Transcript
Speaker: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host Jennifer Muldaney aka the Glam Reaper herself.
Speaker: On today's episode we have Ryan Thogmartin of Disrupt Media.
Speaker: A lot of funeral professionals will recognize that name for sure from the conventions and from generally just he's brilliant at what he does but maybe other people might not so we're going to have Ryan introduce himself and tell us a little bit more about what he does in the funeral profession
Speaker: but also in life because he does some life coaching.
Speaker: So stay tuned for this great episode.
Speaker: Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host Jennifer Muldenny aka the Glam Reaper herself and on today's episode I have a very glamorous looking Ryan Thogmartin.
Speaker: I'm loving all the colors in your background here, Ryan.
Speaker: So we are going to introduce Ryan and let him tell us who he is and maybe a bit about how we met or, you know, how we know each other and stuff.
Speaker: Ryan, take it away.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know how to describe myself.
Speaker: I've been described so many different ways.
Speaker: Some I like, some I don't.
Speaker: So we'll just say I'm an entrepreneur, a marketer, a husband, a father, and a life coach.
Speaker: So I do a lot of different things, but I really just...
Speaker: enjoy storytelling and branding.
Speaker: Like that is my specialty is just is personal branding.
Speaker: How do we craft a story around somebody that's interesting, but authentic to who that person is.
Speaker: So do a lot of different things.
Speaker: But I think overall, the one title could just be entrepreneur.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: And Ryan, you and I met.
Speaker: So exactly.
Speaker: You've touched there on a couple of things that we're going to chat about today.
Speaker: But you and I met at the funeral conventions.
Speaker: So typically, I think it's usually the NFDA.
Speaker: I'm not sure if we've ever met at the ICCFA or one of those.
Speaker: But so the National Funeral Directors Association and here in the States.
Speaker: And what always fascinates me is Ryan is always a bit like his background in his shirt right now that he's wearing.
Speaker: is always colorful.
Speaker: You always stand out.
Speaker: You're, you know, you have a podcast, which I've been on, blessed to be on a couple of times, FN Nation with my good pal Jeff.
Speaker: And the two of you are always, you know, in some iconic pink or orange suit or, you know.
Speaker: And Ryan, let me describe for people who don't,
Speaker: you know, don't have visual here because we have this on podcast and we have it on YouTube.
Speaker: Brian is definitely somebody who stands out, probably similar to myself, but stands out at the conventions because, you know, you're neither
Speaker: I mean, you are white and male, we'll give you that, but you're not old and antiquated, which I'm not saying everybody out there is that's in the funeral space.
Speaker: But, you know, there's a lot of suits that go to these.
Speaker: And so I even know at this one just recently, I made headlines.
Speaker: I use that very lightly.
Speaker: I mean, headlines because on the first day, it was Breast Cancer Awareness Day and we were told to wear pink.
Speaker: obviously the glam reaper that's kind of our iconic image is pink and so i had this gorgeous pink suit that i needed to wear had an excuse to wear so i wore it and bloody hell like um so definitely standing out and like having a story and branding um is so important but that's a little bit of how me and ryan met and just to give you a flavor for those listening what he kind of um is you definitely stand out amongst
Speaker: a sea of suits um but you know social media and online presence in that space and i actually was only just having a conversation with this um it was on a previous episode actually with carrie the mortician who's doing super well on tick tock yes you know or all of all of the bits
Speaker: And we were just talking about how, well, A, how interesting that space has become because you've got so many of these people now who she actually coined or told me about this term that's been coined, funeral tainers.
Speaker: So people from the funeral space who are entertaining, I guess, Joe Public, as I call them.
Speaker: And I think they're doing great.
Speaker: You know, they're getting a conversation that's really, really difficult and they're putting it out there.
Speaker: But there's a lot of misinformation that's going around.
Speaker: So do you have any experience of that or like the clients that you work with and the funeral homes and, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I do.
Speaker: So I would look at Carrie a little bit too differently than some of the those funeral attainers that are out there because Carrie is actually ingrained in the profession.
Speaker: She's knowledgeable.
Speaker: She's truthful.
Speaker: She's very authentic to who she is.
