CREMATION OPTIONS

Even as a cemeterian, I look forward with interest to the arrival of The Director magazine every month. I am always interested in knowing more about what my funeral profession “cousins” do. I can communicate so much better with funeral directors when I understand the tremendous amount of detail and all the legalities they must tend to in the sort of timeframes they must work within. Thus, last month, I read your apprentice-training article with my usual cemeterian eyes. I was disappointed to see almost no mention of cemeteries in the funeral-planning process. Good funeral directors always strive to provide as perfect and beautiful a funeral as they possibly can, and in as lovely a setting as they can afford to build. Quality is constantly stressed. Cemeterians, like funeral directors, want to provide the same thing: a perfect and beautiful interment or entombment services in as lovely a setting as we can afford to provide. And our cemeteries must complement the quality that families decide to purchase at your funeral homes. Therefore, it is important that funeral directors remember that we, too, have many jobs to do in our cemeteries. What time of year is it? This can affect the setup at the graveside, and even the time of day for a service. (It gets dark early in winter!) Is it springtime? A cemeterian is likely very busy preparing the grounds for Memorial Day and will need solid notice of upcoming services. Has it been extremely wet? This can cause difficulties preparing graves- very soft turf, mud, cave-ins- that might require extra time to address before the committal service. In addition, at any time of year, it is important to check with the cemetery before scheduling a time and day for a service. If the cemetery is a small one like mine, with two operations people (and only one on Saturdays and Mondays), it is extremely important to plan ahead. Even small cemeteries can have three or four services in one day. This has happened to us many times, and it is a major stretch of our manpower to provide those services as requested. We do not want to be the ones to disappoint families! (”The last to let you down,” as the old joke goes.) We all know that while the funeral home provides the funeral service and the cemetery provides the interment service, the family’s lasting memory will focus on the “package deal.” They want and deserve seamless service from the first call to the last square of sod tamped down over their loved one’s grave. Finally-and many funeral directors have difficulty remembering or understanding this-families must meet with the cemetery staff to make their arrangements. Families need to see what the property looks like, and survivors must feel reassured that their loved one chose a cemetery that will give them a beautiful, dignified, peaceful resting place. Many of the families we serve might never have been involved in planning a funeral and might never have even visited a cemetery. Thus, they must feel familiar enough with the cemetery so that on the day of the service, they do not feel as if they are part of a procession to the “Twilight Zone.” In addition, families need to meet the people who will care for their loved ones’ remains for eternity. They need to know that after the funeral, there will be that final goodbye at the cemetery but that their loved one will remain in good hands. These observations have evolved during the nearly 30 years I have served in the memorialization profession. I have worked as a cemetery receptionist up to cemetery manager; I have worked as clerical staff in a funeral home; I have worked for the state of Washington, auditing cemetery and funeral trusts and care funds; I served more than five years on the state cemetery board; researched and edited a comprehensive directory of every funeral home and cemetery that ever existed in our state; edited an exhaustive index of all Washington-state laws and rules having anything to do with death; and for 16 years, I have served as the executive director of the Washington Cemetery and Funeral Association, as well as for the Northwest Cremation Association. I have put together more than 40 conventions and conferences, and ever since my first one, I have included funeral directors among the guest speakers- even when our membership was 90-percent cemeterian. It is that important to me to see our two “factions” work closely and professionally together. I understand the tendency of funeral directors to want to put a “wall of comfort and protection” around the families they serve, but do not forget: we cemeterian can offer complementary comfort and protection to those families, too. Get to know your colleagues at the cemeteries that serve the families you serve. The better we know each other, the more symbiotic our professional relationship will be, and that can only benefit families. (Not to mention our bottom lines!)

How Did You Make Them Feel?

In the June 2009 issue of The Director, I read the letters from Doug Wilson, Thomas Schwartz and Claudette Zarzycki, as well as Alan Wolfelt’s interview with Greg Henderson. Wilson urged selling services, not merchandise; Schwartz said other funeral directors are not as wonderful as he is; Zarzycki said NFDA should not pander to ethnic groups even though she admitted pandering to her local Polish community; and Henderson advocated “educating” the public about how wonderful and necessary funeral directors are.

