planning a service for a loved one?
What should the funeral director's role be during the service?
A celebrant who has worked with families for several years shares with fellow funeral service professionals what she has learned.

A few years ago, I became certified as a celebrant through the Doug Manning—In-Sight Books training. I dabbled in the field for the first couple of years by doing a service now and then.  Recently, however, I have made a true career change. Now I do celebrant work full time and find it to be the most rewarding endeavor I have ever embarked on.

My experiences with families are wonderful. It is an honor and privilege to help people create a meaningful tribute to their loved one and provide a service that meets their needs.

I have been to the ocean and performed scattering services. Many ceremonies are graveside services, some at the local national cemetery. A few have been in funeral home chapels and some have been in retirement homes.

I find it interesting that the majority of my referrals come from immediate disposition companies. Much of the time someone from the firm attends, passes out folders and arranges flowers, helps with the music and performs other tasks.

The majority (86 percent) of the families I have served chose cremation. There have been many different reasons why, but not one has told me it was because it was less expensive.

One reason I've heard is that a deceased parent wanted to be placed with a predeceased spouse but the surrounding space in the cemetery had been used and the only option the survivors could think of was cremation so that the cremated remains could be placed in the existing grave site.

In several cases, those making the arrangements told me they were following the wishes of the deceased. In those cases of "following orders," scattering always seemed to be the final disposition after cremation.

In some cases, placement in niches or walls where other family members were memorialized was chosen.

Only once have I been told that the person had wasted away with disease and the person handling arrangements thought the deceased would not look good for a viewing.

Cremation, Viewings and Value
About 50 percent of the cremation families I have served have seen the body and held a viewing for family and friends. Some said that the body didn't look like their loved one, but many commented that seeing the body helped them. If the body is available, I view the deceased, too. The majority of the time, the body is beautifully prepared and presented.

I try to meet with every family I serve to gather all the stories and memories I can to create a meaningful service. Only twice have I failed to bring the family together for this purpose. Once it was because the family was out of state. (I did manage to talk to them the evening before the service.) In the other case, because of a huge family rift some of the children simply refused to be in the same room with one another... but that's another story.

Sometimes we in the profession think that folks who choose cremation for their loved ones do it because they care less about the deceased than those who opt for traditional services. This simply is not true!

In talking to cremation families, I find that they care very deeply about their loved ones. Cremation is not the enemy. These families are willing to do things that matter—things they see value in doing.

Merchandise probably is not nearly as important to the consumer as it is to the funeral service provider. To providers, it is a revenue stream, right? Well, for many consumers, it is a necessary but unwanted evil. I have officiated over many cremation services with the plastic box containing the cremated remains right up front. If it doesn't bother the family, it doesn't bother me.

When I ask, as I always do, "Will the urn be present?" usually the family says yes, they would like to have the urn present. They see value in the cremated body being at the service.

I don't ask them questions about the urn itself unless the conversation happens to go in that direction and it turns out there is a special significance to the style or color chosen. A number of people have replied to my question about the urn by saying, "Yes, the urn they provided for us will be there."

For how many years have vendors been advising funeral service providers not to "provide" the family with an urn (or container, if you will)? How many times do suppliers have to say, "Ask the family to select the container they want to use" for the message to get through?

If you glean nothing else from this article, remember this: Stop providing a temporary container for cremated remains. Instead, always ask the family to select a container. They will be happier, and so will you.

The reason is simple. Out of all the families whose loved ones' remains were in a plastic box, only one told me they didn't like anything they were shown. All the rest told me no one offered them anything else and they would have liked to have something other than the plastic box.

If you're thinking, "that can't be true," remember that a person in grief does not always understand what is being said to them. It is possible that in some cases the funeral service provider did try to offer the family a selection of containers and the family members simply didn't hear.

When you are going over the General Price List and doing the paperwork and you tell the family that the cremated remains will be returned to them in a container, why would they want to see anything else? After all, you are providing them with a free container, right? They have hundreds of decisions to make and you're making it easy for them in this one instance by not giving them a choice. But who is the loser?

Take Charge of the Service
Many times the family has chosen to contact me directly. Sometimes they are determined to be in charge of everything. They also choose to pay me directly. (And 20 percent of the time, they give me more than I charge.)

Newsflash: Personalization is not about products, it is about the person who died. Many suppliers will think this is sacrilegious. Sorry—it's true. Personalization is not about the bells and whistles of the "stuff," it is about the service, the body and the celebration.

The consumer wants something other than what they have been getting. Families want a true celebration of the deceased's life, a reception with some food and a celebrant who will tell the story of their loved one. They do not want a minister who only provides a sermon and an altar call.

It is very gratifying to have people come up to me and say, "Wow! I have never been to a service like this. Why aren't all funerals like this?" Many participants have asked for my card or for a brochure. They are truly hungry for meaningful celebrations.

When you meet with a family, even one with a church home, when discussing plans for the service, ask them, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how religious would you like this service to be?" If their answer is five or less, call a celebrant. Suggest to them that they would be better served by someone who feels the same way they do.

Yes, there are some ministers who can provide a celebration versus a sermon, but perhaps the funeral home would be better served if the event was "awesome" and the family was thrilled by a service that knocked their socks off.

Don't be put off by the family who says, "We have a minister." Ask the question! I have handled services for families in which the deceased had been a member of the same church for as long as 35 years, but the children wanted a celebration, not a sermon, despite being regular churchgoers.

I agree with author and Baptist minister Doug Manning: Funeral directors gave the service away to the clergy, and that has hurt the profession. How many times have you, the funeral director, stood outside the door of the chapel and heard people say as they left, "Don't you do anything like that for me! I don't want a funeral!" How many times did you yourself feel the same way about what you had just heard?

It must be frustrating, especially when the problem wasn't something you did as the funeral director. You worked hard to do everything right for the family, made sure there would be no mistakes, no glitches. But then you handed over the service—and the limelight—to a minister who got up in front of everyone and, in less than two minutes, ruined the experience for the family.

The solution: Take back the service!

For me, it is wonderful to work with a funeral director who acts as master of ceremonies. Please, get up in front, introduce the celebrant or minister, tell folks who are singing and what the music will be and why those particular songs were chosen. Tell people how to get to the cemetery and invite them to the reception afterward.

YOU do it—don't turn that over to the officiant. That is your time to shine, to make sure everyone there knows who did the work. Don't stand in the back with your hands folded and your mouth shut. You have worked hard to provide a meaningful experience for the family—take credit for it. Be seen and be heard.

If you don't get up front and everything you do is behind the scenes, when the minister blows it, what do the attendees think? They think what they just saw is what a funeral is. If you get up front and are visible and then the minister blows his portion of the service, they know it was the minister, not the funeral director, who didn't do his or her job.

******

I love the families we serve. I love funeral directors for their hearts of gold and their tireless dedication to families, and I love feeling like my life matters. Helping a family create a meaningful tribute to someone they dearly loved is an honor and a privilege. I love being part of funeral service, and I hope I will be for many more years.

Our Future Is Tied to Developing a Sense of Showmanship—
And the Future is Now!

THE FUTURE OF SERVICE
When a family asks to display photos, your staff pulls out some memory boards.
When a family wants to bring in some mementos, you set up a table.
In fact, whatever a family asks for, you pretty much do.
This puts you on the cutting edge of funeral service, right? Wrong, says this funeral director.

Everywhere we look in the death care profession, we see volumes of articles about personalization and how it is the key to our future. You know the story: The baby boomers are searching for ways to remember and say good-bye that show the uniqueness of the deceased. I applaud and embrace the consumer for pressing these desires on a profession that accepts change as quickly as a glacier runs a mile.

In today's world, "personalization" is the buzzword that has most death care professionals shaking their heads, saying, "Yeah, we are all about personalization. We have the picture boards and the memory tables, and we even let the families play Elvis CDs over our sound system during visitations. Our funeral home lets families do whatever they want!"

The problem is this sentiment contains the essence of what is wrong, both as operating businesspeople and as guardians of a noble and valuable profession. First, those of us who think picture boards and memory tables with dad's bowling trophies or mom's knit blankets are something special are living back in the early '80s.

This type of personalization is nothing more than a cookie-cutter, vanilla ice cream, white bread attempt in the eyes of our present-day consumer. Run-of-the-mill personalization can be found at the vast majority of funerals today. I contend that if you are not doing this type of basic personalization, you already have lost a client base that you will not realize for a decade belongs to your competitors. The most interesting attitudes are those of the people who still try to claim that they know "their families."

We Need to Have the Ideas
We can no longer hang our customer satisfaction hats on personalized back panels, fraternal emblems on crypt fronts and custom casket comers. The traditional funeral as we know it is waning and is being replaced by a service where the focus is on everything else but the casketed body.

We may run outstanding funerals now, but we must stop and look at what is coming over the hill. You can make the best horse-drawn buggies in the world, but if everyone is buying cars it is just a matter of time before professional evolution slowly sends your vocation the way of the blacksmith's.

Funeral service needs to focus on our consumers and what they are searching for. I say "searching" because they do not know what they want or like, but they certainly know what they do not like.

Families come to us for guidance, options, judgment and, most of all, ideas. Just as patients do not tell a doctor what treatment or medicine should be prescribed, our clients should not be the ones providing us with the ideas for performing a special funeral. As professionals, our long-term survival depends on our being the source of creative and memorable experiences.

This is where our profession needs to break out of its comfort zone and develop a sense of showmanship. The only thing that separates us from an event planner or wedding planner is the fact that we are licensed to care for the deceased. Yes, there are other subtle differences, and we also are trained to help people who are grieving, but that is about it. We need to constantly improve our performance and turn the funerals of today into meaningful experiences people will talk about for years. This is where our true value lies.

We are not in the funeral business anymore; we are in the hospitality business and show business. I am not saying we need to break out the dogs and ponies, but maybe having a stronger focus on more interaction during the visitation and service would be a good start.