Speaker: Then you have a group of funeral tainers where they've just found like, I can talk about the craziest things related to death that are very unpractical, but they grab a lot of attention and I'll just run with that.
Speaker: But that doesn't last long.
Speaker: That flame flares out after a while and the cream really rises to the crop.
Speaker: So like, I think that there is death is intriguing.
Speaker: And I don't mean death as the like the doom and gloom side of death.
Speaker: I think there are things associated with deaths that we're curious about because we don't talk about.
Speaker: We don't talk about death in a mainstream.
Speaker: And so when we're scrolling through TikTok, as as you say, just any Joe Blow and they go, oh, wait a second, on a on a.
Speaker: an erection on a dead body, what's that?
Speaker: Like that grabs somebody's attention.
Speaker: So there's those shock and awe things, but what I really look at with clients is, you know, we're marketing the funeral home brand to the consumer and engaging in a way that is not like shock and awe, but it is like, how do we get the story to be part of the fabric of that consumer to where it draws them in and they wanna use that funeral home
Speaker: and have a memorial service, have a full traditional funeral, regardless of disposition.
Speaker: Like, how do we put value back into what a funeral home actually does?
Speaker: And that's what I really appreciate about Carrie, because she touches on the things that are really actionable that consumers want to know about because there's their conversations that come up.
Speaker: That funeral homes don't dive into, because if it came from a funeral home through Facebook,
Speaker: through their funeral home Facebook page, and some of the things are a little bit on the edge of, you know, appropriate or not.
Speaker: We're going to turn a lot of people off because the dominant demographic that's engaging with a funeral and Facebook page is 55 and over.
Speaker: You go to Instagram and TikTok and even YouTube and you're getting a much younger demographic that is more curious about those things.
Speaker: So there's a good balance there.
Speaker: But I want to define marketing real quick.
Speaker: If we're going to go down the rabbit hole of kind of what I do from a social media perspective and marketing perspective,
Speaker: I think that we have mislabeled marketing and we and we look at marketing as like it's advertising.
Speaker: Advertising and marketing are two completely different things.
Speaker: Advertising, I'm selling something and it's a specific click here, buy this.
Speaker: It's a hard sell.
Speaker: That's advertising.
Speaker: Marketing isn't selling.
Speaker: Marketing is storytelling.
Speaker: And when we can create the right story that's authentic and it builds a relationship, then the selling aspect of it comes into play.
Speaker: And I think that's where
Speaker: if we look at death care in general, we look at any word of mouth as advertising and it needs to sell something.
Speaker: When what really works from a funeral home to a consumer is articulating the story, the credibility, the knowledge, the authenticity of not only the brand that's on the sign, but the personal brand.
Speaker: You and I have very strong personal brands.
Speaker: If we remove you from the glam reaper, the glam reaper doesn't exist.
Speaker: If we move me, remove me from Disrupt Media, sure, Disrupt could function, but it's gonna function in a completely different capacity than if I'm at the head of it and the face of it.
Speaker: Even at a funeral home level or I mean, screw it.
Speaker: It doesn't really matter if it's a funeral home, a car dealership, an insurance agent, a real estate agent or Nike.
Speaker: The personal brand will always be more valuable than the logo.
Speaker: And that's really what we try to get across with our funeral home clients is is you, Mr. Mrs. Funeral Director, the secretary as is as equally as important as you who own the business.
Speaker: But your personal brands in the community will always supersede whatever name is on the side or who owns the funeral home because people buy from people.
Speaker: If we market correctly, we build a good personal brand through story.
Speaker: Marketing is just storytelling.
Speaker: It's not selling.
Speaker: But the byproduct of building a relationship through authenticity and transparency is that there can be a transaction that feels natural.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I completely agree with you.
Speaker: It's and it's it's a very difficult.
Speaker: Actually, myself and Carrie were talking about Gary Vee and, you know, what he talks about and stuff like that.
Speaker: I personally and maybe you'll you'll think differently, but I personally feel like when he talks, yes, he makes an awful lot of sense.
Speaker: And, you know, he he's brilliant in what he's done and he's brilliant in the brand he has built up.
