CREMATION OPTIONS

Growing up I can recall a family argument that seemed to recur often in our household of seven, it was always my parents on one side and either me, one of my four sisters (or some combination of us) on the other.  The common factor in all of this: new technology.  We either wanted a cell phone, an ipod or some innovative device yet to be developed in yesteryear, also known as the 70’s.  The argument was always the same, and in some instances still arises today as more products are being pioneered and put on the market.  “Well when we are growing up, we never had a cell phone,” they would say.  Moreover, as different arguments arose, our never changing response could apply to each case: “Well times have changed.”  Change is inevitable, and if you look back 30 years ago, or even 10 years for that matter, it is clear to anyone willing to open their eyes that we are not the same society we were in the past.  We live in a world today where popularity is determined by how many friends you have on facebook, where there is such a thing as driving while  “intexticated” and where an African American can be president of the United States.  Consequently, in today’s world there are numerous ways in which we can define how we live.  And in the same respect how we die.  There are now several options available to families regarding how to memorialize their loved ones after they pass away.  While it was once the norm to have a traditional burial consisting of a casket, visitation, flowers, funeral service, etc., it is now becoming much more common to opt for cremation.  Up until the 1980’s, the national cremation rate was less than 10 percent.  However, according to the Cremation Association of North America, as of 2006 the national cremation rate reached 33.61 percent, with a projection of 39.03 percent for 2010 and 58.89 percent for 2025.  The funeral business is no stranger to change.  But what accounts for these changes?  For starters, the most palpable explanation can be attributed to economics.  Despite Ben Franklin’s words of wisdom, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” the funeral business lacks a heightened degree of certainty.  Even with an ongoing clientele, there are other factors that affect the funeral business and its profit margin.  Cremations are cheaper.  While cremations come in around the $1,500 range, a traditional burial can cost up to $8,000.  However, the economic factor has been analyzed and it is no secret to funeral directors that consumers are opting for the more economical alternative.  Even so, economics is not the only factor that weighs into the decision of whether to have a traditional burial or a cremation.  We live in a very niche society today.  Previously, there were the Beatles, long hair traditional burials.  Today styles are vastly different and incredibly tailored to fit each individual’s preference.  Unlike the 60’s and 70’s there is no one band today to capture quite the audience that the Beatles did.  CNN reporter Evan Buxbaum, in an article titled “Recession Leaves Funeral Business in Grave State,” wrote, “It is not only economics driving post life choices but also transient lifestyles and the desire for personalization.”  Moreover, that personalization arises from all of the varieties of products that are now available to suit every aspect of a person’s lifestyle.  As made evident by the dispute I would have with my parents when a new piece of technology would come out, our generation is fundamentally different from that of our parents, and it shows when deciding what we would want for our own funerals.  To further investigate the generational gap affecting the funeral business, I developed a survey that I sent out to my friends in the 21 year old age range.  To be honest, my first thought when developing the generation angle for this story was, “Who cares?”  What 21 year old individual is going to have an opinion on the matter?  Whether or not my friends want to be cremated has to be the furthest thing from their minds-or so I thought.  The survey served as a tool to gauge how the millennial generation, or Generation Y  or whatever other name we have been branded with, feels about how they would like to be memorialized and why.  According to the final report of the survey, 53.85 percent of the respondents opted for cremation over a traditional burial when they die, with 30.77 percent choosing traditional burial (the other 15 percent had either no preference or did not deem it time to think about the issue yet.  One interesting finding was that even with more than 50 percent opting for cremation, 61.54 percent of the respondents, when asked how they would like to take care of the arrangements for their parents and grandparents, chose traditional burial.  This discovery can be attributed to the differences in generations and demonstrates the shift we are seeing between them.  In order to determine the main reason among our generation for the growing popularity of cremation, I developed a list of common reasons for choosing cremation and asked those who prefer it to mark all the reasons that applied to them.  With choices such as cost, the environment, religion, convenience, personalization of the ashes, etc., I expected there to be one or two dominating answers.  However the responses were pretty well diversified, with no one answer receiving the majority of the vote.  Conclusively, there is ultimate reason for the rising rate in cremations, thus alluding back to differentiating styles and personalized choices.  Today the options are endless.  The fact of the matter though is that more people want cremation, and they want to take care of those cremations in a variety of ways.  So maybe rather than trying to figure out how to sway the interest back in favor of traditional burials, it would be more beneficial to figure out ways to accommodate the numerous personalized styles without an accompanying decline in profile margins.  This does not mean, though, that traditional burial is doomed.  There will always be those people wanting to preserve tradition and say their final goodbyes in person.  After all, the majority of survey respondents would rather have a traditional burial for their parents.  Why?  Because their parents values are steeped in tradition.  What is important now is keeping what already exists while also opening up doors for new ventures and new opportunities to cater to innovative wishes.  I once saw a special on TV about urns created and decorated for the ultimate New York Yankees fan or any sports team you wish.  Today once you choose cremation, the decision does not stop there.  If you are an avid Lakers fan, there is an urn for that.  If your beloved pet passes away, there is an urn for that.  According to a Website I visited recently, you can even place ashes into a teddy bear to create a “huggable” urn.  The options are endless.  However is that the solution?  To develop and market a variety of products, such as a teddy bear urn, in order to raise profits?  Is that the key to increasing your consumer base and enhancing your relationship with families and new generations?  Look at today’s form of communication and how it has evolved over time.  The difference in generations is evident and can be seen through the different age groups.  The goal here is to create synergy, to work together to create a result that is greater than the sum of its parts.  How can all the different modes of communication not only coexist, but coexist effectively?  Subsequently how can traditional burials and cremations do the same?  The media has evolved with the changing generations in an attempt to answer that question.  These days, just about every newspaper is available online.  However prior media have not become obsolete, although they have been struggling just like some funeral homes are beginning to.  The editors had to find a balance.  The Pew Research Center has shown that older generations are more faithful to hard copies of newspapers as opposed to TV or online editions.  The readership for the latter two comes mainly from Generations X and Y.  While the readership of each is not completely cut and dry, however the different mediums can be said to represent different days and ages as times have evolved.  They are all now trying to find a way to coexist, because they have to.  They had to find a common ground that underlies each medium so that each age group is satisfied.  Although the news is presented in a variety of different forms, it still provides its audience with what it wants: the news.  It presents it in such a way as to cater to each generation.  Consequently, the media have not only stepped foot into our generation but are being welcomed with open arms.  The question then becomes how to balance that innovation with economics.  So how can the funeral business also find that balance?  What is the common denominator between traditional burials and cremations that can link the generations together?  In other words, how can you welcome texting and facebook without having to get rid of phone calls and handwritten notes?  Just as facebook allows its users to post pictures and videos of other members, the funeral business has also made strides to close the generational gap by not only providing pictures at services but also creating web sites in honor of those lives lost.  Additionally, having these tributes on facebook, in addition to a casket or on a boat with an urn creates memories, and memories transcend all generations.  Is just having pictures at a service enough to unmask that common denominator and really bring forth the memories and the experience the consumer wishes to share?  After all, the best memories are represented not only through pictures but also through the stories that each picture represents.  Facebook, for example holds the ability to tell someone’s entire life story through all of its applications and the information each user inputs onto his or her profile page.  So maybe that is something to think about:  traditional burials and cremations coexisting through their common denominator, the memories and experiences created according to what we as customers value, whether that be a conventional funeral or the spreading of cremated remains over a football field with the famed college fight song playing.  Isn’t that what a business is all about:  giving people what they want and value?  With the vast array of opportunities to have personalized lifestyle, there is no longer a cookie cutter funeral and the rising number of cremations, along with the innumerable ways to memorialized a person through a cremation (of a traditional burial, for that matter) is accredited to the change we are seeing in society and the increased diversification of ideals and values.  Change can be a scary thing.  But it is very real and it doesn’t always have to be an idea to be feared.  So while your VHS player may be good for watching old home movies, go out and buy a Blu-ray!  Although my parents have tried to fight it, they are beginning to realize that new technology is just going to keep on coming, and there is nothing they can do about it.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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Like many funeral professionals, Bill McQueen was born into the business.  His father William F. McQueen established Anderson-McQueen Funeral Home with his partner, John S. Anderson in St. Petersburg, Fl, in 1952.  As many of the offspring of a funeral home owner can attest, William McQueen was a dedicated workaholic.  “My father went to work every day of the year, so if we wanted to see dad, we went to the funeral home,” McQueen reminisced.  “At age 6 I started going to work with dad on many Saturdays where I helped mow the grass, wash cars, open doors-and got paid $1 for the whole day.”  During his high school and college days, McQueen continued to work at the funeral home during breaks and in the summer.  After college, McQueen became somewhat the black sheep of the family by going into public accounting and law instead of funeral service.  “However, I always was involved with the business side of our family firm,” McQueen said.  “Especially after the unexpected and untimely death of our father 22 years ago when I was just finishing law school.”  During the early 1990’s, McQueen assisted a good friend, Dr. Vanderlyn Pine, who according to McQueen was “brokering” a number of funeral home businesses around the nation with the legal side of the transactions, and then became a partner in the firm, American Funeral Consultants.  Pine had encouraged McQueen to get a funeral director’s license, which McQueen did when St. Petersburg College started a funeral service program.  McQueen returned to the family business full time after he realized that he enjoyed the funeral business more than legal work.  “I often get asked why I would leave a successful law practice to become a funeral director, “McQueen said.  “And after much thought, I have determined that I thrive on the heartfelt thanks I receive almost every time I help arrange and direct the funeral ceremonies f or a family.  I never got that as an accountant or attorney.” As McQueen prepares to begin his tenure as president of the Cremation Association of North America, American Funeral Director had the opportunity to pick his brain regarding several key issues in the cremation industry and what the future will hold.