Dove, balloon and butterfly releases create a wonderful memory. The remembrance videos we are seeing more and more will be part of most funerals within two years. Are you actively pursuing alternatives to organ music? How many baby boomers listen to organ music in their cars or at home?

Our mission is to help families remember the stories of a lifetime in a contemporary style, because this is where the present-day funeral consumer is finding value.

In my view, personalization is a symptom of the problem. What do I mean by that? I see today's funeral consumers experiencing weak attempts at personalization. It's like watching a drama club performance but expecting Broadway. Or maybe—an even more frightening thought—they DO expect only the drama club.

It all starts with how we as funeral professionals are taught, trained, mentored and developed to interact with our client families. Is there a mortuary school that requires a public speaking class or advanced arrangement training? What kind of communication and counseling skills are being developed to ensure that our next generation of "young lions" is more effective and professional than the current brand of undertaker?

The only places one can receive this type of advanced training is through postgraduate seminars or programs. This is not the fault of the schools alone. As a profession, we have not demanded more, we have not sought curriculum changes.

In many states, the funeral professional is required to be both a backroom technician and a person who can articulate the value and purpose of funerals. It seems to me these are very different skill sets. I realize some people are good at both embalming and planning a meaningful funeral with the family, but in general, are we creating funeral service providers who have basic skills in both areas but excel at neither? With the shrinking talent pool, we need arrangers who are articulate advocates, not jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-none mediocrities.

Learn to Act as Well as React
Funeral directors are trained to react at a very high level to one of life's great tragedies. What makes funeral directors so good at helping people deal with tragedy often makes us inadequate at seeing and then planning for the future. It is our nature to comfort, guide and help families as they react to heartbreak. After walking a family through the funeral experience, we take a breath and turn to the next family that needs our counsel. We become so good at reacting that, as a profession, we find it difficult to be proactive.

Why should a funeral director who owns traditional funeral homes, a traditional business, want to upset the apple cart and take a "shot across the bow" at how our profession operates and heads toward the future?

One possible reason is selfishness: "I want my business to continue and thrive." Or altruism: "I believe in the value of a funeral service that helps people on the worst day of their lives." Or excitement: "All of us have the ability to create a bright and promising future."

Every person who walks in our front door gives us an opportunity to show that funerals are not a mundane, obligatory event. Our goal should be to have our funeral guests say, "Wow, now that was a funeral." When you hear that type of comment, the experience being described may be setting new standards of funeral performance.

Intellectually, all of us understand that change is inevitable. We understand that change is the way of the world. In our professional circles, we joke and shake our heads about those who have difficulty accepting change. Yet emotionally, most of us fight professional change as if someone just insulted our mother.

It is hard to sail the boat when the anchor is in the water. Professionally, we need to keep reaching for the future and stop clinging to the past. The search for answers starts with conducting market research, listening to our customers and breaking out of our comfort zones.

Creative and inspiring funerals are possible if we care enough to notice what attracts people. Hospitality and showmanship are the keys to outstanding funeral experiences. Families will gravitate toward a company that takes care of people very well and moves their hearts.

If funeral professionals can make this transition, we may have a chance to have a similar discussion in about 100 years.

Can there be true personalization at a funeral if the person whose life is being remembered isn't even present?

Personalization. The last time I recall such mantra-like repetition of a single hot topic in the funeral profession had to be in the heyday of preneed.

At the onset, anyone could easily surmise the impact of preneed upon every facet of funeral service. Just a glance through any industry journal and the yield of articles and editorials, advertisements and how-to seminars served as testimonial.

The bottom line was that preneed had to be addressed by us personally, as business owners, and collectively, as a profession.

Fast forward to today. Personalization is the fresh buzzword. Of course, the concept is nothing new—astute and compassionate funeral directors have always encouraged individuality in the personal design of meaningful tributes.

We help client families express their beloved's lifestyle, career, hobbies, memberships, community or military service, etc. Together we endeavor to capture the essence of a life lived well. We thematically set the stage for the complementary rituals and ceremonies that follow.

In and around the casket are displayed artifacts that once belonged to that person. A golf putter, bingo card, remote control, hand-knit throws and cross stitched pillows, lapel pins—all serve to help tell the story of the decedent's life. Heirlooms of all sorts, photographs and letters and achievement awards all share an intimate connection with the person in the casket.

What is new is personalization for sale, which if we're not careful can make the funeral experience we offer families less rather than more personal.

Generic curios in mass production lack an historical connection to the deceased. The items are symbolic, but impersonal. They never belonged to the deceased. This trend toward personalization for purchase may also be upstaging the deceased and stealing the final bow.

Picture this: Funerals with no bodies
The video tribute does have real value and is significant and appropriate at the memorial service. But consider this: Today we can minimize or circumvent many of life's difficult experiences through avoidance or drug therapy. We can choose to not experience hard-to-handle emotions. A pill exists for every ill. We can choose to circumvent the funeral and/or viewing of the body, too!

A powerful video tribute may be less difficult for mourners to confront than the actual dead body. Could the video tribute eliminate the need for the body to be present at all?

Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D., director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition, Fort Collins, Colorado, speaks to this dominant model in North America: ''We as a culture appear to be forgetting the importance of the funeral ritual. While funerals have been with us since the beginning of human history, we seem to be rapidly moving toward minimizing, avoiding and denying the need for rituals surrounding death."

Can society choose to avoid the therapeutically painful rites of passage that define and validate death altogether? Will items of personalization serve as substitutes for the real physical form?

As Philippe Aries writes, "The change (in death's role in our society) consists precisely in banishing from the sight of the public not only death, but with it, its icon" (the dead body).

In the United States, from 1900 to 1960, over 90 percent of bodies were embalmed. Today, that percentage is significantly lower.

Can the funeral profession be truly effective providing funerals without bodies? Any garden-variety service/hospitality company can provide personalization and ceremony when the dead body is absent. Can we risk that?

The primary role of the licensed funeral director embalmer, according to the board of health, is to dispose of the dead human body and, concurrently, to protect public health. Ceremony is a separate, non-licensed function.

The successful survival of the funeral profession depends on ensuring that the public perceives the value we provide in handling both legal requirements and ceremonial rituals.

Death begins the process. The ceremony would not exist if death had not occurred. It is only logical that the decedent participate in his or her own final proceedings.

Back to the basics
I suggest we return to the basics and qualify ourselves to emphasize the most powerful resource we have for personalization. The subject we are to personalize is, after all, inherently the hallmark of our profession: the dead human body, which funeral directors-embalmers are granted exclusive license to handle.

The deceased person is the guest of honor and commands center stage. Despite a growing trend wherein the deceased is absent from his or her own final event, I maintain the dead human body in the casket for funeral visitation is still the public's expectation. Seeing is believing.

The increasing number of telephone inquiries asking if the "body will be available to view" suggests the public still needs and desires a viewing.
It is our professional duty to respond to the needs of our communities. The manner in which we help our client families fully understand the relevance of our services directly impacts how they ultimately value their own choices.

A good supporting foundation is necessary to the success of any endeavor. Embalming is the foundation of body presentation, and intensive and skillful embalming is critical, followed by impeccable grooming, cosmetic application and hairstyling.

A tailored fit for the clothing reflects meticulous care put forth in dressing and grooming. The decedent should rest comfortably in position and in facial expression.

In life, someone embarking on an important event—a first date, a job interview or any function where a poor appearance will have consequences—must look his or her best. So too in death, when the decedent is presented for approval to family and friends.

During the arrangements conference, emphasize the value of the decedent's farewell engagement here upon the Earth. Emphasize the family's "last look" at their loved one. Promise to dedicate your professional best efforts to that final appearance and invite the family to share in the commitment.

Encourage family members to discover items personally significant to their loved one, perhaps tucked away for safekeeping in a jewelry box or dresser drawer. Suggest a selection of photos and letters.

The simple act of reviewing these treasures, once held and dearly loved, offers the bereaved a starting point in the process of grieving and healing. These personal acts of the family reinvest the decedent in his/her own funeral, which in turn, reaffirms the bond between the dead and the living.

Personalization may exist in the tangibles, but it is much more. Personalization is the culmination of truly unique services that funeral directors can provide upon the person who has died and those who still live.

Consideration is given to a lifeless individual for the welfare of those who survive. The benefits are universal.

This quotation (often attributed to William Evart Gladstone, though Gladstone scholars say erroneously so), captures the benefits of what we do to society as a whole:

"Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the law of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals."

At life's curtain call, the "star" appears one final time to give family and friends one last look, for laughter's release at a remembered anecdote, or one last tearful memory. One last moment is suspended before the audience can let go of the main character. No one is absent; no one is overlooked. And then, as in life, there is a definitive end.

Absent the person from the funeral, personalization becomes the understudy that takes center stage.

Even when effective and powerfully symbolic, it's not quite the same.

Funeral homes that want to offer families an exceptional place for a post-service reception don't have to build or remodel their facility to do it.
Brown-Wynne Funeral Home in Cary, North Carolina, found a way to offer families a choice of facilities near the funeral home.

It's a time for family, tears, love, and laughter. A time for in-laws, grandchildren, siblings and neighbors. A time for lots of decorations, hugs, good food and drink. A time for music and singing. The holidays? No, a funeral reception.

For Jeremy Smith, it was the sight of the lovely grand piano at the Matthews House that made up his mind. "My wife majored in music," he said. "Music was always important in our family."

Smith lost his wife to a sudden, unexpected death. When he walked into the Matthews House, an events facility in Cary, North Carolina, he knew it would be the perfect place for his wife's funeral reception as soon as he saw the piano.

The lazy piano and vocal strains of George Gershwin's "Summertime" entertained Smith's guests and the livin' did seem easy that afternoon inside the stately, columned southern mansion nestled among giant oaks, walnut trees and flower gardens.

Earlier that day, the funeral service was held at Brown-Wynne Funeral Homes & Cremation Services, where a clergyman spoke, but no one else. The fact that no one else addressed the gathering bothered Smith in a subtle way, but as soon as people arrived at the Matthews House reception, the mood changed.