Please feel free to contact Cremation Options if you have any further questions or concerns in respect to this article, direct cremation, cremation services, or cremation costs.

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Large city funeral homes are starting to see slippage in their traditional calls. There are two reasons for this: they are losing families to competitors and more and more people are choosing cremation. When I talk to customers these days, I find myself involved in ever increasing numbers of conversations about cremation. While funeral homes in rural areas have not felt the same impact, even they are quickly beginning to realize increasing numbers of families choosing cremation. Aside from getting the law changed to ban cremation-which is probably impossible-you might want to find some ways to adapt your services and offerings. Otherwise your bottom line is the next thing to be cremated. You need to increase call volume instead. So where will your increased calls come from? I see many funeral directors subscribing to one or more of six different theories for how they can increase calls, or how circumstances might increase calls for them:

1. Give better service: Some funeral homes tell me they will get an increase in calls by improving their customer service. They tell me about the great service they have given over the last 10 to 15 years, but after I ask them how many call this “better” service has earned them, their answers are almost always that, in fact, their call volumes have not increased at all. I have a hard time understanding why, if it has not won them more calls by now, they would expect it to happen anytime soon. Unfortunately, surveys both nationally and at a local level have shown that families perceive all funeral homes to provide the same level of service; there is no perceived difference.
2. Personalization: Funeral directors are beginning to focus more and more on how to personalize a funeral to create a new value to satisfy families, to make the service a true celebration of an individual’s life. That is a value, however, that many surveys say has been lost on most families. Unfortunately, many funeral directors are slow to change because of how they (and their fathers) have always done things. Some have begun to embrace the concept of cap panels, casket corners and so on, but those add-ons will not get you across the goal line and help you achieve the value consumers seek. Sure, you can add memory boards, videos and personal item displays. They add an extra pizzazz to the service, which will help-especially if your competitor is not providing such services. The real answer, though, is to create an “experience” and get everyone involved to celebrate a life lived.
3. Increase in population: In some areas of the country (think Vegas, Arizona and Florida, for example), many seniors are moving in, or buying a second home. This trend has proven to be a boost for funeral homes servicing those areas. A large percentage of these families, however, are choosing to forgo a conventional funeral in favor of a memorial service and/or cremation. They have new friends and a new environment. Their roots and their rich history may have disappeared in the move. But even these areas, where the seniors have moved, are also facing a loss in available calls.
4. Increased death rate: Many funeral directors have been hearing of a large increase in deaths from the baby boomers, and they are counting on this increase to offset the growth in cremation and recent shifts in population. Unfortunately, given current trends, this will not occur for another decade. According to statistics and data from the Centers for Disease Control, the funeral industry will not start to see the effects of the baby boom until the year 2016-70 years after it began. Deaths for the next 11 years are predicted to remain relatively flat, with some predicting that we could even experience continued decreases in the death rate, which has fallen relatively steadily since around 1970.
5. Other firms closing: Consolidation, the growth of large funeral home conglomerates and the contraction within the industry sometimes leaves funeral directors with the perverse hope that their competition will simply dry up and go away. In recent years, this was not a ridiculous idea. As HBO’s hit television program, Six Feet Under, showed, running a funeral home can be a tough business. But this is no longer likely. Consolidation has showed. funeral homes that survived are embedded in their markets. The industry has the second lowest failure rate of all businesses. Even for funeral directors inclined to gamble, those are tough odds.
6. Remodeling/expanding: One of the keys in this business is getting footsteps into your business, from both families and visitors. Some funeral directors remodel in the hopes of attracting (and maintaining) families. Others realize that families want a funeral home within a few miles of their home so they add a new location to try and capture families nearby. With proper surveying, staffing and advertising, these types of moves have proven successful for many. The negative here is obvious: costs can be staggering. Plus, remodeling and expanding works a lot better when you service $7,000 funerals instead of $700 cremations. Many funeral homes open a second branch and do increase their call volume, but still lose out, because they wind up spending their time performing cremations with their small margins. Every day, without realizing it, funeral directors around the country take calls from their competitors. It is like an iceberg: you only see the tip, not the rest of what is happening. Often, those funeral directors tell me they do not need an active program to recruit families because their competitors are practically forcing new business on them. They explain that, yes, every now and then, they see the name of a family that they had served for generations in the death notices being serviced by a competing funeral home. However, they do not like to describe this as (possibly) the tip of that iceberg. They would rather think, “every time my competitor does a mailing, I get preneed business. He is doing my advertising for me!” and yes, that is a common result, but do not fail to realize that for every family that walks in your door to prearrange, your competitor is opening his door for three families. If he has a bigger market share and is doing more funerals than you in town, he might be getting eight calls to everyone you get. To land new calls, you need to be the one with the effective advertising. Now, I know many funeral homes have done mailings to find preneed prospects (one of the most cost-effective advertising methods that also generate the fewest number of complaints) and have not had the results-most likely because they did not have the right training on how to do it in the most effective manner. You would be amazed how many funeral homes do not bother to train their preneed specialists in the most effective marketing solutions.