Speaker: But I feel that not everything he applies applies to the funeral business.
Speaker: Now, maybe I'm wrong with that.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But I completely agree with what you're saying about personal brand.
Speaker: And I do think it's why you go to your local funeral home.
Speaker: Yes, it's location, but it's also you've bought into that person, that family, whatever it is.
Speaker: It's not the bricks and mortar.
Speaker: But I feel like a lot of what sort of Gary Vee says is
Speaker: you know, that a funeral home should be on TikTok and should be on LinkedIn and stuff like that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: To some of that.
Speaker: I just don't think it suits everybody.
Speaker: It's not everybody's brand.
Speaker: Like TikTok is it's a young person's platform.
Speaker: It's coming.
Speaker: I know it's becoming a search engine.
Speaker: It's becoming I know.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: It's like but I also feel that from my experience with funeral homes and funeral directors is, you know, some of them still facts.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I mean, we're we've been very successful running fax marketing campaigns, B2B.
Speaker: So like, yes, there is that.
Speaker: Now I would challenge you on TikTok is starting to skew a little bit more older from not necessarily a content creation standpoint, but a consumption standpoint.
Speaker: Like I have people in my family that I mean, at Christmas time this year,
Speaker: the question was asked multiple times, where did you find that?
Speaker: And a member of our family that is 64 years old or 63 years old replied, Oh, I got it through a Tik TOK ad.
Speaker: I got it through multiple times.
Speaker: So never has posted anything and never will post anything, but from a consumption standpoint, they're there.
Speaker: So does it make, then the question becomes, does it make sense for your local funeral home to be on Facebook?
Speaker: I don't think that,
Speaker: If you're not winning across Facebook or Instagram, does it make sense to leave those and focus on TikTok?
Speaker: Absolutely not.
Speaker: If you have a presence and you're engaging and you've built solid brand, does it make sense to have TikTok as part of TikTok?
Speaker: your marketing plan, a thousand percent.
Speaker: It's very hard to localize.
Speaker: There's things that you can do to help content stay more local, but it's hard to really keep it in that 10 to 15 mile radius.
Speaker: So it's not all going to be valuable, but I think the most valuable piece of a funeral home understanding
Speaker: TikTok is just understanding the platform and how somebody consumes content.
Speaker: Short form content is absolutely the game.
Speaker: That 90 second and under and even 45 second under is the game, but it's also put more value back in long form content.
Speaker: So I put out a video earlier this week with the perfect marketing strategy for 2023 and
Speaker: I talked about short form content, long form content and then email marketing.
Speaker: Email marketing is is working again when we can be really valuable with what we're sending out.
Speaker: Long form content across YouTube is valuable because they can be chopped into micro content that now becomes short form content.
Speaker: And once you get somebody from short form to long form, getting them where you want them to go.
Speaker: isn't difficult.
Speaker: And so even in a funeral home sense, that works.
Speaker: You can create short form content.
Speaker: Let's say it is a minute on one benefit of pre-planning that now goes back to a long form piece of content.
Speaker: And when I say long form, three to five minutes,
Speaker: long form piece of content where it doesn't have to be hour long content or 45 minutes.
Speaker: I mean, long form content can be three to five minutes long.
Speaker: Now it's the full video of why pre needs important, where that can then be funneled into a white paper or something where you can capture a lead.
Speaker: So there is a way if funeral homes want to really fully embrace marketing the right way across social.
Speaker: But still, the number one platform for a funeral home to be on and engaging is going to be Facebook.
Speaker: But all brands need to realize whether they're a funeral home or cemetery or whatever you and I even want.
Speaker: who we used to look at as competitors aren't competitors anymore.
Speaker: Like a funeral home is not competing for attention with just the funeral home down the street or around the corner.
Speaker: You know, the five funeral homes in your town, those aren't your only competitors anymore.
Speaker: You are literally competing against every other single brand that is trying to reach the same consumer you're trying to reach.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Funeral homes compete with Nike and Under Armour and all of these huge brands that have billions of dollars to spend on social.
Speaker: Your content has to be really, really good and it has to be valuable.