"In the more relaxed setting at the Matthews House, people opened up and shared their experiences and memories about my wife," Smith said. Of the 200 people who came to the funeral service, about 50 attended the reception.

The pianist, the best friend of the Smiths' 19 year old daughter, played the whole time. Smith's daughter and her voice teacher both sang a variety of pieces. "It was my daughter's special way of honoring her mother," Smith said.

Reacting to a trend
Brown-Wynne Funeral Home partnered with the Matthews House as part of its plan to offer the more personalized and meaningful services demanded by baby boomers. Brown-Wynne was among the first funeral homes in the area to extend its services to include arranging for a reception in a homelike environment, tailored to fit the requirements and wishes of its customers.

After attending the funeral service at the Brown-Wynne Funeral Home, family members can attend a reception pre-arranged for them by the Matthews House, complete with music and catering if they choose.

"When a death occurs, remaining family members need a place that allows them to honor a loved one without worrying about the details of a reception," said Nina Davis, vice president and general manager of the Matthews House.

Jim Baron, market manager for the Dignity Memorial Network, of which Brown-Wynne is a member, said that the new arrangements are a logical extension of service. "I see this as moving forward in the profession," Baron said. "Some funeral directors are set in their ways, but you have to be able to adapt to the changing times. You need to continue to make sure there is value in what you offer.

Baron said that while many people may have thought about holding a funeral reception at an events facility, Brown-Wynne acted on the idea and made it commercially available, whether it's called a memorial service, a life celebration or simply a private family gathering.

The Brown-Wynne Funeral Home is known for offering a complete range of quality services while honoring many faiths and customs. It expanded to Cary in 1969, and in 1991, became part of the Dignity Memorial Network.

Brown-Wynne's partnership with the Matthews House is less than a year old, but is already successful. The funeral home has a similar partnership with the Long View Center, a classic, nondenominational tabernacle originally built in 1856, which accommodates as many as 450 guests or as few as 25.

The three facilities are about two miles apart in Cary, the seventh largest city in North Carolina, named the "hottest town" in the East by Money Magazine. One of the fastest growing cities in the United States, Cary is a bedroom community of the Research Triangle Park, which includes more than 100 research and development facilities employing over 38,500 Triangle area residents.

In the past 15 years, Cary's population has climbed from less than 10,000 to more than 90,000. Brown-Wynne advertises to this growing population by handing out brochures and running advertisements in the local newspapers that describe the new arrangements with both the Matthews House and Long View Center.

According to Brown-Wynne General Manager Ron Maness, the Triangle area has been attracting retirees and baby boomers who eventually bring in their parents as well. The preferences of this population group are distinctive, he said. The cremation rate, for example, is higher in Cary than in the rest of the state.

One of the key trends affecting cremation is the weakening of ties to tradition. Funeral homes must be creative and flexible to meet the demands of baby boomers as they begin to bury their parents, their spouses and their friends in the coming decades.

Personalized funerals take time. So do personalized memorials.

One of the larger trends in today's world is "personalization." I am 40 years old; my generation wants to be remembered. And when we're buying memorials for our parents, we want the same thing for them.

How can a cemetery provide personalization to families beyond the normal names, dates and emblems on monuments, memorials, niche plates and crypt plates?

First of all, if a family walks into your office to buy a memorial and asks for something unique, recognize that this is a tremendous opportunity and be willing to put in the effort required to truly fulfill that request.

The average family service counselor might sell this family nothing more than a 24-by-14-inch or a 44-by-14-inch memorial with a couple of extra emblems on it, and be proud to have made the sale of a "personalized" memorial.

Ridiculous! And a shame for everyone involved—the counselor, the cemetery and the family.

When a family tells us they loved their parents dearly and want to remember them with a memorial that will tell everyone who sees it what their parents enjoyed during their lives, it's our job as cemeterians to help them honor and celebrate those lives.

Funeral homes get it
What are progressive funeral homes doing to help families celebrate lives? They are encouraging photo boards at visitations, helping families put together remembrance videos played during the visitation or the service, offering personalized memorial folders and register books, displaying portraits of the deceased and selling Web-based memorial sites.

Funeral homes get it! Are we as cemeterians allowing the celebration of life to end at our gates? In too many cases, we are, and it's going to come back to haunt us.

Let's go back to that family who walks into your office and wants a unique memorial for their parents. How can a family service advisor at the cemetery approach this situation with a "celebration of life" attitude?

Simple: The same way the good funeral director does, by asking the right questions, listening to the answers and then figuring out what you can offer the family to not only satisfy but delight them.

So, start by saying this: "In order to create a memorial that's unique and captures your parents' lives can you please tell me about them in detail? What were their lives like? What was important to them? What made them happy?"

It’s obvious this is going to take longer than the normal 45 minutes you might spend on a memorial sale. In fact, it should take twice as long, but it will be time well spent. You will get to know this family much better, and you will be able to see their motivation for the simple statement that "we want something different" or "we want something unique."

One family's story
Let's do a case study of a family who has come into the cemetery because the mother has passed away. The father is too upset to join his children, so they are there to arrange for what will be a joint memorial for their parents. The counselor asks the family to talk about their parents, then listens.

"Our mother led a very simple life. She didn't have the highest paying job, but she always said she held a position that brought her more riches than the CEO of any Fortune 500 company. She was a school bus driver who was able to touch the lives of children each and every day. She enjoyed it so much and was proud when she was named Bus Driver of the Year.

"She loved Christmas. She loved buying and wrapping presents that the grandchildren were allowed to open on Christmas Eve.

"She had a wonderful smile, and she knew how to have a good time. We remember one time when the whole family was at a theme park together and she beat the grandkids to the punch by being the first one to have her picture taken standing next to one of those characters in costume.
"At the end of a day, right after dinner, she would unwind by playing her piano. It was an old piano that had been handed down from generation to generation. It needed tuning for years, but that didn't matter to her. She would sit down every night, close her eyes and play for at least an hour, a big smile on her face. That's how we remember Mom.

"Dad also considers himself a simple man. He worked in maintenance at the local foundry for 33 years before retiring. It was a job that didn't pay the best, but he liked the benefits and insurance package—for him, that was security.

"He loves anything with two wheels. That infatuation started when he was a boy, with bicycles, and has continued into adulthood with all of the motorcycles he's had throughout the years. What's really strange is that as he's grown older, his focus has shifted to hot air balloons. He won a hot air balloon ride and that got him hooked.

"Sunday afternoons, he's always with the grandkids at the skating rink—never misses a Sunday. He's known as "the yoyo man" because he sits in the snack bar and does yo-yo tricks for hours.
"He used to play pool every night at home while Mom played the piano. The piano and pool table were in the same room. It's funny—they were always together for that hour in the rec room, but somehow they both had an hour of free time doing what they loved.

"I guess to sum it up, our parents are simple people who enjoyed life. They weren't wealthy, but they were good planners who wanted to make sure their family was secure and that neither one of them would be left out in the cold if the other should die. They loved their family, their jobs, their hobbies and each other.

"There's a photo of the two of them when they were younger, I believe it may have been their engagement picture. They are very young and they look like a million bucks. In fact, they look like movie stars. And they went on to live a very rich life with each other."

Translating a story to art
What a life story! Have you ever gotten this much detail from a family before working with them to design a memorial? I bet not, but this is what you should be striving for.

I said earlier that you need to listen and then use the information help the family design a memorial. In the case I just outlined, what did you learn from the family?

One thing you should have noticed is that while they may not fit a preconceived notion of affluent customers, their father valued the security his job offered, including insurance. He wanted to leave his family something, and now his family wants to spend some of it on a loving, personalized memorial for their parents.

Families have probably told you something like this in the past, but you may have failed to pick up on it.

Using what you've heard as a guide, ask the family for any photos they have that capture the different facets of their parents' lives. Offer to accompany them to their home, if that's more convenient for them. Use these photos as the basis for creating a truly personal memorial.

Think of the memorial as a canvas on which you and the family are going to paint their parents' story.

For the counselor and the cemetery, this sort of attention can mean the difference between selling a memorial for at most $2,900 vs. selling one for $2,000 more.

What would it mean for your cemetery if 25 sales rose by $2,000 this year? Or 50 sales? (Not to mention what it would mean to the individual counselors who closed the sales.)

The fact is, families find value in highly personal memorials and consider the money spent a bargain when they get what they want, a memorial legacy that will last for generations to come.

It's a win-win-win situation for the family, the counselor and the cemetery.

In closing, I challenge you to look at every family who comes to your cemetery as an opportunity. Take the time to listen and to follow through on what you learn.

I promise you the rewards you receive from happy families will be worth much
more than the time you invest.

Aside from DNA, there is only one other aspect of the human body unique to each and every individual who has ever walked the earth: the fingerprint.

As we move toward greater individualization and personalization as a business, working to create tributes that tell a story unique to the person being memorialized, I believe the source of helping families to think more about their loved one than about cost and details lies in the fingerprint.

First, though, the history.

Time well spent
Recently I stood at the rear of our chapel with a pastor from one of our local churches. This pastor's approach to "officiating" at a funeral is somewhat unusual. When he receives a request for services, he schedules a time where he can sit with the whole family and get a feel for who the person was and what the family envisions happening at the funeral service.

He usually spends about two hours with them while they tell the stories that were important to their family. He then writes a personalized eulogy and a message of hope tailored to each family and situation.

The time he spends at the service and in the follow-up is handled with the same care and concern for the bereaved.

In all, he spends about five to six hours with each family, compared with some ministers who spend about 20 minutes on the phone with the family and for every service deliver the same message, with only the name changed.

Anyway, this pastor made a passing comment to me about what was happening following the funeral at which he had officiated.

He said, "Isn't it interesting that these people can come here and share this raw emotion, get it out of their system, and go on with life?"

Until that point, I hadn't spent much time reflecting on the value of what we do. I had spent two years in the "alternative" funeral delivery system, where anything that reeked of service or ceremony meant more cost and, therefore, was not appropriate for the families who chose to do business in the "alternative" environment.