Q.  What Do You Believe Has Been Spurring The Steady Rise In Cremation Rates The Past Several Years?

A.  Based on the 2008 Wirthlin Study and other consumer surveys cost is definitely a primary reason for why people are choosing cremation over burial.  However, as cremation continues to rise, it appears the community reaches a tipping point is reached, the cremation rate seems to get a second wind and gain more speed.  I know we have seen this in our community over the past 10 to 15 years.  There was a time when we felt the cremation rate would begin to plateau at the 50 percent mark….today we are approaching 70 percent.

Q.  Do You Believe The Economic Crisis Has Led To An Increase In Consumers Choosing Cremation Over Burial?

A.  I truly do not believe our current economic crisis has caused people to switch from burial to cremation as their chosen method of disposition.  Individuals prefer one method or another.  The current economic crisis may be causing more people to choose a basic cremation with less or no memorialization…but they also may be opting for less memorialization on the burial side as well.

Q.  Do You Believe That Many Firms Are Underpricing Cremation?

A.  As a general rule of thumb, I definitely believe most U.S. funeral homes have under priced their cremation services and as a result are making their burial clientele subsidize their cremation families.  I do not understand why any funeral provider’s basic direct cremation fee can be less than their nondeclinable basic service fee, but I see it all the time.  For too long, funeral homes have treated cremation clients as a long leader or necessary evil.  However as the prevalence of the cremation requests grows, the funeral home owner can no longer afford to do this…and expect to be in business a decade from now.

Q.  Cremation Is Growing In Popularity Partially Due To The Green Movement, But It Also Brings Up Fears Among Those Involved In The Green Movement that Crematory Emissions Could Be Harmful To Air Quality, Specifically The Release Of Mercury And Particulate Matter.  What Would You Say To Assuage These Fears?

A.  Minimizing emissions of all types are certainly a priority to crematory owners, operators and cremator manufacturers.  First North American cremator designs have typically performed better environmentally due to their large after chambers for the re-burning and scanning of the exhaust prior to discharge into the atmosphere.  The most extensive cremation equipment emissions research ever undertaken confirmed that the design and operation of typical North American crematories provided significantly better emissions than regulations required.  However issues will continue to come up and it is important to address them by revisiting the information that is available to us, updating both the facts and accuracy at each opportunity.  It is important to acknowledge that often, those raising these issues and questions, though well meaning, base their concerns on inadequate information or unanswered questions.  Lately the release of mercury seems to be an issue of most concern to some individuals.  Many human activities recycle mercury in the environment, including municipal incinerators, breaking of fluorescent lamps, dental facilities operations, production and disposal of batteries, household waste disposal and the operation of crematories, as well as other sources.  The most notable way that mercury enters the cremation cycle, and therefore crematory emissions, is through silver amalgam dental fillings found in many dead human bodies.  Silver amalgam filling contain mercury alloys that when introduced through dean humans into the cremation process of intense heat results in the volatilization of mercury and its emissions into the atmosphere. The good news is that the use of silver amalgam fillings by the dental profession has declined significantly in the last 10 years.  So mercury emissions from crematories today are in significant decline due primarily to changes in dental practices, but even before this recent trend the amount of mercury was negligible.  One of the most detailed studies of mercury emissions impact was conducted in the United Kingdom where over 70 percent of dead humans are cremated.  The results of the study showed that the amount of mercury in the soil around the studied crematories was almost seven times lower than that allowed for food production and more than 100 times lower than that allowed for children’s playgrounds.  The soils were deemed uncontaminated even after 112,000 crematories and 40 years of operation.  If one looks at the facts objectively it is clear that the concerns over mercury emitted from a crematory operation is not substantiated.  CANA recently has published a whitepaper on this issue for those who would like more information.