Here are three keys to successfully increase call volume with a preneed approach for a funeral business.

1. Offer experiences instead of products. You can’t fight cremation; it is a permanent part of the market. So whatever type of interment families choose, offer them a meaningful and valuable service, not just an expensive casket. You can continue to sell traditional services as preneed, but start offering cremations that memorialize the deceased as effectively as a traditional service. Tailor these services to each individual family. Everyone wants to be remembered in his/her own way. Create an experience for each family and their friends.
2. Make sure you have funded prearrangements-lots of them. Families with a financial commitment to a preneed plan are more likely to actually use your services. Find families new to the area, or those who have previously used a competitor, and start a loyalty chain, the type that extends through the generation. Such a chain can mean multiple funerals from the same family and help create buzz about your home and your services.
3. Provide superior customer service. This means responding to all calls quickly and the same goes for preneed inquiries as well as at-need first calls. It sound simple, but a lot of homes fail right there. Listen to what each family wants and, as I said previously, be prepared to tailor each funeral to each family’s needs. Listen to their concern. Funeral homes that get bogged down in traditional methods of doing business and are not prepared to adapt to the changing times will provide you new customers. You can quickly reach these people with an effective advertising program funded by preneed sales. None of these ideas is rocket science. But they represent the cheapest, least risky approach to increasing call volume. Your home can adapt to the changing times and the growth of cremation. But you need to be prepared to shift your methods of doing business. The benefits of adaptation cannot be overstated. In my family’s business, which first opened in 1854, we estimate that for every preneed sale, we get three additional at-need services. I have seen examples of that trend over and over as I have consulted with funeral homes around North America.

Please feel free to contact Cremation Options if you have any further questions or concerns in respect to this article, direct cremation, cremation services, or cremation costs.

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Why is it so hard to learn how to talk with people? Why does this take such a tremendous effort to do and do effectively? Meaning, generate leads. I don’t know, it seems to me, if you want to improve your sales you have to improve on your effort. To me, that makes all the sense in the world. More effort, more sales. Simple! Why do we listen to people who can’t do something and then tell you to do it, or tell you it can’t be done because they can’t do it? And, of course, the worst part is, you believe them. What’s even more ridiculous is someone telling you something can’t be done when they have no proof it can’t be done. They just listened to someone else who couldn’t do it.