Now I had left that environment and returned to a funeral home, I was having to relearn the emotional, spiritual, sociological and psychological value of a group-centered, time-limited tribute wherein a deceased individual's story is told, often for the first time.

The times, they have changed
When did a funeral stop being a rite of passage and become a transaction? Why does a client family look for the least expensive route of disposition without taking into account the effect that choice will have on their families' emotional health?

How can those of us in the funeral profession and not planning to retire anytime soon show families the value of what we do?

The first step involves learning to interview and listening to families as they tell the life story of their loved ones. In essence, taking their "lifeprint."

Where do we go from there? Several years ago, at a Cremation Association of North America marketing conference, I was looking for a place to sit down and enjoy my buffet breakfast.

Just as I was about to sit down alone, someone said, "Why don't you come sit over here?" I didn't know the fellow who had issued the invitation, but I recognized him as a fellow conference attendee.

As soon as I sat down, he started talking. "I've been working on this idea for identifying the deceased person while still at the place where they died," he said.

He showed me drawings and some notes he had scribbled. The drawing was of a metal disc with two hearts, an inner one and an outer one, each marked with the identical number.

His idea was to attach the inner heart to the deceased when the pick-up took place and detach the outer heart and give it to the family at that time.

This disc would accompany the deceased throughout the entire disposition process, whether burial or cremation, and end up affixed to the casket or urn, thereby giving the family extra assurance that the body they were receiving back into their care was, in fact, the same one they had placed in his.

I was impressed both with the idea and at the man who had envisioned it. He extended his hand and said, "I don't believe we've met Dave Daly."

I'm sure most of you reading this knew him for many years, but I was a young man just starting out, and the name Dave Daly held an aura of celebrity for me. "Are you the Dave Daly?" I thought. This was one of the guys I'd listened to on tapes and watched on videos for so many years, along with others such as Gary O' Sullivan, Asher Neel, Bud Kendrick and Bill Rowe. And now I had had the opportunity to share a meal with one of those giants of our profession.

I love this job.
Back at Eternal Hills, we drew on Dave Daly's idea to take our "lifeprint" concept further. When someone is received into our care, we take a fingerprint of the deceased's right thumb and place it on a bracelet that will accompany the deceased through the entire disposition process.

In a burial case, the bracelet will remain in place and end up in the casket with them. In a cremation case, the bracelet is removed and kept with the paperwork while the cremation takes place, then placed in the urn.

At the same time we place the thumbprint on the bracelet, we also attach a copy of the print to the first call sheet. The thumbprint is then scanned onto our internal computer network and a copy is placed in the paper file for the deceased.

Aside from providing an additional means of identification if a question of identity ever arises, the thumbprint helps us transition to service planning. As I mentioned before, the service becomes the telling of the deceased's story—his or her "lifeprint."

To help families think about how their loved one was unique, we bring the scanned image of the thumbprint onto the television or computer screen in the arrangement room.

We then say, "We've spent the last few minutes talking about your dad and the impact he had on your life. The purpose of the funeral is to tell his story and show his unique “lifeprint” on you, your family, his friends, his colleagues and society.

"Whether you plan on having a public time of tribute or simply a private gathering, we believe you will find great sex cam comfort and live sex cam healing in the free sex web cams gathering together of live cam girl friends and family to share memories. I think some of the things we need to incorporate into that time are…….”

At this point, the funeral director begins to share some of the ways Eternal Hills can work with them to turn the memories they've shared about the deceased into a meaningful tribute that will be remembered by everyone who attends the service.

Learn to direct the service
As providers of goods and services surrounding the death of a family member, we must stop standing at the back of the church or chapel and move to the front. When I look up "director" in the dictionary, I find it defined as: "one who supervises the production of a show."

How many funeral directors would meet that definition of the position? How many understand what Ernie Heffner calls "the panache and profit correlation?"

Based on my own observations, I would say not many. Funeral "directors" who realize that bereaved families need help and advice will not worry about the rising rate of cremation or the rising costs of doing business. They will instead seek new and profound ways to take the business we know today as "death care" to a new level.

I'll end by dropping one more celebrity name. Todd Van Beck's concept of seeking, with or without the family's knowledge or permission, the one thing that is going to be their "WOW factor" should be a funeral arranger's ultimate goal.

This is what elevates the funeral from something endured for the sake of the grieving family to a tribute that accurately reflects the deceased's life so that everyone in attendance leaves with the feeling their time was well spent.

It's easy to talk about the importance of offering families personalized, meaningful services, but following through is harder.
It takes good interviewing and listening skills, combined with a flair for translating what is learned into a ceremony the family will value.

Families today are increasingly looking for ways to personalize funeral and memorial ceremonies so they better reflect the person's life, no matter how simple or complicated it may have been.

There are many ways that officiants can and should personalize ceremonies, including speaking with family and friends before writing the ceremony and encouraging family participation in the ceremony itself.

At the heart of the ceremony, we should look to incorporate the hobbies, pastimes and passions of the individual we are remembering. This can be done in a tasteful way that reflects the person's true nature, and in turn, the things that he or she loved.

Gathering the information
As a funeral celebrant, you should collect information essential to creating ceremonies by conducting an unhurried interview with the family to ensure accuracy, warmth and meaning. During this interview, the family will share many details about the life of their departed loved one, from the school days and neighborhood friendships to career information and adult life.

By asking pointed yet caring questions, the funeral officiant can and should be able to paint a vivid picture. Once informed, you must then go about the creative process of writing the eulogy, carefully choosing appropriate readings and arranging for the music selected by the family.

Even when you have spent a lot of time preparing the eulogy, you should carefully review it with family members ahead of time to check for accuracy.

You are then ready to officiate at the ceremony, a duty to be performed with compassion, sincerity and care, whether it takes place at the funeral home, crematorium, cemetery or other location.

The three examples that follow are from my work with families. They show how stories and objects or symbols can be woven together to create personalized and authentic end-of-life ceremonies.

Remembering the lost babies and celebrating family
The couple struggled to have a family through the in vitro fertilization process; over several years they suffered the death of three babies, all stillborn. Five years later, they had a family, daughters 3 and 5 years old, but they had not forgotten the babies who would have been their daughters' older siblings.

They chose to honor the memory of those three brief but precious lives in a springtime ceremony. Family and friends gathered at their home and garden. The parents expressed the importance of family, their love of life and the joy their two young daughters have given them.

Throughout the ceremony, they used symbolism and homegrown rituals to honor the children who had not survived. One beautiful example: The family planted three evergreen trees in their garden, one in memory of each of their stillborn babies.

In a meaningful and deeply touching way, this family discovered that through ceremony they could pay homage to their family, present and past. They were able to honor the life experience of having children and of losing children, and were able to share the ceremony with the people in their lives they love the most.

Giving a father and best friend a fishing pole salute
When their father died, the two brothers in their 30s also lost their best friend. Throughout their lives, the three had been inseparable. Together they shared the best of times, deep-sea fishing, clearing brush by their oceanfront property, simply hanging out, playing guitar and, most of all, watching the glorious sunrises on the beach.

Every summer, the whole family, including grandchildren, enjoyed time together at their golden oasis by the sea. Early one morning, the eldest son was helping his father untangle the shore brush when his father suddenly fell ill. No one else was in sight. He held his father in his arms and shared the last few moments of his life. As the sun rose, his father passed away.

For their father's funeral ceremony, the two men wrote a song to honor his memory. Neither of them was much for talking; they were more comfortable sharing their loss with family and friends through their guitar music.

Prior to the viewing, the celebrant asked guests to bring their fishing poles and line them up in the funeral home near the casket. It resembled a military procession, with a fishing pole rather than a gun salute.

The ceremony was true and heartfelt. The two sons were able to communicate their feelings and the close relationship they had shared with their father in a sincere and meaningful way, and everyone who attended was able to participate in showing their love and respect for this beloved father and friend.

Remembering all the colors of a long life
A Dutch landscape artist, father, grandfather, husband and musician took his life at the age of 81. A little known fact is that worldwide, it is not uncommon for elderly people to take it upon themselves to end their lives at a time and place of their own choosing. Family members then have to come to grips with their death and find a way to grieve and honor their lives as well as respect their personal decisions about dying.

Although suicide is a difficult subject to talk about, and some clergy would rather not deal with these deaths, it is so very important for people whose loved ones have taken their lives to find a dignified way to pay proper tribute and respect to that life.

Denying a ceremony for someone who took their own life is damaging to their family and friends, both emotionally and psychologically. Bringing the family and loved ones together to share the grief and to understand the history and spirit of the person is vital for mental health and well being.

Through a carefully crafted ceremony that tells the story of the deceased—heritage, history, loves, hates, talents, relationships, accomplishments, foibles, failures and joys—we paint the picture of a real person.

We tell the story, heart and soul, and we share it with family and friends. An in-depth personal eulogy, or life tribute, becomes in itself "life affirming," a meaningful record for families and a legacy passed down to future generations.

For this artist's funeral ceremony, all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren painted something to be placed in his grave—a gift from younger generations to a previous one. The ceremony elaborated on the great Dutch heritage that thrives in the family of artistic expression through fine art painting. Every one of those 13 could draw or paint.

The ceremony acknowledged that this man who was a very talented artist also suffered during his life from various illnesses, went blind and, upon losing his dear wife of 50 years, who had died the year before, lost his will to live.

One of the artist's grandsons, who had been very much influenced by his grandfather, had become a fine artist himself.  He also arranged, not long after the funeral, a meeting with a curator to view his grandfather’s work, now displayed in the National Museum of Art.

As these vignettes about lives remembered and honored illustrate, showing an appreciation for life helps us appreciate our own lives. There is no better way to honor our departed loved ones than to create a ceremony that truly reflects the person we loved.