Speaker: It doesn't make sense to just put content out anymore for the sake of getting a post out.
Speaker: Yeah, and that's interesting as well because we touched on it a little bit with Carrie.
Speaker: I'm not sure if it was in the recorded episode or chat after because I always seem to tend to chat after off camera.
Speaker: But we were talking about that as to where she's sort of seeing the most results and that's vastly changed for her.
Speaker: Like she said, YouTube was huge for her and now it's kind of hit a plateau for her and a lot of other issues.
Speaker: influencers or educators or whoever we want to title them but you know monetary wise and she just kind of she said for what she's for the content that she's putting out there and the effort she's putting in she's kind of not really seeing reaping the rewards and I think that that's
Speaker: Yes, listen, I have a marketing degree, diploma, you know, I've digital communications.
Speaker: I feel like I've all these.
Speaker: But what's funny to me is how it evolves, though, Ryan, like what I learned, what I did and what I was so brilliant at, you know, 10 years later, I haven't a clue.
Speaker: You know, it just evolves every year.
Speaker: And I think that's where.
Speaker: it becomes I can understand how overwhelming it can be.
Speaker: So I can understand how a funeral director who's maybe twice my age or whatever will actually, you know, that probably be difficult, but I'm getting older than I can't stop.
Speaker: I can't say that anymore.
Speaker: But, you know, that it must be so overwhelming for them that it's like, how do we, you know, I,
Speaker: Some of them hardly even have a website and getting them to that stage is, you know, obviously super important.
Speaker: But having this online presence.
Speaker: So I think that the likes of Carrie and as you said, like she's coming from she works in the industry.
Speaker: She's she's got the background.
Speaker: She's doing it day to day.
Speaker: And she was even saying how, you know, there's days she can't post because she's so busy working, you know, and and.
Speaker: But and then, you know, you do wonder, she's putting out all this great content.
Speaker: She's educated.
Speaker: But then you've got these other people who, you know, according to her, are pre mortuary school themselves.
Speaker: Like they're only kind of they're dabbling in things and they're putting out this content, but they're going maybe viral because they're saying sensational things.
Speaker: And you're right.
Speaker: Like he's fighting against them as well as everything else.
Speaker: It's.
Speaker: It's overwhelming.
Speaker: I mean, I'm overwhelmed.
Speaker: The cream rises to the top eventually.
Speaker: Like that will fizzle out.
Speaker: That person's going to get tired of it.
Speaker: They're going to go into a full-time job where they're not going to be able to create that content because the employer is not going to allow it.
Speaker: Like there's going to be...
Speaker: That'll cycle through.
Speaker: And to your point, though, like you have all these degrees in marketing and all this education.
Speaker: I'm going to argue that it isn't that much different.
Speaker: It changes.
Speaker: It's different.
Speaker: The platforms become different.
Speaker: But at the core, the thing that still matters the most is authenticity and relationship from an actual exchange of money.
Speaker: We can get a lot of views.
Speaker: You and I could create content and say things separately on our own content that will be sensationalized and they'll get a lot of views.
Speaker: We may get a few bucks from a platform because of the amount of views, but at the end of the day, you're not really building a business.
Speaker: And that's why it's become so hard for a lot of influencers that built these great big followings on YouTube.
Speaker: It's because the attention span for us to sit and watch a 30 minute vlog just isn't there.
Speaker: You mentioned Gary Vee.
Speaker: Let's go to what Gary Vee was putting out 20 to 30 minute vlogs every single day.
Speaker: Now daily V's are three to four minutes long and that's considered long form content.
Speaker: And so the platforms adjust, but at the core of what connects people is
Speaker: the same things still apply.
Speaker: And I usually give this example to a funeral home because the average age of a funeral homeowner right now is 65.
Speaker: Now over the next five years will be the largest turnover of an older generation to a younger generation.
Speaker: So that age is gonna come down some of an owner, which is gonna vastly change how brands have to market and things of that nature.
Speaker: I always say that marketing now is old school marketing, but in a new shiny box.
Speaker: The same way that when my grandmother would go to the IGA in the local community and every Wednesday at 10 a.m.