What happened to the challenges we’re suppose to create in sales to become better at what we do? Where did all that go? I see sales people today just wasting away. Here’s what I mean. Sales people today accept minimal standards of success, minimal standards of accomplishments, minimum standards of presentation skills, prospecting and referrals, and so on. What happened? Where did all the energy go, the drive and ambition from sales people? I give up; I can’t figure it out. I have to say this just to get it off my chest. When I was a preneed counselor, there was no one to take us out and show us how to generate good leads and leads that were sellable. Why? If the company did not spend money to market leads we were dead in the water. If they didn’t set up a phone room, that was it, we were done, that’s for sure. We died on the vine, became our own clients. It was a nightmare. And, we were out looking for a job that provided leads. Leads, leads, and more leads. Boy, without leads you couldn’t make it in that field, nor could you in any field of sales. So what did we do? Well, we had to make a decision. We had to figure out a way to get out there and find our own leads. We had to decide. Boy, that was a real scary thought. The problem was, what are we going to decide? To work and work hard or to not work and not work hard. That was an easy decision. So, we started looking for new jobs as a lot of sales people do. Only kidding. There had to be a way to find leads that was not so difficult to do. A couple of us got together and brain-stormed over lunch. After all, you can’t think on an empty stomach, you know? Here’s what we came up with. Let’s get referrals. Let’s talk to people we don’t know. Let’s call existing clients and ask them. Let’s send out flyers. Let’s advertise, run a small ad. We chipped in to do that. We were getting so excited about all the things we were going to do, we could hardly contain ourselves. Let’s put together some seminars at senior citizen places and churches and clubs. “Oh my God, this was great!” we finally had a plan. We had a mode of attack to generate leads and write all kinds of business. We were great! We decided to start the following week, which was only a few days away. We felt it would be better to start off right, you know how that is. Then, all of a sudden, it was Monday morning and we had to get going, and someone had to ruin it all by asking a stupid question. And that just put the kibosh on everything. Took all our excitement away, all our energy and ambition to succeed. We could have strung him up by his toes, we were so mad. This guy had the nerve to ask us: “What are we going to say? What are we going to write in the ad? What are we going to talk about, at the seminars and who’s going to do it? What are we going to say to the client to get referrals, how’s that going to work?” it was at that moment we realized we were in big trouble. “Big, big trouble!” no one knew what to say or do. Do you? And, herin lies the problem for a lot of sales people in the business. What to do? How to do it? What to say? How to say it? It’s the same problem for everyone. Where to go and what to do when you get there? This can be very troubling. Then, the “do not call” rule came out, leading to more trouble. Now what? Well, companies have spent a fortune trying to figure out what to do without spending more money. Everyone started looking to everyone else for a solution to this mega-problem and still no magic solution arrived, except going back to the basics: Door Knocking.  I went to one cemetery and told them I could teach them to door knock and make 15 to 20 appointments a day, 150 per week and 600 per month. Of course, they laughed me out the door. No one can do that, they said, it does not work. Here’s what I believe. Any problem is solvable if you believe the problem is solvable. You just have to look for the way to solve it. Of course you’ll go through all the traditional things ways, and then you’ll start creating things to do until you find the right way. Herein lies a big problem: Knowing what to look for. Please don’t take this personally. Most sales people are so conditioned that they don’t know what to look for because of their own conditioning. It stops you in your tracks. So, what do you do? Let me help you out. First, recognize as a fact that sales people stopped thinking years ago. This is not a negative thing; it’s just a thing. This has happened because of our conditioning. I’ll give you a good example everyone will relate too. Go to the mall and shop. Walk into a store, any store. A salesperson will walk up to you and say what? That’s right! You win. They say, “May I help you?” and, of course you say what in return? Yes! Again you win. You say, “No thank you, I’m just looking.” Here’s my question. How do you know both sides of the conversation? This is what I’m talking about when I say that sales people stopped thinking years ago. But, here’s the worst of all. The salesperson hasn’t discovered that “May I…” is not working anymore. Start thinking about what you do on a daily basis. If what you’re doing is not working, don’t do it anymore. This is where you have the problem. What do you say that you haven’t said before? It’s hard to do, but it’s not impossible. Work on it and it will come to you. Remember this: if, you believe there’s got to be a better way, there truly is. Find it. Almost everyone I’ve ever run into has said, at one time or another, that there’s got to be a better way. Yet, how many of those people have stopped to figure it out? Now is the time to do it. When you find it, you’ll be able to book the 15 to 20 appointments a day as I did. Or, maybe even more. There is one other inherent problem here, though. How do you run all the appointments? What you do, and what I did, is divide the appointments among the other salespeople. I got so good at door knocking that I took three family service people out and in just under three hours we set 45 appointments. I figured it out and I’m sure you will as well. “If you think it’s hard-it is!” Don’t give up. If what you are doing does not work, then change it. Keep changing it, as most of your thinking will be related to your conditioning and vice verse. Please feel free to contact Cremation Options if you have any further questions or concerns in respect to this article, direct cremation, cremation services, or cremation costs.