Funeral celebrants are trained laypeople available to work with a deceased person's family to plan and conduct a funeral service that celebrates the person's life. They are used most often when the deceased was not religious or had no relationship with a local minister or house of faith.
Celebrants are more widely used in Australia and New Zealand, where church attendance rates are low and cremation rates high, but they are becoming more common in North America. This is the story of how one celebrant provides a caring service to a Calgary funeral home and its families.

Bonnie Roddis operated veterinary clinics for 30 years and regularly takes animals to visit schools and nursing homes, but it is her role as a funeral celebrant that this resident of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, considers her life's calling.

Since attending celebrant training two years ago, Roddis has led approximately 200 services through Foster's Garden Chapel of Calgary. She considers a personalized service that enables even family members to learn more about the deceased to be "The last gift we can give. I just help the family find the right wrapping paper."

Several of the earliest services Roddis conducted were for indigents who had no money for funerals.

"I feel very strongly that everyone should have appropriate words said over them," Roddis said. While she received no money for these services, she described "the greatest payment I've ever received" as eight photographs of scenery around Banff in the Canadian Rockies taken by a man who died a pauper.

Learning about the person
Roddis' work begins when a funeral home contacts her to let her know it is serving a family that may be interested in her services.

She calls a family member, expresses condolence for their loss and arranges a time to meet at their home or at the funeral home. She then outlines what her role would be and what would be involved in preparing for the service.

If the family decides to engage her as celebrant, Roddis begins with a list of questions designed to obtain the family history and biographical facts about the deceased.

She then moves to a more open-ended approach and may say something like, "Give me five words that describe your dad," or "What was your mom like on holidays?"
During the interview, Roddis draws out information about pets, athletic pursuits, hobbies and anything else a family member thinks is important.

A young child once asked Roddis if she was going to speak about her grandmother and Roddis immediately asked the child if she had something she wanted to share.

"She could take her teeth out," the child replied. Roddis carefully crafted a way to use the story and drew smiles from family members in the process.

In another instance, Roddis worked with the family of a 37-yearold woman who had died of cancer. During the family meeting, Roddis learned the woman was an alcoholic who had joined Alcoholics Anonymous and stopped drinking three years earlier.

At her service, "we focused on what a fabulous thing she did when she joined AA and helped others at the same time," Roddis said.

"I speak for the immediate family about what they want people to know about their loved one," she said. "They want someone to talk about their love for the person. They want it put right."

Writing a good eulogy takes time
To get it right, Roddis spends two to six hours in the family meeting and then three to six hours putting the service together. As she writes a eulogy, she imagines one person in the service who never met the deceased. By the end of the service she wants that person to feel as though he or she did know the deceased.

For the family, Roddis wants "to give them a mental picture that's not as sad as the one they saw in the casket or at the hospital. You have to give them something good."

Roddis also works with the family to decide where the service should be held. She has officiated at services in funeral homes, private homes, yards, parks and a historic building.

"Not everyone's cathedral is made of brick or wood. It may be on a river bank or on a mountainside," she said.

Roddis, who is 56 and has multiple health problems, believes being a celebrant may be her last vocation. She also doesn't believe she could have done it at a younger age. "There is a wisdom that comes to a woman in her 50s," she said.

She is sometimes asked why she has chosen to be involved in such a "sad" line of work.

"I don't hear about sadness," she said. "I hear about courage, selflessness, love and many other human traits. I'm not making a fortune, but I'm making a difference."

Personalization can go beyond the funeral service.
Kelly and Dan Dwyer are expanding the options for getting from the funeral home to the cemetery, and having fun doing it.

My husband, Dan, and I started Michigan Specialty Funeral Carriages in December 2003 with one vehicle. During our Thanksgiving vacation, we found a circa 1890 horse-drawn hearse and bought it on the spot from Arthur Brewer, a retired funeral director in Hadley, New York. Dan rented a large truck, loaded the hearse into it and drove the 650 miles back to Michigan, with me and our daughters following in our van.

On December 8, we used the carriage for the first time, for my grandfather's funeral.  Since then, we've used the carriage an average of three times a month. There is a mile-long private road connecting Dan's funeral home, Michigan Memorial Funeral Home, and Michigan Memorial Park, which my family runs. (I'm a fourth-generation cemeterian; Dan is a fourth-generation funeral director.) The private road makes it safe for family members and guests to walk behind the carriage for the trip from the funeral home to the cemetery, and in most cases that is what they choose to do.

From horse power to horsepower
In January 2004 we added our second specialty vehicle, the Tombstone hearse. One of the most unusual pieces of funeral equipment we have ever seen, it's a customized Harley Davidson Road King motorcycle with a hand-built casket coach attached. When we first saw it at the NFDA convention in 2003, Dan and I looked at each other and said "we've gotta buy that!"—and we did.

Jack Feather, the builder and owner of Tombstone Hearse Co., had one franchise agreement with him, so we copied it and worked out our deal right there on the convention floor. (Our attorney, Frank Rosenacker, was on the floor at the same time, which made it very convenient).

We didn't have any goals for getting a return on the money we spent on the motorcycle. We figured that if all it did was pay for itself that was OK—owning it was going to be a lot of fun. (It is!)

Our first motorcycle funeral was on February 4, 2004 (10 degrees brrrrrr.... ), for a man who hadn't even owned a motorcycle. His family thought the Tombstone hearse was "cool."

We are now using the Tombstone bike about once a week, between funerals, parades and exhibitions. As of this writing, only 25 percent of the funerals where we use the motorcycle are at Michigan Memorial Funeral Home.

In 75 percent of the cases, Michigan Specialty Funeral Carriage has gotten a call to serve a family using another funeral home. We have served families at funeral homes all over Michigan and as far away as Indianapolis, Indiana, and Cincinnati, Ohio.

In the first six months we had the bike, three families chose Michigan Memorial Funeral Home specifically because of the motorcycle. Having the motorcycle also has been responsible for more than two dozen preneed arrangements and has given all of our businesses added name recognition.

Recently an 85-year-old woman came in to arrange her funeral and included use of the Tombstone hearse in her arrangements. She said, "My friends will get a kick out of this!"

Despite our success with the motorcycle hearse so far, we feel we could be doing even more business with it. Our biggest problem has been getting the word out about our service. Our competitors tend not to mention it to their families who are motorcycle enthusiasts. Most of our calls for service come from the families directly.

We market through direct mailings to funeral homes and motorcycle clubs, as well as at Dan's funeral home, my cemetery and Dan's casket store.

We've found, though, that the best advertisement (not to mention the most fun) is just going for a ride. We can drive it to a gas station, supermarket parking lot or anywhere, really, and it attracts its own crowd.

The Tombstone hearse is also the most photographed (and possibly the most remembered) part of every funeral for which it's used. We've never seen anything quite like the reaction it gets.

Michigan Specialty Carriage Co. was profitable in its first month, and business continues to improve. Our service volume is going up every month.

Setting up this company has been one of the most enjoyable things Dan and I have done, and we're not finished. We're still looking for "new and different" vehicles to add to our fleet.

Is there such as thing as trends in "casket fashion;" and if so, what's "hot" these days?

Significant cultural, personal and industrial trends and changes are redefining our society and they do impact funeral service. People in North America are getting larger; more and more families are asking that the funeral service be personalized; and the cremation rate continues to grow.

For the past several years, the number one new product request from customers has been for additions to our line of plus-size and oversize caskets, which we introduced a couple of years ago.

We had about 35 models between the two (plus-size caskets fit in a standard vault; oversized caskets require an oversized vault), and about a year ago we increased to more than 50. Funeral directors told us these families want personalization, too, so we added personalization options available on our regular caskets to some of the models in this line.

There is one interesting thing we have noticed for a number of years in terms of casket colors. We buy our paint from the same company that most auto manufacturers buy their paint from, and if a certain car color is popular, usually about three to five years later, that color becomes a popular choice for caskets.

Of course, we would probably never offer "spitfire red" as a standard casket color.

But I'd like that color!

Like so many other requests we get from customers for caskets painted in colors such as Harley Davidson orange or John Deere green, we would certainly be willing to make it for you in our custom shop.

Batesville's company history (on the Web site) mentions that at one point the company stopped making wood caskets entirely and then started making them again in the '70s. Was that in response to consumer demand?

That's correct. To recap, when Batesville Coffin Co. was acquired by the Hillenbrand Co. in 1906, it was making wood coffins, which evolved into wood caskets. In the '20s and '30s, we started dabbling in metal, and just before the war started, we found a manufacturing process that allowed us to produce metal caskets very cost-effectively.

During World War II, we stopped making both metal and wood caskets to save precious resources for the war effort. We were making a lot of the old cloth-covered cardboard caskets. After the war, we focused almost exclusively on metal caskets; in the' 50s and '60s we did not make wood caskets.

We resumed making them in the mid- '70s as a result of customer input. In fact, we now offer a complete line of wood caskets made using premium wood veneers and structurally sound engineered wood in addition to our solid wood casket line.

Have there been any product changes to appeal to particular religious or ethnic markets?

Just a few years ago, we got back into the business of manufacturing caskets for those of the Jewish faith. The caskets have to be manufactured in accordance with the tenents of their faith, including no work done on the Sabbath, no use of metal in the production and no use of glues containing animal fats.

Other religious and ethnic markets have expressed a desire for more personalization, and we have found we can address these requests with features such as tribute panels, including designs showing the Chinese symbols for long life and Our Lady of Guadalupe, as well as LifeSymbols designs, including the Our Lady of Guadalupe and Going Home themes.

As the spokesman for a casket company, what's your reaction to the "it's not about the box" mantra we hear so much these days at seminars and conventions?

It's never been about the casket. The focus of funerals (visitation, service, committal) is on the living and how, with the help of the funeral professional, the family can honor the life of someone who was loved.

And while it may not be about the casket, certainly the casket can and should play a pivotal role in the funeral. We try to build value into the products we offer so the family can feel good about selecting them, and the unique personalization options we offer can playa role in creating that meaningful funeral experience.