Q.  Do You Believe All States Should Require Cremation Certification?  Why?

A.  Though I personally live and work in a state that did away with cremation operator training and certification, I do believe all states should require some form of certification.  CANA always has believed in the importance of having knowledgeable individuals trained to operate cremation equipment.  There are a number of factors in performing a cremation that the operator must evaluate and make informed decisions before proceeding.  All cremation operations have been entrusted with a very important and sacred honor…and you only get one opportunity to do it right.  Having an operator who has been trained and certified by experts on how to perform the process under a number of different scenarios only makes sense for both our profession and the general welfare of our communities.  CANA has recently taken their Cremation Operators Certification Program on the road to various regions throughout the United States in order to make it more convenient and affordable for every crematory to get their operators certified.

Q.  Do You Think It Is Important For Each Of The Accredited Mortuary Colleges To Have A Crematory On Site Or At Least Teach A Course At A Crematory?

A.  Our mortuary colleges need to put a much heavier emphasis on all aspects of cremation within our profession-arrangements, ceremonies and operations.  I do not think that the colleges need to invest in having a crematory on site, but I do feel it is imperative that they offer courses in cremation which would include some embalming clinics.  Again CANA has stepped up to help the mortuary colleges by offering the COCP Program at “Cremation Operations Manual,” which is now being used as part of the curriculum in several mortuary colleges.

Q.  What Have You Found Is The Biggest Asset Of Being A CANA Member?

A.  Even more important than the formal education I have received from CANA’s conferences and seminars, I think the opportunity to network with the most innovative cremation operators in the world has been the biggest asset.  By example our state of the art Cremation Tribute Center was developed as a result of attending a CANA seminar about cremation practices in other parts of the world.  That investment for us was huge but the return has been invaluable and we owe that all to CANA.

Q.  Do You Foresee CANA Getting More Involved With Pet Cremation, Such As Establishing Standards?

A.  Yes, CANA is the leader when it comes to cremation, and as more death care providers see the potential in serving all members of the family, including the pets, we want to be there for them.  We recently have amended our bylaws to permit pet cremationists as members.

Q.  What Challenges Do You Expect To Face During Your Tenure As CANA President?

A.  I am fortunate to have a bright board of directors who have a very strong strategic focus.  Thus I do not expect to face any real challenges during my tenure but instead to remain focused on leading us forward with our strategic plan.

Q.  What Positive Changes Do You Believe Can Be Made To CANA?

A.  Part of our strategic plan entails steps to be able to use technology in a manner to deliver our valuable programming to all of our members in the most cost effective manner.

Q.  What Are The Primary Goals You Wish To Achieve As CANA President?

A.  I want to see CANA develop more educational programs for its members to help their cremation businesses prosper, expand our channels of communicating information and education to our members so they can take advantage of its more readily and offer some value added benefits.

Q.  Are There Any Other Thoughts On The Cremation Industry That You’d Like To Make Clear?

A.  For those industry members who just now are experiencing firsthand the rise of the choice of cremation by their local community members, they often have much anxiety.  As a firm that operates daily in a 70 percent cremation marketplace (and yet is experiencing its most profitable year in its 57 year history), please put your mind at ease.  Yes for your business to remain profitable and grow you will need change ….just as your clientele and community is changing.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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William M. Scott is a third-generation funeral director who isn’t afraid to spend money, but like everyone else, he likes to see a return on his investment. As owner of Scott Funeral Home, he chose to build a new facility in Jeffersonville, Ind., in 2002, which cost close to $3 million. But now he has a facility that includes an 800-gallon aquarium in the center of the lobby and some of the newest technology to help him serve about 230 families per year. We asked Scott to share some of what he’s learned so you can build upon his successes and avoid his mistakes. If you are building a funeral home, think about doing something different. Scott hired an architect who knew next to nothing about funeral service. “I felt that was really important,” he says. “You can drive into any town and even if you don’t have your glasses on, you can pick the funeral home out from 300 yards, especially the new ones.”All Scott had to do was lay out the functions of the building and tell the architect to get to work. “It turned out to be perfect,” he says. “A hallway goes right through the middle, front to back.”• When building a new location, think about keeping the old one open. This might not be an option if you need to sell the old location, but Scott still conducts about 20 funerals a year at his former place. He doesn’t maintain an active staff there, but sometimes community residents prefer sticking to what they know. “When we do sell the old place, we will have a restriction on it so it can’t be used for a funeral home,” he says. Don’t be afraid to break with tradition. Scott says it’s time to pursue new ideas. “For instance, at our funeral home, when someone comes in the door, we have computer monitors, and we have a picture of the person they are visiting, info about that person, and then it scrolls and has something about the funeral home and our pet crematory,” he says. “People stand there and stare at it.”• Focus on small but meaningful touches. Scott invested in a computer kiosk in the lobby where people can find local restaurants, check the weather and carry out simple tasks. “People come in and they use it, and they talk about it,” he says. “When you just look at the amenities around the funeral home, it gives people something to talk about.”• Have a slideshow and keep it running in your arrangement conference room. While Scott or one of his arrangers is fumbling around with papers, a slideshow plays for family members. It even gets into subliminal messaging when it shows a picture of a concrete box next to a burial vault and the corresponding waterlines, one that goes up into the box but not the vault. The slideshow gets the point across to families without Scott having to say a word. “But if I’m meeting a family real short on funds, I won’t play that thing because I don’t want them to feel guilty, “he says. “If I let someone pick out something for $12,000, and they can only pay me $2,000, what good have I done?”• A spectacle can be a good thing. Scott’s aquarium is 10 feet long, 300 feet wide and 30 inches tall, and it’s a favorite among visitors to the funeral home. “We have two filter systems in the basement that run it and a 100-gallon air compressor in the garage as well,” he says. “It’s not a cheap proposition, but people love to sit there and watch the fish, especially the kids and the old people. They put their faces right against the glass.”• Beware of thinking there’s a market when there isn’t one. Scott invested about $6,000 in video recording equipment so he could tape services, but so far, he hasn’t really seen a return on investment. “I thought it would be something you could charge for, but it’s not like weddings,” he says. “Weddings are happy moments and funerals are not.” Even so, Scott looks on the bright side and provides CDs of the services to the family for free, and looks at it as another service that separates him from competitors.• Branching out into pet memorialization might not always mean more money. Scott cremates about 6,000 pets per year, and you’d think he’d be making a lot of money, and maybe he would be if he charged more. But at $150 per pet, he’s just not seeing big profits. “We do it as an extension of the funeral home, and we know some people are more attached to their pets than they are to their relatives,” he says. “Relatives don’t come visit, but pets are there every day.” Scott will need to revise something about his pet operation before it really starts to make him money. “We’ve gone on the philosophy of let’s charge a fair price, and let’s get all the business we can,” he says. “But it’s not making that much. We have a monstrous gas bill, and we burnt up the first cremator and had to rebuild it and put in a second one because the first one was not meant for that kind of volume.” He adds, “At the end of the year, we do make a profit, but not much. It’s money in and money out, but what we get to do is we support two more families with a job for the guys who work here, and I think we are performing a good service to the community.” Scott feels that even though he’s tried some things that haven’t worked out as well as he expected, he’s ahead of the curve. “Are all these things worth it?” he asks. “Well, due to the increase in our business over the past few years, I would say, ‘yes.’”