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The present Whitaker Funeral Home, Inc. was actually founded in the mid-1800s by Col. John Rowland Leavell as the Leavell Funeral Home. It changed ownership two times before my father purchased it in 1951. Originally located on the town square, the business moved to its present location in 1937. I do not know if Col. Leavell was ever involved in another vocation before purchasing the funeral home, and I have no idea what inspired him to establish the funeral home. Regardless, the business has survived for a number of years but certainly not without a number of changes. When Col. Leavell came to work at the funeral home back in the mid-1800s, he most probably found himself in a building that had an office with pen, paper, and perhaps a filing cabinet, and, with a stroke of luck, a typewriter. If he had an embalming room, I suspect the embalming table would have been made of wood or metal and a gravity bottle would have been used to embalm. As far as vehicles or rolling stock, he might have owned a hearse of some sort-maybe a horse-drawn wagon for the hearse. There would not have been a casket showroom because caskets were made as needed. There had been a number of upgrades by the time my father bought the business in 1951. The office was equipped with a manual typewriter, a single-line, operator-assisted telephone (which was later upgraded to rotary dial), a filing cabinet and a manual adding machine. Obituaries were sent via Western Union. The embalming room had an enamel embalming table, running water and sewer, an electric embalming machine, a hydro aspirator and a bucket at the end of the table for drainage. My father owned a Packard hearse, a Packard ambulance, a Packard two-door limousine, a Chrysler two-door limousine and a Dodge Van truck. Caskets were ordered and stored on the premises. There was no need to display urns as few families chose cremation. In 2004, we have a three-line, touchtone telephone system, two fax machines, two computers, two printers, a television, a VCR, a CD player, high-speed Internet access, an electric (erasable) typewriter, a laminator, numerous calculators, a scanner, a postage machine, a security monitoring television, a fire and burglar alarm system, and an automatic obituary information telephone. We have a Website and send our obituaries via the Internet. Our preparation room has two enamel embalming tables, a high-pressure embalming machine, along with two other older machines, an electric aspirator, a three-opening ventilation exhaust system, air-conditioning, a fire and burglar alarm system, a television surveillance monitor, an electric body lift, personal safety clothing and equipment, and a closed-drainage system. Adjoining the preparation room is a dressing and cosmetology room. Caskets and urns are stored on the premises but can be delivered on short notice-usually the next day if needed. In the 1800s and 1950s, the funeral home did not have to comply with the Federal Trade Commission Funeral Rule, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Formaldehyde and Blood Borne Pathogen regulations or the Americans with Disabilities Act. They did not worry about hiring illegal aliens with false identification or individuals with arrest histories. There was no concern about anti-funeral consumer groups or bad media coverage of the funeral profession, nor did they need disclosures and disclaimers, authorization and permission forms, trust agreements, housekeeping schedules, bio-medical waste programs, written hazard communications, MSDS reports, infectious-disease policies, exposure controls for blood borne pathogens, formaldehyde testing, employee manuals, personal protective gear, employee safety-training reports, evacuation maps, hepatitis B vaccination verification and declination forms, etc. My dad and all who worked for him knew all of the doctors and nurses in town and addressed them by their first names. Law enforcement considered it an honor to escort the dead from the place of the funeral to the gravesite. Municipal zoning was not as difficult to deal with. Coordination of services between funeral homes and cemeteries was simple. Their greatest concern was taking care of the dead and helping the survivors. Today, funeral directors were many hats. We can be the funeral director, embalmer, business owner/operator, a human-resources person, a safety engineer, a personnel manager and so forth. To the family of the dead, however, we only wear one hat- that of funeral director. The funeral procession of today is different than it was back then. We have seen many changes and many regulations imposed. Change is necessary, and the many changes that have occurred are protective to the public, to our employees, to us, and to the families we serve. Some of the changes have presented the families we serve with more options and ways in which to honor and celebrate the life of the deceased. We have grown our business from that of years past because we have attended to the needed changes. But today, as in those days of yore, we remain for families the problem solvers and caregivers at a time when they need us most. Just as Col. Leavell and my father were proud of their profession and the work they did, I am proud to be part of this honorable profession and the work that we continue to do for both the living and the dead. Change is inevitable and will continue. As professionals, we must be open to and accepting of change. We do not need to change just for the sake of change but we must adapt to the necessary changes, view them as positive growth and embrace them in a way that allows us to better serve the needs of the families of the dead. Please feel free to contact Cremation Options if you have any further questions or concerns in respect to this article, direct cremation, cremation services, or cremation costs.