As I understand it, "it's not about the box" is repeated to funeral directors over and over because many of them in the past didn't charge enough for their services and tried to make up for it in the casket sale. As cremation rates rise, funeral directors must react by charging properly for their services. Casket manufacturers, for their part, are reacting by selling urns and other cremation products. Is the profit going to be the same for the manufacturers, though?  I guess Hillenbrand could focus more on its health-care products. How do you see casket companies responding realistically to the changing financial situation?

That's a very interesting question. I think part of the answer lies in the fact that we realized more than 12 years ago that cremation was not a fad, it was a growing trend, but the important thing we try to communicate is that with cremation, every element of the traditional funeral—a visitation, a service with the body present, a burial—can be the same.

We are doing everything to try to ensure that those elements remain, because we have a deep-seated belief that a meaningful funeral not only honors the life of the deceased but also takes the family along the first steps of the grieving process.

That's one of the reasons we value our relationship with Dr. Alan Wolfelt, who for years has said it's important that the family begin to mourn the death and celebrate the life, and that this happens through events such as the visitation and service.

I personally believe that without those elements you cannot effectively move through the grieving process. When you experience the death of a loved one, as I did several years ago when my father died, you see how the elements of a meaningful funeral help you and your family through the process.

What do you think about the funeral homes that have gotten rid of display rooms, showing the family products via catalogues or computers? Do you see that as a problem at all?

We do realize people are becoming more technologically focused, so we have almost a stair-step approach to help funeral directors determine what level of technology they want in the funeral home.

The first step is replacing the binder of product photographs with digital images updated every six months that can be downloaded onto the funeral home's computers.

The next step up is Batesville setting up and hosting (for a fee) a Web site that gives the funeral home an Internet presence and shows families the caskets available at the funeral home.

The third step is a kiosk that allows families to not only select the casket they want but also digitally "assemble" it with personalization options to see a picture of how it will look.

The pinnacle of what we have available electronically or technologically is our planning software the funeral director can use in making arrangements. It handles the front-end work, including printing death certificates, and at the back end can connect with an accounting package.

So do you think you offer enough different ways for people to view your product that people saying, "I'm getting rid of the casket room" is not a problem?

If they so choose to replace it, that's certainly their right, though we like to think funeral directors will use these systems to complement the display room.

We have always suggested, back when the movement to use cut casket displays came along, that funeral directors have a full-sized casket on site, if for no other reason than a casket is something families don't select every day—or every year. People select a casket every 12 to 15 years, and they need to see it to appreciate the craftsmanship involved and how our personalization features work.

If you want to have fewer full-sized caskets so you can show more casket personalization options and how they can work together—to give the consumer more information—that's great.

So you see value in keeping at least some full-sized caskets on display?

That may be more of a Joe Weigel perspective than a Batesville Casket perspective. But given the fact that caskets aren't selected as frequently as other consumer goods, consumers need to see a full sized casket, especially to really understand and value some of the features we offer.

What led to Batesville's touring display room?

That's our Honoring Lives Tour Center. I can't tell you the number of times we've had funeral directors from small, independent firms come to Indiana to learn what's new, walk in the door and get a cell phone call saying the mayor's died or something else has happened that requires them to get back to their businesses right away.

So we said, "If we can't bring them to Batesville, let's bring Batesville to them." We've been delighted with the response. Not just funeral directors but entire funeral home staffs, as well as mortuary school students—who usually get a special tour at night—have toured the traveling display.

So the tour will be continuing?

Absolutely.

What about the competition to North American casket makers from manufacturers in other countries, particularly the Chinese?

It's certainly no secret that casket manufacturing is no longer limited to just North America. We continue to heed the advice that John Hillenbrand gave his son, John A. Hillenbrand, shortly after acquiring the Batesville Coffin Co. in 1906:

"Concentrate on serving your customers first. You will have the greatest chance for long-term success if you build your business on a philosophy of mutual trust with your customers."

Do you think the Chinese casket companies present a big threat to American casket companies?

I can't speak for the other casket companies, but what I can tell you is we strongly believe that there are several factors that make Batesville an important part of many funeral home operations. We build a quality casket with innovative, patented personalization features they can get nowhere else and, just as important; we have a distribution system that's one of our crown jewels.

I know of no profession more time sensitive than the funeral profession, whether at the funeral home or the cemetery.

What do you see ahead in the casket market?

The PR director at Batesville may not be the best person to predict the future of the casket market. I'm sure there are other people in funeral service who can also shed some light in this area.

What I can tell you, though, is I'm firmly convinced that funeral directors and cemeterians will continue to play a very important role in the funeral process and that we stand prepared to help them create meaningful funerals for loved ones.

However fast the cremation rate rises, we plan on being a very important part of the funeral profession moving forward.

Dry and uninteresting funeral ceremonies fail.
They fail both the family the funeral was intended to help and the funeral home producing them, and ultimately reflect negatively on all of funeral service, leading to ballooning "cremation with no service" requests. The solution?
A proper arrangement process and a willing funeral director.

Many funerals are powerful and moving, but most funerals are not. Sad to say, funerals are not generally perceived as nourishing and moving events friends want to attend. Most are thought of as unpleasant social obligations rather than as occasions where what made the person being remembered special is creatively expressed.

The steady decline in funeral attendance is as dramatic as the increase in requests for "cremation with minimum or no ceremony" or "no funeral."

Innovative funeral directors can reverse these trends by making the services they provide interesting and moving. Doing so requires conducting a proper arrangements conference.

The wrong way
Many pre-arrangement counselors are product salespeople with little or no experience in helping a family plan an innovative or creative funeral ceremony. In their haste to quickly sell as many products as possible before moving on to the next customers they miss a great opportunity for increased revenue via dynamic customer service.

Some funeral directors are simply unwilling to have a real human experience with their clients. They act as "order takers" and remain emotionally detached during the arrangements conference. They may even furnish their arrangements room with a flat-screen TV that explains service and product options to families.

Some funeral directors emphasize "standard packages" from which families are encouraged to choose, opting to try to fit people into a prearranged format rather than to create an individualized experience.

Can you imagine asking the family of a head of state what funeral package they'd like? "Do you want the president's package, or perhaps the prime minister's packagette?" No, in that case, almost any funeral director would organize a service to reflect the individual and his or her philosophy of life, accomplishments and family. Why then do we not do the same for each and every person?
Rather than engage in a creative process with the family, some funeral directors pile on the personalization trinkets-personalized casket panels and corners, videos, picture boards and funeral props, to name just a few—in an attempt to personalize the funeral, but only end up replacing one commercial mistake with another.

Impersonal trinkets may provide an interesting backdrop for the funeral, but they don't personalize the funeral. To be fair, most of the items I'm calling "trinkets" have value, and some, such as good videos, contribute significantly to a good funeral service. What I'm saying is that if they are used in place of the funeral director and family bonding as human beings and creating a personalized service, they won't keep the funeral from being just another cold, commercial experience.

When a funeral service fails to touch the family or attendees, it reflects badly not only on the funeral home responsible but also on funeral service as a whole.

Too often over the years I have sat with the family's side of the funeral arrangement conference and watched in horror as grieving families go through an additional ordeal because of inept funeral arrangers with blinders on, bent on "getting the job done" with little or no acknowledgement of the family's emotional state.

The amazing thing is that afterward, many of those funeral directors seemed to think things had gone well. "After all," they might say, "I got the vitals; set the time and place for the service; suggested a minister since the family didn't have one; sold a casket; organized the funeral; and collected the money."

It's easy to delude ourselves into thinking that all is well, the family is happy and a good job has been done. But the truth is, many families are too polite to do anything but smile and say thank you—and go away thinking, "Never again. Next time, I'm not going through this."

The right way
Years ago, long before we knew better, I worked at a funeral home with a lot of competitors. Since I was the youngest person on staff, as well as the one with the least seniority, it was my job to call the other 40 funeral homes every six months and find out what their prices were. This was 45 years ago, before the Funeral Rule went into effect—and before anyone had Caller ID.

I would pretend to be a bereaved son whose mother had died at the county hospital. Since the family didn't have much money, I needed to know how much a funeral cost.

I still remember how cold and indifferent many of the responses were. "We bury for anything." "We don't give prices over the phone." But there was one small funeral home near us where the phone was answered every time by a woman whose responses were strikingly different from all the others.

Mary Elena answered my question straightforwardly—she gave me a price—and then, as she continued talking with me, managed to connect almost instantly with me on an emotional level. She spoke to me from her heart and made me feel valued.  If I truly had been a bereaved son, I would have chosen that funeral home regardless of the price.

Years later, I confessed to her what I'd been up to back then and learned that she owned the funeral home with her husband, and they lived upstairs. Her job consisted mainly of answering the phones, and the way she handled that job had a profound impact on me.

She introduced me to a way to communicate with the bereaved that had never occurred to me. It certainly hadn't been part of my training to be a funeral director. Her way of dealing with callers started me on my search for a more effective funeral arrangement process.

What Mary Elena did naturally and intuitively can be learned and practiced. It's the single most important tool you can use to develop funerals that touch the heart.

None of us went to funeral arrangement school. Learning how to make arrangements has always been something we learned on the job, like an apprentice, picking up all the bad habits of the person from whom we learned.

And once we learned, we tended to stick with what we learned way back when. If you ask funeral directors how their approach to arrangements has changed over the years, most will talk about how they go about presenting the required General Price List or bemoan the increase in people demanding direct disposition.

Often the goal in making arrangements is to not upset the family. The fear of making waves causes many of us to forego experimenting with creative ideas and innovative ceremonies in favor of what seems like a "safe style," guaranteed to suck all the joy out of a funeral service career.

The competitive advantage that comes from being known for developing unique and moving funeral ceremonies is obvious. The difficulty is in making such services more than an occasional occurrence in response to a family's requests. You need to make sure your arrangements process, both preneed and at-need, is designed to deliver consistent results.

Avoid these arrangement mistakes
The first rule of funeral arranging is that every method of doing it has predictable results. If you get information via the "taking of vital statistics" method, you'll end up with the same old service. To plan a better service, you need a better way of getting information.