Speaker: she would show up and the butcher had a hand bone ready for her and knew exactly what she was coming for, when she was coming and what she needed, had it ready.
Speaker: She went in, picked it up and left.
Speaker: We're getting back to that and marketing and the marketers and the brands that do really, really well are the brands that can speak directly to me like they are sitting right beside me.
Speaker: And that takes knowing the consumer, it takes authenticity from the brand and it takes relationship building through storytelling.
Speaker: And funeral homes can easily do that because they all have this generational story.
Speaker: They all have their own story.
Speaker: It's 80% of the business that they get is relational anyways.
Speaker: So that just needs to be an extension of how they market.
Speaker: And then they're hitting a local audience that already has an understanding of who they are.
Speaker: It's just putting the right content in front of them to keep them engaged.
Speaker: And that's not grief and inspirational quotes and flower images that say, you know, happy, Merry Christmas, whatever.
Speaker: It's like this is why we're different.
Speaker: These are the things that can be done.
Speaker: This or that content.
Speaker: You wanna make viral content for a funeral home?
Speaker: Great, let's start doing this or that with cremation urns, or do you want cremated remains back in this container, or do you want these really pretty parting stones?
Speaker: What do you want?
Speaker: This or that?
Speaker: That's easy content to make that can take three seconds, no editing, but it engages the consumer.
Speaker: And now there's curiosity, what are these rocks?
Speaker: Now you can create a longer form piece that relates back to the rocks that everybody's commenting on.
Speaker: Like, wait a second, how are those rocks, cremated remains?
Speaker: Now you start a conversation, you answer a question, you build a relationship.
Speaker: Marketing isn't really that complicated.
Speaker: It's just getting...
Speaker: business owners to understand that it's not about let's put this content out.
Speaker: Let's have somebody click a button and let's sell something.
Speaker: If it's water, yes.
Speaker: But even now, I want to know who's making the water and what's the bigger mission of the water company, right?
Speaker: Like we care a little bit more about where our money goes.
Speaker: So the authenticity and the relationship in that transparency and content is the real kicker, which isn't much different than what you learned
Speaker: when you got your degrees, they're just positioned in different boxes.
Speaker: And the way that we storytell is different than how we used to with an advertorial or something along those lines.
Speaker: And that understanding
Speaker: is really gonna be the key for business owners going forward, whether it's a funeral home, crematory, cemetery, it doesn't matter.
Speaker: The value of them being on TikTok now is not that they're going to get a lot of business from it, but they're understanding how to use the platform and the way that people digest content because it's all built off of what exists now.
Speaker: What comes next will be built off of what's happening now.
Speaker: Like if we look at Be Real,
Speaker: Be Real exploded.
Speaker: Now it's it's dying down because there's not enough content to keep us connected and consume.
Speaker: The reason TikTok rocks is because their algorithm is so good that I only see content I care about 95 percent of the time and I'll stay there for hours just mindlessly scrolling.
Speaker: But our attention spans are only going to be three to five seconds on a piece of content most of the time.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: be real exploded because it was just that.
Speaker: Like, I'm going to look at it once a day.
Speaker: I'm going to see what everybody posted and then I'm going to go on about my day and it doesn't suck all my time.
Speaker: So it's just understanding human behavior.
Speaker: And then the next thing that comes will be built off of what existing.
Speaker: I mean, Facebook was first and then all these things have been built around the things that worked on Facebook and Facebook.
Speaker: you know, just understanding how to use that platform is, is the real key, whether they're creating there or not, they should definitely be there to consume.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's funny because,
Speaker: As you were talking there, I was laughing because I said to you literally before we started recording was that I usually try and keep it to around 20 to 30 minutes.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker: Attention span is is short.
Speaker: And it's funny because some of my podcast episodes have gone on just because of the conversation.
Speaker: It's gone on 45 minutes, an hour, an hour and a half, I think even.
Speaker: So I've I've split them up into bite size.
Speaker: And for me.
Speaker: And part of why I do that, Ryan, is because for me, I'm like, I will watch 20 minutes of video.
Speaker: And then unless you were talking about something absolutely blowing my mind, that's, you know, and even beyond the three minutes, like, and I know the way I'm consuming my social media, it's boring, move on.