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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Feeding 21 percent of the world’s population with only 7 percent of the world’s arable land is the unenviable task faced by the Chinese government.  With 1.3 billion hungry mouths to feed, preserving all available farm land is a top priority for the government.  While soil erosion and commercial development in China’s emerging market economy might first come to mind as obstacles toward this goal, the Chinese government is less concerned with these problems than with another factor-ground burial of the dead.  According to Chinese belief, in order for the dead to find external rest, their intact remains should be buried in the ground in a grave appropriate to the deceased’s rank and station in life,  For thousands of years, the Chinese performed elaborate ground burials.  They transferred food, money and goods to the deceased.  In some ceremonies, rice was place in the mouths of the dead so that they would be free from going hungry in the underworld.  In a deeply-rooted belief that spirits of the ancestors had to be looked after and ritually appeased, every spring on Qingning Festival people would pay homage by visiting their tombs and offerings.  Paper money is burned for the wandering ghosts in order to satiate their need to consume in the nether world.  Other goods, anything from a shirt and tie to a luxurious car, are also buried in an effort to transfer these items to the dead.  Since 1949, when the communists took power, they have tried to replace traditional burials with cheaper alternatives.  The Communists argue that such burials are costly to both the families and the country.  Supplying the traditional heavy wooden coffins requires the cutting of many trees thus adding to land erosion, while the scattered graves take up considerable land that could be used for farming.  The official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, has reported that due to the preference for tomb burials in the Guangdong province, more than 250 hectares of land are lost there every year.  Communist leaders have often challenged social conventions by setting a personal example, and the Chinese are no exception in the regard.  The first challenge to traditional ground burial was mounted by Mao Tse-Tung in 1956 when he announced that he planned to be cremated.  While this never happened, and Mao’s body went on display in Beijing’s Tiananmen  Square, the gesture did begin a small trend toward greater acceptance of cremation.  But while cremation began to catch on, the demand for ground interment remained unabated.  So despite government-sponsored programs touting space-saving sea burial and high rise columbariums for the disposal of cremated remains, the Chinese continued to prefer ground interment of their loved one’s cremated remains.  The next major challenge to custom came in February 1997 with the death of Deng Xiaoping, architect of China’s reform and opening drive, whose last wish was to be cremated and his ashes scattered in the sea.  Deng’s remains were cremated and scattered at sea.  Again this gesture brought about some amount of social change, but was not as successful as the government would have liked.  A 2001 study revealed that only 37 percent of those who died in China during the preceding year were cremated, despite free cremation services in may low income rural areas.  According to recent press reports, Shanghai has encouraged burial at sea since 1991.  But although it costs only about $13, compared with $1,200 to $1,800 for a typical earth burial, there have been few takers.  Less than 1,000 of the 100,000 people who die in Shanghai each year are buried at sea, according to a Chinese government run newspaper.  Predictably, the elderly, especially in the rural areas, have led the resistance toward cremation.  Chinese statistics show that while nearly 90 percent of city dwellers who die are being cremated, only 15 percent of rural residents choose cremations.  Having offered the carrot to limited success, the Chinese government banned all ground burials in urban areas and began an effort to ban new cemeteries throughout the nation altogether.  Efforts to alter traditional beliefs about funeral customs have also been redoubled with the creation of government -run, 24 hour, full service burial centers that were recently opened with the mission to change old customs and attitudes.  Still, the road to ending ground burial will be an uphill one in a China where even talking about death is difficult.  The word for death (pronounced suh) is rarely spoken, apparently due to the ancient belief that what you speak of will come to pass.  The number four is even considered unlucky because the Chinese word for it sounds like the word for death.  In the past, a range of class and rank specific  euphemisms was used to describe death.  Even now most people refer to death as xieshi (pass away), laole (got old) or simply zoule (gone).  Another factor adding to the difficulty is China’s market economy which is giving more Chinese greater access to wealth and more freedom to spend their money as they see fit,  Many newly-rich Chinese have spent lavishly on ostentatious burial ceremonies and monuments for their parents.  One family reportedly spent upward of $2.5 million on an elaborately landscaped hilltop grave including a four-story building for their elderly father.  In 2002, people making the Qingming Festival-China’s traditional day for sweeping the graves and remembering the dead-were encouraged to pay homage through the internet instead of burning paper money and arranging sumptuous feasts on the hillside tombs.  As China goes modern and the number of internet users is growing rapidly, the authorities are hoping that online tributes to the dead and even online cremations might prevail over traditional burial and homage practices.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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Q.  What is the impact of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from a bone donor’s body being cremated?  Are there allowable limits on the amount that can be present before unwanted emissions become a problem?

A.  PVC is a chlorinated plastic, material which, when cremated, adds to the formation of hydrogen chloride, a pollutant that is a contributor to acid rain.  All chlorinated plastics, including PVC, should be avoided as much as possible; however, that is not always possible.  Caution should be exercised when knowingly cremating plastics and these cases should be processed much like an oversized body, the first of the day.  Federal standards do not address chlorinated plastic in cremation and few states regulate it.  A rule of thumb is that the plastic content should not exceed more than 5 percent of the total charge weight.

Q.  What are the top 10 reasons that cremation can be considered environmentally friendly?

A.

1. Cremated remains occupy little, if any permanent ground space.
2. Cremation requires little or no fertilizer or pesticides.
3. Cremation does not impact ground water.
4. The process of cremation eliminates diseases.
5. Cremation requires lower future maintenance resulting in less environmental impact.
6. Cremation families choose more tree friendly containers for cremations.
7. Cremation families choose cremation containers that utilize less paints and solvents.
8. Cremation containers require less industrial resources to produce.
9. Cremation systems utilize internal heat recovery to maximize the energy usage for the process.
10. Cremation systems, by design, are very efficient, being low emissions producers.