The most common funeral arrangement mistakes are:
• beginning the arrangements with the taking of the vital statistics;
• asking an endless list of close-ended questions which require brief, to-the-point replies;
• not talking about the family's emotional experience due to their loss;
• attempting to arrange the funeral far too soon after sitting down with the family;
• not obtaining the type of information from which to make appropriate suggestions for the ceremony;
• not making ceremony suggestions that reflect the family's value system;
• making inappropriate suggestions for the ceremony; and
• not connecting emotionally with the family.

When you do any of these things, the arrangement conference becomes a quasi-business experience, the family closes down emotionally and the funeral ceremony ends up being dry and leaving people unsatisfied.

Even if the arranger tries to add on some personalization, the service is going to look more like a traditional funeral that's been remodeled with the addition of memory boards, casket panels and props than a compelling ceremony people will find moving.

Busy funeral directors wear a lot of hats today. It's not unusual for a funeral director to be on the run all day, making removals, embalming and working on funerals.

To have to switch gears in the middle of a busy and hectic day and sit down with a bereaved and broken-hearted family may involve a difficult and stressful transition from a task-oriented mindset to one of operating from the heart.

The effective use of the communication skills described below will help you adjust from a period of constant activity to a quieter time of earnest and heartfelt communication.

Do it this way, instead
1. Begin with open-ended questions and let the family talk. I cannot overstate the importance of what I call the "support discussion" as the way to begin your funeral arrangement conference.

Remember, your goal may be to arrange the funeral, but the family's goal, though they may not consciously realize it, is to begin accepting their loss. You need to start by making the family feel valued, by making a human connection.

Once you have bonded with the family members—which you can do quickly at the beginning of the conference—they will willingly talk about things that will help you plan a meaningful service with them.

I suggest you simply start by asking, "Could you tell me a little bit about what's happened?" With this type of open-ended question, a family member may start telling you about something that happened 10 years ago, or last night at the hospital or this morning in your parking lot. They'll be talking about whatever they have the greatest need to say. Open-ended questions give the family the chance to choose a response, which allows them to maintain a feeling of control.

All questions about vital statistics are close-ended ("Date of birth?"), and so are the ones about service options ("When and where do you want the funeral?" "What songs do you want used?"). The cumulative effect of this type of approach can be to make the family feel manipulated. Anger, either overt or smoldering beneath the surface, is a common reaction, with neither the client nor the funeral director understanding why the client is upset.

We are accustomed to asking questions to get information we plan on using. Open-ended questions are asked for an entirely different reason, to give people an opportunity to discharge some energy around their experience and to enable you to connect emotionally with them.
 
2. Paraphrase what the family has said. Paraphrasing or reflecting back to them the meaning their words have for you helps them feel understood and valued. It also reduces their sense of isolation (grieving is an experience of isolation).

Many people at first find that paraphrasing feels artificial, but that feeling gradually goes away, and with practice, paraphrasing becomes a genuine attempt to hear another person accurately.

Paraphrasing demands active listening, keeping you in the present moment. It helps you focus on what the family is saying rather than the inner dialogue that often occupies our minds while others are talking.

3. Share your feelings, too. The basis of any relationship is the ability of those in the relationship to honestly disclose their feelings. Without a mutual exchange, there is no real relationship. The funeral director's "I" statements, or disclosures about what he or she is feeling about what is happening at the moment, give the clients permission to share even more, enabling you to develop a truly helpful funeral experience.

We disclose our feelings both verbally and nonverbally, and nonverbal expression can be more effective in communicating real feelings and creating instant bonding. What good funeral director hasn't gotten a tear in his or her eye while talking to a family in pain? I'm not suggesting we should cry with every family, but I am suggesting we should not try to hide our humanity.

I don't believe anyone should be "required" to do what I just described; one has to want to do it. But I do believe that choosing funeral service as a career means choosing a profession that requires you to make your emotions available in order to help clients. That's certainly not for everybody, but neither is funeral service.

4. Redo your arrangements form to ask the right "vital" questions. Take a look at your current funeral arrangement form. Does it ask questions about the deceased's philosophy of life, accomplishments and significant relationships? If not, take a look at our guide for conducting an interview and planning a service to get ideas. An intimate understanding of those three areas of the deceased's life is essential for real personalization.

I actually see this process as one of developing a relationship with the deceased through the eyes of the survivors, a process almost all families freely engage in following a successful support discussion.

The more details you discover about the deceased's victories, defeats, passions, loves and adventures, as well as philosophical views, accomplishments and relationships, the more accurate and compelling the ceremony can be. Creating a ceremony this way is an exciting art form.
The basis of the American funeral ceremony has historically been one of words—eulogies, sermons and verbal participation by family and friends. As important as words are, they remain but symbols of symbols, thus twice removed from real communication. A ceremony that demonstrates the life of the deceased is far more powerful than one that tells about it. The comparison is one of television to radio.

5. Learn how to paint mental pictures for family members so they can picture a personalized ceremony. The presentation of a personalized funeral concept to the family is an art in and of itself. Once you have the information you need, have come up with a concept for the service and the family has given you permission to present it, don't simply make suggestions, help them picture what you have in mind.

For example, rather than suggesting the Boy Scouts participate, describe how you plan to have them participate: "I would like to reserve the first three rows in the front of the chapel for the Boy Scouts and bring them in after everyone else is seated. I will see to it that they wear their uniforms and carry their troop flags."

Make your presentation orderly, from beginning to middle to end, and give them a chance to react and contribute until you have come up with a ceremony they are happy with.

It's the non-commercial human components born out of the relationship between a sensitive, compassionate and creative funeral director and the family that make a ceremony experience powerful and moving, the type of funeral people leave thinking, "That touched me; I want one like that."

A guide for redoing your funeral arrangement form

The Life Appreciation funeral ceremony interview

Religion, spiritual or philosophical beliefs:
Special accomplishments:
Special spiritual activities:
Employment history:
Friends:
Friends at work:
Music:
Hobbies:
Organizations, service clubs, lodges and activities:
Special family activities:
Most active in:
What gave him/her the most enjoyment in life?
Offices held, awards received, recognition and honors:
How would you describe her/him?
Have you ever seen anything done at a funeral that you found objectionable?
Activities enjoyed the most:
Friends and associates:

Ceremony summary and concept development

1.    Rank Order (1 low; 10 high)
2.    Summation
3.    Discuss company funeral policy
4.    Obtain permission to discuss your ceremony concept
5.    Describe concept

Religion, spiritual or philosophical beliefs:
Music:
Organization/Activities:
Accomplishments:
Occupation:
Most proud of:
Ceremony site (circle one):
Funeral Home
Church
Home
Lodge
Club
Restaurant
Outdoors
Boat
Athletic Facility
Other
Officiant:
Participants:
Participation method:
Music:
Friends:
Family activities:
Hobbies:
Most enjoyed in life:
Life symbols (items belonging to the deceased that will be displayed at the service):
Describe at least one unique activity or experience and how you plan to express it at the ceremony that would best demonstrate what others loved about the deceased:

So far, three KIP (Keeping It Personal) judges have braved the highways to review contest entries today instead of waiting until the designated snow day. Yes, we're in the midst of a snow emergency. An inch of snow has fallen and we in the DC metro area are suitably panicked. Those judges must really be excited at the prospect of reading about what progressive cemeteries, crematories, funeral homes and suppliers are doing these days!

They were welcomed by ICCFA Communications Activity Manager Rob Treadway, who is staff liaison to the Personalization Committee, and ICCFA Director of Cremation Services Julie A. Burn, who I strongly suspect brought the snow with her from Illinois. Burn has chaired or co-chaired the Personalization Committee since the beginning of the 21st century.

There are four KIP contest categories: (1) Innovative Personalized Product, (2) Best Practice/Personal Touch, (3) Most Personalized Service or Memorial and (4) Event. Winners will be announced in WIRELESS and in ICCFA Magazine, and will be notified individually.

KIP judging room: The conference room at ICCFA headquarters in Sterling, VA, is set up for KIP Awards judging this week.

KIP judging: ICCFA Communications Activity Manager Rob Treadway and Director of Cremation Services Julie A. Burn talk to some of the KIP judges.

F-word Number 2 is "flexibility." How many of you think it's important to be flexible in dealing with grieving families? How many of you are flexible when you're dealing with grieving families?

When you let your families rearrange and restructure and recustomize, you're showing them that you're being flexible.

Also, you may already do this, but if you don't, you should start using what I like to call "flexibility phrases."

Some of the most flexible phrases in funeral and cemetery service are:

"I'll try my best to do that."
"I'll look into that for you."
"I think that's a great idea."

Use flexibility phrases, because when we use these, we underpromise and we overdeliver. That's always better than overpromising and underdelivering. I use flexibility with my families and set them up to not be disappointed, and set me up to exceed their expectations.

A few months ago, I was making funeral arrangements for a middle-aged British widow. She told me she wanted both the limousine and the hearse to pick up her and the immediate family at their house before the funeral service. It's not part of our normal procedure to have the hearse go to the house, so I used a flexibility phrase and said, "I'll try my best to do that."

She says, "Splendid," then adds, "Now, Justin, of course we're going to need a walker."
I'm thinking she means one of those rolling aluminum walkers for her elderly parents, but she says no, that's not it.

She explains that it's English custom to have someone literally walk in front of the hearse and lead the deceased and mourners out of the driveway of the residence toward the church for the funeral service. Remember when Princess Diana passed away? The boys, Prince Henry and Prince William, walked in front of the hearse.

Again, that's not part of our normal procedure. So I used a flexibility phrase and said, "I'll try my best to do that."

When the day came, there I was, literally walking in front of the hearse, showing the entire neighborhood how flexible I can be.

So I guess the moral of this f-word, flexibility, is that if you truly are going to be flexible, you must not only talk the talk, you've also got to walk the walk.