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Today, while photo boards and collages are still common, that type of “cookie cutter” funeral is increasingly becoming outmoded-replaced by more personalized services and offerings as funeral homes shift from being in the business of death to being in the business of life.

When 89-year-old Peter Korbeck died in 1077, his family prepared a traditional “old school” funeral service. About the only thing personal about it were the photos of the German immigrant throughout his life, scattered among the tables in the funeral home. And while it was a fitting and comfortable memorial, it fell in line with many other funerals of the day. It was touching and spiritual, but nothing was particularly tailored to memories of the deceased. NFDA President Bob Biggins of Magoun-Biggins Funeral Home in Rockland, Mass., would argue that he’s never done a  “cookie cutter” funeral since he entered the business in 1975, but he added that more personal services have “grown to be much more prolific, visible and vocal.” Funeral memorialization has evolved from simply including a person’s favorite music and scripture to incorporating more and more trinkets and tributes relating to the person’s life.  But he was quick to delineate a difference between what he calls “personal” and “personalized” services.  In 1991, Biggins’ seven-year-old nephew wove some Christmas garland around his grandmother’s casket because he knew she loved Christmas.  “That was ‘personal,’” he said.  “It had nothing to do with buying anything.  ‘Personalization’ is something that is sold,” he said. But whether a family opts for a customized DVD or simply an arrangement of their mother’s favorite orchids in the viewing room, the entire industry is undergoing a steady shift in how it celebrates life through death.  “Part of it is consumer demand,” said Michael Kane, funeral director at Lyndahl Funeral Home and Cremation Services in Green Bay, Wis.  At Lyndahl, about 30 percent of their services are still what Kane would call “cookie cutter,” but that number is decreasing as clients see the potential of personalization.  “We’ve just scratched the surface of what we can do to memorialize people,” he said.  At a recent funeral, Kane said, the family of a woman who had collected bells displayed her collection tastefully around the casket.  After the service, visitors were invited to take a bell in her memory.  In another instance, Lyndahl hosted a funeral for a Knights of Columbus member.  Since the man had been an active member, often selling raffle tickets for the group, raffle tickets were offered at the funeral.  For the Lyndahl staff, working to personalize funerals has become more a matter of marketing services, rather than selling products.  “We like to focus less on merchandise and more on services,” Kane said.  “It’s not about making money,” he added.  “It’s about having 150 people come in and say, ‘Wow!’”.  In some cases, funeral homes have added staff to aid funeral directors with memorialization.  Last year, Lyndahl Funeral Home founded Legacy Tributs, a production company which produces DVDs celebrating a person’s life.  Michele Petska was hired to spearhead the marketing of the product.  The autobiographical DVDs are a way the company not only offers clients enhanced offerings but also markets its services to a broader market. Through the production company, Kane and Petska target seniors as well as baby boomers to share their stories. But as well received as the idea was, marketing remains a challenge. Petska used to set up at senior expos, for example, to advertise the product-but their booth and banner both carried the funeral home’s name. Both Kane and Petska said they watched people spot the name and walk on by. “If the first thing they see is “funeral,” Kane said, “they back off.” One main focus of Legacy Tributes has been producing life stories; 25 minute DVDs of a person’s life, complete with personal interviews, still clips and music. These personal glimpses, which can be used later at a person’s funeral, offer valuable history often lost to generations. “People know the value of those traditions being passed down,” said Petska. Often, she said, history gets lost as members of a family die and there is no record of their lives. Historically, families kept detailed records and photos in family Bibles. Since those have all but vanished, Petska said the DVDs and personal tribute slide shows they produce are the 21st-century technological equivalent of that Bible-dispensing information about ancestors’ occupations, marriages, traditions, families and hobbies. Some people remain superstitious of the concept, thinking that taping their autobiography might signal an omen of death. But Petska said more and more people, baby boomers especially, are convincing their parents to record their stories for future generations. And the DVDs aren’t just used for funerals; they can be played at anniversary and birthday parties or other celebrations for many years… and at a funeral when the time comes. Funeral experts have said that baby boomers are a growing group looking to create more personalized funerals. Before Lyndahl started Legacy Tributes, they offered more low-tech video slide shows at funerals. “It was so well-received,” said Kane, “we wanted to keep building on what we had. The picture boards were probably the beginning…we took it to the next level.” “The baby boomers really latch onto it,” said Kane, referring to the idea of funeral personalization. “They’ve been to so many funerals that were not so meaningful.”