Q.  What is resomation?

A.  Resomation is a new term for an old process call alkali hydrolysis.  This concept/process takes a set of human remains (un-clothed /casketed or specially clothed/casketed), and places it into a pressurized cooking vessel.  Chemicals and hot water are added and the mixture is heated with steam up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit where it is held for a calculated number or hours to allow the digestion to be completed.  In concept, this is a mechanical stomach where both soft, soapy and wet bone tissue and the other liquefied and digested tissues with chemicals are the final residues.  The wet, soft and soapy bone must be dried before it can be pulverized.  The gallons of liquefied tissue and chemicals may be required to be pre treated with additional chemicals to balance the PH before it can be flushed out of the cooker into the local sewer system.  The jury is still out on whether or not flushing liquefied remains into the sewer system constitutes unauthorized scattering of human remains.

Q.  What are environmentalists referring to when they talk about “primary and secondary” chambers?

A.  Different industries use unique terminology and cremation’s is no different .  A primary chamber refers to the cremation chamber where the human remains and container are loaded for the cremation process.  The cremation is performed using a temperature controlled burner and air jets to stimulate the cremation process.  The secondary chamber is the same as the after chamber.  This is where the gases from the cremation process (products of combustion), are subjected to adequate temperature and turbulence for typically one second or more in order to clean them before they can be exhausted to the atmosphere.

Q.  In the winter do I need fresh air louvers in the wall of the building open while the equipment is operating?  It can get really cold.

A.  Cremation equipment is a combustion device that requires fresh air in large quantities in order to operate correctly.  Air is required for the combustion process of the body and container and the cleansing of the products of combustion more commonly referred to as smoke.  Fresh air is also necessary for the cooling functions of the cremation equipment.   Most crematories are designed with fresh air louvers in the side wall of the cremation equipment room that allow the equipment to pull air from the outside into a central fan unit which distributes it out to the various burners and air nozzles that require air to function.  During the cooler months, operators are tempted to close the louvers or set an object in front of them to keep the colder air from entering the room and cooling the workspace.  This can make the room more comfortable but a lack of fresh air can slow the cremation process, increase fuel usage and create smoking conditions during operation.  But there may be good news; it is possible in many installations to direct duct the air from the outside to the fan inlet without it impacting the temperature of the room.  Not only does this keep the workspace more comfortable, but it tends to quiet the fans as well.  Contact your equipment manufacturer to understand your options.  In the meantime, keep the louvers open and don’t stack anything in front of them to impede air flow.

Q.  Does the outside temperature impact fuel supply in any way?

A.  Cooler weather can impact both natural and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fuel supplies.  As outside temperatures decrease, demand for heating fuels increases.  If you are on a natural gas supply with relatively low pressures, as the demand increases, the pressures available in the supply pipes may decrease.  The reduction in pressure will reduce the fuel flow to the burners on the cremation equipment which may result in longer cremations, more fuel consumption and potential smoking out the stack during the cremation.  This problem may be correctable by the natural gas supplier changing your supply pressures and regulators.  If your fuel supply is LPG, bottle gas temperatures could have an impact as well, LPG is loaded into the tanks as a liquid.  Tanks are only filled about 80 percent to allow space inside the tank for the liquid fuel to vaporize-it turns from a liquid to a vapor that the cremation equipment burners can use.  The vaporization process requires the space in the tank and outside temperatures impact the speed of the process as well.  If the temperatures drop, the vaporization process is slowed which can result in less fuel available and the same problems mentioned above for insufficient fuel.  Some colder weather LPG installations have vaporizers installed, which are similar to a hot water heater for LPG.  The device takes the liquid LPG and heats it to a vapor without dependence on the vaporization space inside the tank or outside temperatures.  If you suspect you may be experiencing some of these cold weather problems, call your manufacturer and fuel supplier for guidance.

Q.  Can I catch anything from the (ashes) cremated remains?

A.  By the time a cremation is complete and the cremated remains are removed from the cremation equipment, the remains have been exposed to temperatures in excess of 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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As I travel throughout North America presenting community workshops on death and grief, I have the honor of meeting funeral directors.  I am often impressed by their commitment to families and the creation of personalized, meaningful funeral experiences.  To share their inspiring stories with you, I have decided to write a series of interviews with funeral directors whom I believe can help educate everyone connected to funeral service about the importance of striving for excellence when serving grieving families.  The following interview was with Richard Tetrick, president of Heritage Family Services in Elizabeth, Tennessee.

How Did You Get Started In Funeral Service?

My grandfather and father were both in funeral service.  My father, who is 88 is still quite active in funeral service.  I worked for my father through high school and college, so becoming a funeral director seemed to be the most natural thing in the world for me.  In my family, funeral service has always been a way of life.

What Are Your Current Responsibilities?

Our company consists of 17 funeral homes and nine cemeteries.  I serve as president and chief executive officer of the company.

When You Think Of Excellence In Funeral Service Customer Service, What Comes To Mind?

We have to be proactive to the needs of the families we serve, not reactive.  We must always be ahead of the curve, not behind the curve.  Funeral directors need to see what the needs of families.  Excellence is when you never receive a negative follow-up survey from the families you serve.  Excellence is serving the families again and again.  Excellence is knowing that a family would never think about using anyone else but your firm.  Excellence is being a leader, not a follower.

What Trends Do You See In Your Service Area And What Are You Doing To Be Responsive To Those Trends?

We all see a big increase in personalization, but so much of the personalization we see involves a product, such as a casket, a video tribute, memory picture boards, personalized folders, etc.  Any funeral director can do these things; most of these concepts are reactions to families.  We are making every effort to encourage our funeral directors to be creative in their efforts to serve families what is available to them, not having them ask, or having them amend another funeral at one of our chapels and seeing something done that they were not made aware of when they made their arrangements.  Funeral service for years was pretty much a cookie-cutter approach.  Visitations were from 7 until 9 and the funeral service was conducted the next afternoon at 2 p.m.  I can’t remember when we had a service that was  like the one I just described.  We see visiting hours at all different times and funeral services mostly held at night with a graveside service the next day.  These trends have caused us to rethink how our buildings are designed.  At one of our chapels, we can and have had four services at night, all happening at the same time.  Obviously, families are starting to not see value in what traditional funeral service provides, so we have to figure out what they will see value in.  We encourage families to participate in the funeral service and to do what they feel will help them to meet their needs and to initiate a process of closure.  The motto for families planning a funeral service should be, “There is no right or wrong way to do this what will best for you.”  We encourage families to not feel they have to rent our car to go to the cemetery.  We have families who have used a horse drawn wagon, a pickup truck, a fire truck and a car hauling trailer to transport the body to the cemetery.  We want families to do it “their way.”  While “their way” might be what we perceive to be the traditional way, it might also be something that is totally opposite.  I know that when I take my family on a vacation, I want it to be an experience that makes them feel good.  We are in the feel good generation, and we have to do more than just put a body in a box and roll it into a visitation room.  We want people who visit our chapels to leave feeling that they had an experience.  We want them to see, feel and smell things they don’t see, feel and smell at other funeral homes.  We need to give families a reason to come to our chapels and feel that their visit was a wonderful and unforgettable experience.