Speaker: And it's just TikTok is like the devil, though, it's hell.
Speaker: The worst thing you can do is log on to that when you're about to go to sleep.
Speaker: And then you're like an hourly, you know, that guy that comes up and he's like, take a snack, drink a
Speaker: that's right you've been throwing too long that's genius by the way that they do that absolute genius because it makes you laugh at yourself and go oh my god I've done it but tell me and actually there was lots of nuggets in what you were kind of saying there Ryan that obviously lead to you're obviously very interested in sort of the human psych and what makes us do things and why and how so that's obviously brought you into the life coaching thing now how long have you been involved with that I think your wife is involved as well
Speaker: Yeah, so my wife and I do life coaching and she coaches women and I coach a lot of men more because I can relate.
Speaker: It makes sense.
Speaker: I've had a life coach for six years and I've been life coaching for about two years.
Speaker: And for me, when I look at life and wanting to be the best at what I do, if I want to get better and lower my handicap in golf, I hire a swing coach.
Speaker: If I want to get healthy, I hire a health coach, I hire a trainer, I hire a nutritionist.
Speaker: We hire somebody to make our food.
Speaker: Like we get coaches for all of these different things.
Speaker: You know, you want to get you want to be better at marketing.
Speaker: You hire a company to help educate you on how to market.
Speaker: You want to get better at podcasting.
Speaker: You probably hired somebody to help you figure it out or you watch the video like we get coaches.
Speaker: for everything.
Speaker: But when it comes to actually like building our life and the things that we want and our deepest desires, like, ah, no, I I'll do it on my own.
Speaker: And things don't work well that way.
Speaker: Um, so when I got a life coach, I thought it was a sham.
Speaker: I only hired the guy because we were, we had known each other, had a lot of respect for him.
Speaker: Um, um,
Speaker: And he reached out to me and said, Hey, I'm putting this thing together.
Speaker: It's, it's a mastermind.
Speaker: I'm like, no pump the brakes.
Speaker: Like to me, mastermind means like, I'm going to pay you for a six week course.
Speaker: And then at the end of it, I get a beach house and a Ferrari.
Speaker: And I think that that's crap and that's not going to work.
Speaker: And so, you know, he's like, no, like this is different.
Speaker: It's going to be a group of entrepreneurial Christian men.
Speaker: We're going to challenge each other.
Speaker: We're going to go deep on, you know, some heart issues and really understand how the mind impacts the things that we do on a daily basis.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, okay, whatever, man.
Speaker: I can do it on my own.
Speaker: I had this perception that an entrepreneur is this lone ranger.
Speaker: And they are because we just think differently.
Speaker: Naturally, we become alone because we want different things out of life than most people.
Speaker: And that's the part of me that I really wanted to connect with and understand, like, why am I wired this way?
Speaker: And life coaching helped me understand that and then apply these things to all areas of my life.
Speaker: My business grows.
Speaker: My team grows.
Speaker: I'm a better leader.
Speaker: I'm a better husband.
Speaker: I'm a better father.
Speaker: I'm a better faith leader.
Speaker: All of these things get better because the core of me is getting stronger and I really understand what makes me tick and what my values are.
Speaker: I look at my influence in death care and that has been, there's so much of that
Speaker: that mental state that gets worn down in death care because funeral professionals are dealing with the worst day of somebody's life every single day they show up.
Speaker: And they're so giving and they're so serving that they never take time to be selfish.
Speaker: And I think sometimes the best thing that we can give the people that we love is to be a little bit selfish and figure out how we can show up better.
Speaker: And so my thing with a funeral director is, you know, right now,
Speaker: You may be showing up as a C. What happens to your business if you show up as an A every day because you know what makes you tick and why you want to do what you do and you create freedom and you create space and time.
Speaker: So that's been a big passion of mine.
Speaker: And, you know, probably a year ago.
Speaker: got laid on my heart and my wife's heart to do a live event.
Speaker: And we've never done a live event that is part personal development and part marketing.
Speaker: We're both passionate at both.
Speaker: She runs operations for all of our companies and is very ingrained in me being able to do what I do is because she can do what she does.