This article compiled from an address presented by the author at the 2006 ICFA Annual Convention

What are the big events in our lives? Graduations. Weddings. Funerals. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes to produce big events. As funeral directors, we sometimes operate as project managers. We discover what the client wants, let them know how much everything costs, create a budget and do a cost analysis to make sure what they want will fit in the budget and coordinate the suppliers and vendors.

Whether it's a wedding or a funeral, we have a lot of information the family doesn't have. They may have bits and pieces, but they don't know how to pull it all together. They come to us for that. There are people who plan their own funerals, just as there are people who plan their own weddings, but in general, we are the paid professionals who know how to provide the products and services they want. We have the experience; we have the knowledge.

Even if you still do traditional funerals, there are non-traditional things you can add to them. These aren't things I created; I learned from other people and other companies.

Start relationship-building immediately

Everyone spends a lot of time making sure their employees know how to handle a first call, but what's important to us is what we do after we get that initial notification.

Our funeral home is still new in the market, so after we get the first call, we want to begin serving the family right away; we don't want to take a chance on losing that family to another funeral home. Someone in the family may say, ''I know this funeral home over here, I don't know them."

We assign a family service representative to the family and get into the home as soon as we can, whether the death occurred at night or during the day. We don't wait for the family to come to us, we don't say, "Be at the funeral home at 3 p.m."

We send the funeral director to the home to introduce himself or herself. We take a cooler filled with beverages and ice, a 64-cup stainless steel coffeemaker, coffee, sugar, cream, cups, an assortment of teas and 10 folding chairs.

At the home, we try to make a family assessment. We have what we call home concierge services to help the family out. They've had a death and now they're going to have visitors. Family and friends are going to be coming to the home, so we want to make sure the home looks good. Do they need lawn service? Housekeeping? We make those services available to the family.

We have a relationship with many of the hotels in our area. We find out how many family members may be coming from out of town and instead of them getting just a standard room, we try to upgrade them to a suite at the same charge, since they're going to be doing some visiting at the hotel.

Our philosophy on guest services is that anything the family wants or needs is our responsibility to make sure the family gets.

Transportation is a key service for us. All of our funeral packages include four hours of sedan service. They can use it to go to the grocery store, the doctor, the pharmacy, the cemetery—anywhere they want.

Get to know the family

Doing weddings, we talk to the brides, ask them what type of wedding they would like. Big or small? In Houston, San Antonio or the Caribbean? The key is to ask a lot of questions and listen to what people say.

If you ask people what type of funeral they want, some people will tell you. But I don't start funeral arrangements by saying, ''What kind of funeral service would you like? Do you want a chapel service or a church service?" I begin by going into their home and saying, “Tell me about Dad. What was important to him? Where did he go to school? What organizations did he belong to? Who were his friends?"

We had one gentleman who had been an avid jogger. His widow told us he had always jogged in the morning, so we recreated a final morning jog. The hearse with the casket inside met the joggers at 5 AM and accompanied the joggers for a two-mile run. That meant so much to the family; it was very meaningful to them.

At the funeral home, we create a living room setting for the family. When we're at the home, we get their framed pictures, photo albums, awards, blankets—whatever is special to the family. We remove all of our pictures from the wall and put up theirs. When the family and friends arrive, they find something familiar.

We have a children's center. We found that very few funeral homes in the Houston market had one, so we created a room with murals on the wall, video games, paints and toys. We want families to know that children are welcome at the funeral home. People can drop off their children at the center and then go to the chapel for services. We get children involved in the funeral by having them write a love letter to grandpa or a painting that can be placed in the casket or a memorial book.

We do video presentations. Every funeral home is presenting families with a memorial video tribute. If you aren't, you're really missing something. At graduations, people take videos. At weddings—do you know how much brides are spending for videos? In my market, $2,500 to $3,500. You can have an outside firm do it for you.

We give the videos to as many people as we can. The minimum number of videos we produce for any family is 12, because it's a commercial—our name appears on the video at the beginning or the end. We give it to them because it's a commercial. Do you know how many people go home and watch these things? These should be automatically included in your packages, as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't take a lot of pictures to do an effective one.

I also do something I call Theater Under the Stars. In the back of our funeral home near the parking lot, I have a 7½ by 10 foot screen where we show the memorial video at the end of the service, if we haven't shown it in the funeral home. We ask everybody to join us outside; we have blankets for the kids to lie on, a few chairs. In Houston, the weather's about 70 year round, so we don't have the weather constraints some of you do.

Family time and the "universal meal"

We do a private family visitation. This is very powerful. We find out how many people are in the immediate family—it may be five, 10 or 20. They've been running around getting ready for the funeral, trying to find clothes, going to the airport. So we have them come in an hour before the visitation for family time and what we call the universal meal.

First we take them into the living room and show them the memorial video, then to the chapel to have private time with their loved one, then to our memorial fellowship center. They sit down for a meal at a table set like it would be for a wedding, a round table with fine linen, candles and seasonal flowers. They enjoy a meal and talk about the good times, about Dad, about Mom.

Serve them a wonderful meal. It's priceless, and it's not very expensive. An outside catering firm handles it for us. Some of our families have requested beer and wine. We don't have the permits, but the catering company does.

Of the 65 families we served the first year, 90 percent wanted this. We haven't served a single family in the last four months that didn't want this. You can get food from the $5 to $7 range up to $50 to $60 a head. (If you've paid for a wedding lately, what did you pay for the reception dinner?) Introduce the product to them and families will spend what they want to spend.

Some studies tell you food service is important for funeral homes, some say it's not, but I think it's one of the most important values you can offer. If you're not serving food as part of your services, begin to do so.

During public visitations, we have a choice of beverages, including coffee. I like coffee; and my pet peeve is old coffee, so replace it every 30 minutes. We bake fresh cookies, an idea I got from going to time-share presentations. Let the smell of fresh-baked cookies go through your funeral homes and have someone walking around with an elegant tray offering people cookies—oatmeal, chocolate chip (that's number one).

At the reception, try different foods, offer people a variety. We set things up beautifully, use fine china. If you don't do anything else, have a nice dessert tray. Ninety percent of our families want this food, and they're paying for it. Make it pretty so they'll talk about it afterward.

If you don't have banquet facilities, find one near you and work out a deal.

One of the most important organizations for you to get to know is the National Association of Catering Executives. These are the event planners; become a member of NACE in your community.

More ideas to consider

• Use candles. Have candlelight prayers. There's a company at the convention that sells candles without wax (Candle Perfection) you can burn in your funeral home.

• Use your vehicles more. You have all of these expensive vehicles, get your name on them and use them. The majority of my customers have come from my bridal market, so we give them a choice. They may spend a lot of money and get something similar to what they had at the wedding.

• Offer choices for recessionals from the funeral home to the cemetery. People are willing to upgrade and do some special things, just as they are with brides. Brides pay for a limousine driver for five hours just to be driven from the church to the reception hall and after that to the hotel. They pay for five hours; they use it for 30 minutes. You have wonderful things available in all of your markets, such as buggies, carriages. Create a beautiful scene.

• Offer more locations. I've been in the business less than two years and I have one funeral home located in northeast Houston. I'm already a million dollars in debt; I can't afford to keep building funeral homes, so I figured out a different way to expand. Wedding chapels are usually available Monday through Thursday, because when do the weddings take place? Friday through Sunday. So during the week, you can rent beautiful churches, nice settings, for very little money, because they're just sitting empty.

• Upgrade your boutonnieres: Please, there are options other than carnations and roses. Take a look at what else your florist has, upgrade and make them fit with the season. It doesn't cost more than $1 per boutonniere. You'll be amazed at how many women will love this, and who's our market? The women are making the decisions.

• Investigate online funeral programs. You're going to be hearing more about this. Before Coretta Scott King's funeral, more than 500,000 programs were e-mailed to people, and by the end of the funeral, they estimated that more than 10 million people had gotten it. Put your funeral programs online and send it to your families.

• Offer a variety of music. Instead of an organ or piano player, we use a harpist, a string quartet. Because of the Latino market in our area, we also make mariachi bands available, and a lot of customers like this for the cemetery. How many of you know the bagpipers in your area and can call them right now to schedule them for a service this afternoon?

• Offer butterfly and dove releases at the cemetery. For the doves, we decorate the cages. And you know they aren't doves, they're homing pigeons. We release them at the cemetery and they fly back to the funeral home for us to use again. For butterfly releases, we have the children at the committal service open up the pouches and release them. If you win the hearts of the children, you win the parents. (How much money do parents spend on children's birthday parties?)

• Have a photographer available. Either have a staff photographer or a company you can outsource to. When families come together for a wedding or a funeral it's the only time you can take all these wonderful photos that are lifelong keepsakes. Offer a photographer for the reception and the committal service.

Funerals are not about us; they're about the families. You have to give the families what they want. Do things to make your funerals different and unique.

This article compiled from an address presented by the author at the 2006 ICFA Annual Convention

It's not what we say, it's what we do for our customers that counts. You'll find this session frustrating if you do not perceive yourself to be about gracious hospitality, or if you believe you can cut expenses without cutting service to the customer.

Let's consider some important opportunities for customer service from the moment you receive the initial death call to after the service.

How you look, how you act, what you say and what you do from transferring the person who died to the arrangements and planning process with the family to the execution of the planned tribute all matter to customer satisfaction, which is measurable.

How well are packages received? It depends on whom you ask, but from a value meal at McDonald's to a $65,000 Lexus, consumers are oriented toward choosing packages at all price points.

True personalization

Heffner, a second-generation funeral director, is president of Heffner Funeral Homes & Crematory, which includes 12 locations in Pennsylvania and one in New York. He is active in the Pennsylvania Cemetery Funeral Association and the Cremation Association of North America and has served on the board and as a vice president of the International Cemetery and Funeral Association. He is dean of the ICFA University College of Cremation Services. He is frequently invited to speak at meetings of funeral and cemetery professionals.

This article compiled from an address presented by the author at the 2006 ICFA Annual Convention

Copyright ICFA 2006