What Do You Think The Biggest Challenge For Funeral Service Is Today?

We have to figure out what the needs of the consumer are and provide it for them without their asking us to do it.  We have to have funeral service personnel who think entirely outside of the “traditional box.”  In 1988, my company had a cremation rate of less than one percent.  In 2003, we had a cremation rate of 11 percent.  That’s more than an 1,100 percent increase in 15 years.  We have to learn how to change out mind set and not just be order takers, but creators of an experience.  We are event planners and we have to be able to provide the families we serve with lots of options.  We also have to remain profitable, which might be the biggest challenge for funeral service in the 21st century.  While we all strive to provide better and more innovative means of service, all of this costs money and the families have to pay for these additional services.  The question is, will they want to pay additional monies for these services, or will they be going out on their own and trying to duplicate a lot of our services?  For centuries, families got by without funeral directors, they can do it again.  The American ritual and ceremony for funerals has changed and will continue to change.  Just as it evolved to funeral service, as we know it today, it may change to a point that none of us would recognize it.

What Do You Most Enjoy About Funeral Service?

I enjoy dreaming up ways to serve families better or receiving as idea from a colleague that will enable us to serve families better.  On a more personal note, I receive a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction from serving families well.  Taking care of the needs of my close, personal friends, my church family and my personal family gives me a tremendous amount of satisfaction.

What Do You Do For Self Care That Keeps You Renewed As You Serve Families?

I spend a lot of time talking to staff members and colleagues, trying to gather or create new ideas.  I also attend quite a few trade shows, where you can find some of the best minds in funeral service.  Finally I take time off to do nothing but think about what we are doing and how we can do it better.

When You Contemplate The Future Of Funeral Service, What Comes To Mind?

While I still believe that funeral service as we presently know it will continue to exist, I do not believe that the present day funeral service we offer will need the needs of all consumers.  A lot of the changes we see in funeral service will be directly connected to the rise or decline in religious values in our country.  I am fortunate and proud to live in the “Bible Belt” of our country and I strongly believe my area of the world will be slow to change, and maybe one of the last places to change, but we will change.  When I first started in funeral service, we rarely had a funeral in our chapel.  Now, we rarely ever have a funeral in a church.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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Perhaps you already have a tagline displayed proudly on the sign out front.  But if you don’t or if it’s some variation of the yawn inducing, “Service with distinction and dignity” it’s time to re-examine this mild mannered marketing message.  A tagline (sometimes referred to as a slogan) is a short phrase used by businesses to help their marketplace understand what that business does and who they serve or what makes them unique.  For funeral home owners, it’s a critical opportunity to provide a succinct and memorable answer to the request, “Give me one good reason I should choose your funeral home.”  Unfortunately, the tagline is too often considered an afterthought -if at all-instead of the potent marketing tool it is.  I’ll bet we’ve all had the experience of seeing a funeral home on one end of town with a sign that reads, “Serving the community since 1936,” and then seeing a funeral home on the other end of that meekly claims, “Serving local families since 1974.”  The latter funeral home owner fails to see the marketing folly in their choice of tagline.  But you can bet the residents of that town don’t.  Funeral home owners who do understand the power of a strong tagline posses an easy but effective way to positively differentiate themselves from the competition.  They realize that unless someone already has a strong reason to choose your funeral home, you have to give them one.  Your name alone won’t do it.  Is there an obvious reason to choose Johnson & Sons Funeral Home over Smith & Sons Funeral Home?  Nope.  Most funeral home names don’t say anything about what makes it unique.  But a good tagline does.  A good tagline captures the essence of why your funeral home is special in just a few choice words.  And in today’s world, where the average person is bombarded by more than 2,100 advertisements each day, having a concise and memorable message is more important than ever.  “The best approach to take in our over communicated society is the oversimplified message.  You have to sharpen your message to cut into the mind, according to Al Ries and Jack Trout in their book “Positioning:  The Battle for Your Mine.”  The sharpest and most simplified marketing message of all it’s the tagline. Good taglines:  emphasize your competitive advantage, convey a benefit for choosing your funeral home, evoke a positive feeling, are unique to your funeral home and won’t easily work with a competitor’s name, aren’t going to appeal to every single person in your community, talk to your market not just about yourself, are approximately five to 10 words in length.  A bad tagline, on the other hand, is one that’s so generic any funeral home could place it under their name and it would still fit.  “Providing families with caring service” is just such an example.  Would that really set your funeral home apart from the competition?  Even if you know your main competition is actually a heartless miser, the community is going to assume caring service is a given at any funeral home, not something that’s unique to yours.  So here’s how to avoid creating a bad tagline:

1. Don’t be generic.  Be as specific and emotive as possible to highlight a connection between the community and your funeral home.
2. Don’t create a tagline your funeral home can’t stand behind.  Your business has to be able to deliver on what you promise.  When it does, your funeral home affirms its reputation.  When it doesn’t others in the community are guaranteed to hear about it.
3. Don’t veer off focus.  Trying to say everything about your funeral home in fewer than 10 words is impossible.  What’s the single most important thing you have to say to customers?   What’s the most important thing customers want to hear?  Say that.
4. Don’t use platitudes.  Avoid tired clichés’ about trust, dedication, excellence and caring service.  You don’t believe it when other businesses make those claims, so why would people believe it from you?
5. Don’t talk to yourself.  Remember a tagline is meant to communicate how you can uniquely serve your customers.  Make sure what you’re saying is relevant.
6. Don’t use hyperbole.  When you overstate your funeral home’s value, you instantly lose credibility.
7. Don’t be cute, trite or clever.  As funeral director’s it’s invaluable to share your sense of humor with those who need a smile.  But you have to treat the image of your funeral home as seriously as your customers do.