Speaker: And so we work well in that capacity.
Speaker: And so we wanted to do a live event that was
Speaker: You know, one day personal development and then the next day marketing, because personal development, you're really understanding like what makes you tick and you're getting people motivated and riled up and they've got a story and their story is important and they're uncommon and they're unique.
Speaker: Like we're all designed with this specific purpose.
Speaker: And when you can uncover that now, it's about sharing that message with the world.
Speaker: How do you do that?
Speaker: How do you create a brand?
Speaker: How do you.
Speaker: What does personal branding even mean?
Speaker: How do you start just creating content and documenting?
Speaker: If I'm uncomfortable holding a phone up selfie style, how do I get comfortable with it?
Speaker: So, you know, we're going to take a day to really uncover and make people go a little bit deeper in what their unique God given skill set is that really makes them uncommon because we all have that thing.
Speaker: And then how do you deploy that into the world?
Speaker: And that would be the next day with with some marketing and branding conversation.
Speaker: So
Speaker: It's in Scottsdale, Arizona, March 1st through 3rd.
Speaker: Well, Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker: It's on the other side of the street.
Speaker: The venue is from the Scottsdale zip code.
Speaker: So I'm excited about it.
Speaker: Should be really cool.
Speaker: It's going to be a small, intimate event.
Speaker: We're capping it at 25 people.
Speaker: We have 10 seats left.
Speaker: So I don't know when this is going to air.
Speaker: But if anybody wants information, you can go to UncommonSummit.com.
Speaker: But common is spelled with a K because if we're going to use the word uncommon, why would we use a C?
Speaker: Because that's common.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Well, hopefully it airs before then.
Speaker: And if not, at least then whoever hears about this can check back in with whoever was at it and hear all about it.
Speaker: Fair play to you, Ryan.
Speaker: You're absolutely, you're, as I said, you stand out.
Speaker: You're, you know, you never back down.
Speaker: You're, you know, like,
Speaker: everything about you is just constantly propelling forward.
Speaker: And I love that your positive energy, you know, you, you stand out at the funeral conventions and it's not many people that do it, but even like online and anytime I chatted to you, you're always just open and willing and positive.
Speaker: And it's, you know, never, never negative Nancy, you know, attitude and stuff like that.
Speaker: So that's, that's admirable.
Speaker: And, um, you know, it really is.
Speaker: And also I will say it must be incredibly, um,
Speaker: Hard, I would have said, but you kind of make it sound easy to have to work with your wife, but in your businesses and now you're doing a conference together.
Speaker: So that has challenges.
Speaker: It is difficult.
Speaker: It takes a lot of intentionality.
Speaker: It takes a lot of work.
Speaker: It takes a lot of understanding what her lane is and what my lane is.
Speaker: And that's that's really the key.
Speaker: We're writing a book called Uncommon Alignment.
Speaker: And it's on how to.
Speaker: When you can have a common goal that fixes, not fixes, but it allows you to get an alignment of what each other's purpose is and how we're both going to the same thing, but we do it in massively different ways.
Speaker: We are massive.
Speaker: We are probably complete opposites.
Speaker: in most everything.
Speaker: So how do we leverage those two things together?
Speaker: So it is difficult, but it is insanely rewarding at the same time.
Speaker: And it works.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker: And hopefully we'll have you on again soon, maybe at one of the conventions or something like that.
Speaker: But thank you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: We're going to leave all the links for everything Ryan was talking about underneath the video and on the podcast.
Speaker: And thank you so much.
Speaker: So that was our episode with Ryan.
Speaker: What do you think?
Speaker: Do you agree with him on what he was saying?
Speaker: It can be difficult, definitely marketing funeral homes and the funeral business,
Speaker: And if you are a non-funeral person, I would love to know what you think about how funeral businesses market themselves.
Speaker: Do you think it's good?
Speaker: Do you think it's bad?
Speaker: I know of some terrible stories and I know some really, really positive ones.
Speaker: So we'd love to hear what you have to say on the matter.
Speaker: So email us glamreaperpodcast at gmail.com and we look forward to hearing from you.
