A Sensitive Subject

Hi Ray.  Just thought I'd join in and say, as I have known you for many years now, you go about your business in a very sensitive, professional manner and that will shine through anyhow.  I appreciate its a tricky business but after all it is a business and the comments you have here are very encouraging.  Well done for taking the decision to join 4N and to do a 4Sight.  I'd like to attend the breakfast to hear it, keep in touch mate.

I approached quite a few funeral directors to join my bni chapter a few years ago and was amazed at their lack of marketing so there is plenty of room for forward looking business to clean up in my opinion.

I have had to organise several funerals in last few years and have gone to the high street . probably one of the few occupations where i havent come across someone in one netwroking group or another.

I am reminded of a great tag line that a will writer used to use at the end of their 60 seconds. It could be similarly used by a funeral director :

"See me before you go !"

I've often thought that marketing a funeral business must be a challenge.  It's the service that no-one wants to think about but everyone will ultimately need.

All the 'new' rules of marketing and social media can be difficult to apply - how do you engage with your customers and build a lifelong relationship when your clients want the whole thing over with quickly and hopefully not to see you again for a very long time.

Keeping in touch, special offers, time sensitive offers - either don't apply, or are difficult to do with sensitivity.

But to rely on advertising alone is not enough.  If there is a service where word of mouth and customer testimonials are under utilised it is this one. 

We Brits use humour as a way of coping with difficult times.  I wrote and delivered my father's eulogy and had everyone laughing - but that was 'internal' humour that only a family member could get away with. The funeral director cracking jokes would have been wholly inappropriate but injecting humour into the subject through 4Sights etc is a good idea.

But I would definitely avoid anything like 'Embalming Explained' as a topic for a breakfast meeting.