When you’re prepared to create a tagline for your funeral home, or revise your current one, there are basically two steps to follow; say it straight, say it great.  By this I mean start out stating in a clear, single sentence the most unique and compelling benefit you offer to families.  If you don’t know why people should choose your funeral home, how can you expect anyone else to know?  Once you’ve done that, play with the words to say it as memorable as possible.  Notable examples include:  We’re there for you even after the service is over (aftercare specialist), serving the community since there were just 682 residents (exceptional heritage in a now large community), not just funerals, celebrations of life! (specializing in life celebrations), 122 years of combined experience serving families like yours (exceptionally experienced staff), the cremation specialists (dominating the sizeable local cremation market).  Once you’ve created a powerful tagline, place it on your funeral home’s signage.  Make it part of your logo, include it in your advertisements and add it to all of your marketing collateral, including brochures, letterhead and business cards.  The result will be compelling and memorable message that helps people understand the unique benefit offered by your funeral home.  It may not be as grand as General Electric’s tagline, “We bring good things to life,” but come to think of it, that’s probably for the best.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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There are pros and cons to using both natural gas and propane as crematory fuels, heavily influenced by their availability in your crematory’s location. If you’re struggling to make a choice between natural gas and propane, you have to exercise due diligence and precisely calculate which is best for you. Doing so will help your operating costs tremendously.

One crematory that has faced this situation head on is First State Cremation Center, Inc., in Millsboro, Del., which opened in May 2009. American funeral Director asked one of First State Cremation Center’s shareholders, David Salmon, how the company arrived at its decision.

Q: How has the natural gas versus propane situation changed for you over the years?

A: Our facility is a new venture whereby several funeral home owners and myself, a licensee without a funeral home, combined their resources to construct a facility like no other in our area. We built our facility from the ground up as a cremation center, recognizing the increased consumer demand for cremation combined with the opportunity to provide client families a state-of-art facility and incorporating a witnessing room, a pet crematory and a pet merchandise resource center.

Once the shareholders accepted the building design we contacted the natural gas distributor in our area, only to find out that there was a natural gas distribution line that ran in front of our building site, not a supply line we could tap into. In order for us to gain access to natural gas we would have to purchase a “Christmas tree” valve at $50,000, plus the cost of trenching a gas line to the building. Hence, plan B.

We sent out bid letters to four propane gas distributors in our area. Three responded. Of the three, one distributor was 4 cents less per gallon then the next lowest bidder. The price points from the three responders were a total of 7 cents difference. Now, that may not seem like much, however, when you factor in the volume we anticipated through historical cremation call data per the funeral home owners, plus a 3-4 percent annual increase in cremation call volume and adding in the pet crematory, the projected volume, on an annual basis, 7 cents is a significant number. We’re anticipating a 20,000 gallon first-year volume.

The fact that the natural gas option was way out of the budget turned out to be a blessing. With natural gas, the Public Utilities Commission regulates these suppliers in Delaware. Propane distributors are not (regulated), and the opportunity exists to bid-out propane.

Certainly, based on volume, a crematory facility may have some leverage with the natural gas supplier, but on the propane side, even a mid- to high-volume facility may garner a better price per gallon than with natural gas.

To keep everyone honest, based on the bid price, we found OPIS (a division of UCG, the parent company of Kates-Boylston). When we receive a propane delivery, our crematory technician notifies me of the gallon amount, price per gallon and the hazmat charge, I receive via e-mail the daily “rack rate” from OPIS. Our terms and conditions with our propane supplier are as follows: The rack rate at Delaware City, Del., where they receive their fuel, plus a per-gallon transport fee which is currently 11 cents per gallon, plus the bid amount. These three prices combined add up to our per-gallon price.

As it turned out, our first delivery was priced at typical commercial pricing. I notified the distributor and advised them that I was an OPIS subscriber and based on our bid contract they were at 70 cents over contract. They made the corrections in their computer and the subsequent two deliveries have been spot on with the OPIS price guide.

Q: Do you believe one method is more efficient than the other?

A: I’m not confident that one fuel is better over the other. Some like the convenience of not having a fuel delivery truck on site, plus not having to deal with underground or above-ground storage tanks. Ultimately, a crematory operation should spend a great deal of time looking at the peaks and valleys of fuel prices of any source and determine the volatility of each compared to the price.

We have three 1,000-gallon tanks buried on the premises to handle the projected at 1.6 months worth of operation (with reserve). We have installed high-pressure meters (at $225 each) for each unit to get readings at the start of a cremation and at the end of a cremation to determine fuel consumption in 100-cubic-feet increments for humans and pets. Based on usage and applying the conversion formula from cubic feet to gallons, we are able to zero in on the gallons of usage per cremation within 100 cubic feet (the meter factor).

Our units are using at 23 gallons for the first cremation and at a 15 percent reduction in fuel usage for each subsequent cremation. Based on Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control code we can operate during daylight hours.

There have been discussions as to which fuel burns hotter (propane), yet which fuel is deemed more efficient and less costly (natural gas). In my opinion, based on last year’s run up in oil, gasoline, propane and natural gas prices and the volatility in the oil markets, whatever fuel a crematory is using (and yes, there are some out there still using heating fuel oil in their units) it makes sense to get the most out of your dollars by shopping around or meeting with the natural gas supplier to try and negotiate a better price.

If a crematory is currently using natural gas and is considering switching to propane, there will be some cost involved (i.e., the burner orifice, the thermal-coupler, spark plugs, etc.) Plus it will require propane tanks, or tying you to the supplier to provide the tanks. If you purchase the tanks, be certain you get a certificate of sale with the tank ID/serial numbers on the documentation, along with the meters and pressure valves where applicable.

The piping for natural gas is the large, 2-inch pipe. This is the pipe we installed and is fine for propane. The propane meters are high-pressure, and the system must maintain an 11-inch water column during the entire operation.

Q: Do you know of any other crematories that are going through the same situation?

A: I shared this information with a funeral home/crematory operation I know in Virginia. He had suspected that his fuel usage was at 40 gallons of propane per cremation. After reading his meter and using the formula to calculate fuel usage, he contacted his propane dealer. The difference in what he was billed and what he used was significant. They discovered a leak between the tank and the meter. He was issued a credit of $5,200. That’s at 2,500 to 3,000 gallons of propane he had paid for and didn’t use. If he hadn’t had a meter, this would have been extremely difficult to prove.

The conversion formulas are readily available online for all fuel types. You will need a source (OPIS) to determine the rack rate from the port your distributor is receiving propane or pipeline for natural gas. However, unless your unit is metered, using the fuel conversion formula and subscribing to OPIS is a moot point.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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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.

It is good to learn that nothing has changed.  My family owned and operated funeral homes for 62 years (we sold our business in 1986), and funeral directors were making the same claims, suggestions and complaints in the 1940’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.  When the “discounters” began  offering funeral  merchandise, funeral directors claimed, “This will ruin our business”, but it did not.  As each ethic group became large enough to demand funeral services that more closely fit their culture, funeral directors claimed “This will ruin my business:, but it did not.  There  have always been funeral directors that fell superior to their fellow peers, but this is true of all people in all professions and trades.  Moreover, there have always been funeral  directors  that fell the need to educate the public about the importance  of what they do.   (But are they trying to convince the public or themselves?).