Breaking the Memorial Mold

Doug Manning would agree that the baby boomer market is the key audience for most of what’s going on in terms of funeral personalization. “They’re going to change the funeral industry,” said Manning, a former Baptist minister who now trains funeral celebrants through his In-Sight Institute in Oklahoma City, Okla. Over the past five years, he’s trained more than 750 civil celebrants who perform customized eulogies and memorial services for families. Manning said too many baby boomers have endured the “cookie cutter” funerals and have gotten frustrated with what they feel are “impersonal” events. “We haven’t changed the funeral to fit that. We’ve got to turn them back on [to the funeral],” he said. The mantra of many baby boomers, Manning has found is, “I am spiritual, but I’m not religious.” Getting away from a non-secular bent in a funeral has been a growing trend, he said. According to 1990-2000 census figures, the number of people who picked “no preference” under “religious preference” doubled. “We have a growing number of people in states that don’t go to church,” said Manning. The needs of those people, particularly when it comes to funerals, must be met, he added. Biggins agreed. “As a nation, we’re becoming more and more secular.” He added that celebrants can help add a “personal” touch to funerals. “It just takes the place of clergy,” he said. To that end, Manning’s civil celebrants are trained to celebrate a person’s life in the most meaningful way possible- to offer more depth and impact to those left behind. Storytelling, much in the same way as the Legacy Tributes, has become paramount. “We train [celebrants] to do very personal funerals,” Manning said. “We encompass ceremony and life story together. We train our celebrants to build it around a theme.” That could include honoring a master gardener with plants at the memorial, complete with packets of life-affirming flower seeds given to every attendee. Or, in the case of comedian Richard Pryor’s funeral, celebrant Pam Vetter incorporated his love of animals and even his trademark profanity into the memorial. “We try to design a funeral to meet the needs of a person in grief,” Manning said. Some funeral homes are sending employees to celebrant training to accomplish this type of personal service. Others, like Lyndahl, have hired a non-funeral director to work with some of these services-although at the Wisconsin funeral home, the funeral directors still have the key job of “listening,” where they gather the most important information from families. And Biggins agreed that listening is, indeed, the key factor to creating outstanding and memorable personal funerals which “pay tribute to the small nuances” of a person’s life. “We’re in the business of creating memories,” he said. Memories of the deceased-for the purpose of soothing and supporting the living-are the key ingredient to any funeral service, whether defined as “personal” or “personalized.” Bottom line, Manning said, is moving beyond just the items present at the funeral. “I think we need to define personalization. If we stop there [with the items on display], that’s just set design.” Please feel free to contact Cremation Options if you have any further questions or concerns in respect to this article, direct cremation, cremation services, or cremation costs.

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