We had a sign on our office e wall that read:  “People will not remember for long what you did or did, but they will remember forever how you made them feel. “  If today’s funeral directors make certain that whatever  they do  makes  a family and their friends feel better ( e.g. in Polish, print booklets in Spanish etc..) , then they will enjoy a long, profitable career in the funeral business.  If they worry about  “selling” anything, or spend time criticizing other funeral directors or try to “educate” the public, then their career will be short and unpleasant.  If you do not believe that public already knows what  you do is important, then what are you doing in the funeral business.  You do not need to educate the public, you need to believe that what you do is important - the public will get the message.

Trade calls

After reading  “Trade Calls” by James P. Keith  (March 2005, page 112). I wanted to share an interesting story.  We were contacted to do a trade call and, in the process the family asked us to place an obituary in our paper, asked us to order a number of certified copies, and wanted to pay the airfare to the destination.  They wrote a check for the three items.

Well, when we forwarded our trade call bill to the receiving funeral home, he deducted the total  of the three items from our statement.  To this day, he does not understand and repeatedly refuse to pay our trade call charges in full.

Values vs. Disposition

How often have we seen signs outside of funeral homes or ads in newspapers that say “John Smith Funeral Home and Burial Services” or ‘”John Smith Funeral Home and Body Donation Services”? I have seldom seen them, yet both are ways of disposing of a dead body after grieving and reality purposes. Why, then, do we constantly see “John Smith Funeral Home and Cremations Services”? Cremation is merely another  means of disposing of a body, yet today, it  gets top billing.   It seems we have forgotten that burial, donation or cremation is what one does with the body at the end of the funeral service. Let us return to the realty of talking about and teaching funeral values not disposition methods.  If  you place “cremation” on the side of your building, then you also need to out “burial” and donation”  on it as well. If you advertise “celebrations of life” then you might want to advertise “end of life service” too. The funeral is about grief resolution - not about being easy.  funeral services, cremation cremation costs, direct cremation and cremation services incorporate many things in order to assist people in the grieving process, and one of these is the end of the cemetery where final disposition takes place,  i.e burial, entombment, donation or cremation.  None of these actions is the funeral, however.

Stop comparing funeral services to cremation service, and perhaps the clientele will stop choosing one over the other, or one instead of the other.

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Is the traditional funeral home going the way of the buggy whip?  Will the funeral home of the future be known as a Grief Recovery Center?  Could be, says Tom Lord, retired Maine Funeral Director who has developed a comprehensive grief recovery support group program for funeral homes through Point The Way Enterprises.  “This is the first really new change in funeral service in 75 years, ”  he explains.  “The last one nearly put my family of business.  My grandfather and father were old time “Undertakers that had a store front office and embalmed bodies in people’s homes.  Then a new guy in town opened a ‘funeral home’ and people loved it!”  “Why should funeral directors turn their families loose out there all by themselves after the funeral or memorial service is over?”  asks Lord.  “They’ve helped them face the initial grief, shock and pain of their loss.  They’ve steered them around the worst pothole in their lives, earned their utmost trust and respect and provided them an acceptable way to express their love…then abandoned them!”  With the new grief recovery support group program, funeral directors can take their service to the highest level and walk with their families all the way until they’ve completely recovered.  “Because grief recovery support groups require extra time and a serious emotional commitment, funeral directors have been reluctant to step outside of their comfort zone.  Instead, they’ve deferred the post funeral stages of the recovery process to others, like Hospice, AARP and churches,” Lord contends.  “Today’s funeral directors have a wonderful opportunity to be on the cutting edge of change.  For years I’d felt that those of us in funeral service should be doing more than we had been traditionally, to help families after the services were over.  I was astounded when I found out that clergy were often not following up with grief stricken families as I thought they should be.  After years of trying to improve that situation I was able to meld the best parts of several grief recovery strategies into one comprehensive program,” said Lord.  This is definitely not professional therapy or counseling just common sense, every day, down to earth stuff that works.  It also includes guidelines for groups of grieving parents and widowers.  Most families have no idea what is ahead of them on the arduous journey to recovery.   They are at a complete loss as to what to do after the funeral.  They are wide open for any suggestions funeral directors might offer.  Families would much rather have funeral service professionals they know help them as they enter the post funeral stage of grief than someone else.  Without some guidance from funeral service professionals many grieving people will never receive any support.  “There’s a tremendous amount of satisfaction knowing you’ve helped someone emerge from the miry pit of grief, with a smile on their face, a spring in their step, and a renewed zest for life,” said Lord.  “You may be the only one keeping them from psychotherapy, a mental hospital, jail or even from ‘going off the deep end.’  If nothing else, you’ve helped them overcome the awful agony of unresolved grief.”  Funeral directors may be thinking, “Why compete with something like Hospice or AARP that’s already successful?”  Don’t think of it as competing!  You are helping many more people from suffering through the things I just mentioned.  Besides that, funeral businesses  are built on relationships.  There is no better way of developing them than to become a close friend and mentor through the grief recovery support group process.  The fact that there may be another widowed person’s support group in town should not discourage anyone.  Funeral directors will be pleasantly surprised at how the program can benefit them individually.  “It’s the most effective public relations strategy I’ve ever experienced in my whole lifetime in funeral service,” insists Lord, and I’m familiar with them all!”  Grief recovery support groups are structured so that beginning with the very first one, funeral directors will be grooming facilitators to run future groups.  However, funeral directors will always be able to retain close relationships with each person in each group.  They won’t need to re-invent the wheel either.  Lord promises to show them how to guard against problems like their group’s implosion (it happened to him).  Detailed directions explain how to prevent anti-funeral activists or competitors from infiltrating their group.  At the same time they’ll learn how to guide their group’s activities without appearing to be “bossy”.  They can even take off on a Caribbean cruise.  The program goes into detail on how to structure the leadership of a support group and outlines step by step the most effective way to handle publicity and recruitment.  How much of a commitment does it require?    The time commitment first.  After a group is up and running a funeral director can expect to spend a couple of hours a week plus a board of directors meeting once a month or so.  At first it will require some extra time and effort to get organized.  “But isn’t it worth it to be on the cutting edge of something this unique, this beneficial to your business?”  asks Lord.  “Anything worthwhile requires some extra time and effort.  “Eventually the volunteer facilitators will be shouldering 99% of the responsibility.  Next, the financial commitment.  How do you measure satisfaction?  Pride?  Knowing you are offering the most comprehensive grief recovery program out there?  That you will likely increase your volume by 25% or more within a few years?  Today, especially in the economy, every call is precious.  The program has a “snowball rolling downhill” effect Lord promises.  It just grows and grows , and it will take several months for  funeral director to appreciate just how beneficial it really is.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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