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Larry Stuart: Funerals 101 - Parts 1
20 Plays4 years ago
Welcome to Part 1 of this trio episode (or shall we say, the Larry Series) of The Glam Reaper podcast! Today’s episode features one of Jennifer’s favorite people in the funeral industry, Larry Stuart Jr.
Larry is the owner of Raven Plume Consulting (formerly Cremation Strategies & Consulting) and works closely with CANA and ICCFA. He is also a Certified Funeral Celebrant who believes that every life deserves to be honored and remembered.
The first part of this episode kicks off with how Jennifer and Larry met and how he started in the funeral industry, eventually becoming a consultant specializing in cremation. In this episode, he talks about the importance of respect in the industry, especially with regards to ceremonies, as some individuals may not prefer to hold one after a cremation. Tune in and listen to them discuss what cremation really is and the role funeral directors play in the process — and no, it’s not all about the money and funeral directors aren’t all cowboys! Make sure to stream the second and third part of this trio as well!
LITTLE NUGGETS OF GOLD:
- A little bit of a background about Larry
- A deeper understanding about cremation
- The importance of respecting people’s decision
- Having the willingness to have that open conversation
- Pricing transparency in the funeral industry
Resources:
The Right Way of Death: Restoring the American Funeral Business to its True Calling, by Eric Layer (https://www.amazon.com/Right-Way-Death-Restoring-American/dp/1735610925)
The American Way of Death revisited, by Jessica Mitford (https://www.amazon.com/American-Way-Death-Revisited/dp/0679771867)
Connect with Larry Stuart Jr.:
Personal Links
Website - http://www.larrystuartjr.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/larrystuartjr/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/LarryStuartJr
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/pub/larry-stuart-jr/1a/a52/138
Instagram - @larrystuartjr
Raven Plume Consulting (formerly Cremation Strategies & Consulting)
Website - https://ravenplume.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/RavenPlumeCons/
Instagram - @crematestrategy
Twitter - https://twitter.com/ravenplumecons
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/77610975
Connect with Jennifer/The Glam Reaper:
Facebook Page - Muldowney Memorials: https://www.facebook.com/MuldowneyMemorials/
Facebook Page - Rainbow Bridge Memorials: https://www.facebook.com/rainbowbridgememorialsdotcom
Instagram -
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to The Glam Reaper Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Hi, my name is Jennifer Muldowney, aka The Glam Reaper, and this is The Glam Reaper Podcast.
00:00:08
Speaker
We're on YouTube and we're in your ears.
00:00:11
Speaker
This show will focus on stories about love, life and loss, and we'll also have a massive input from the funeral world, since that's the world that I live in.
Meet Larry: Insights from the Funeral Industry
00:00:20
Speaker
It is my absolute pleasure to welcome this episode's guest because he is one of my favoritest people in the entire funeral industry.
00:00:28
Speaker
And he's just a darling.
00:00:30
Speaker
Please welcome the incredible Larry.
00:00:37
Speaker
You know, I am so excited for today's show.
00:00:40
Speaker
It's one of my absolute favorite people who's been with me since the start, no less.
00:00:45
Speaker
I've evolved from farewell funeral planners to the glam reaper to who knows what in the next 20
Larry's Journey in Cremation Equipment
00:00:51
Speaker
years.
00:00:51
Speaker
But I am so, so, so, so excited to welcome the wonderful Larry.
00:00:56
Speaker
You are somebody who a lot of people in the industry turn to for knowledge, for expertise, but equally, you don't shy away from an opinion.
00:01:04
Speaker
And I love that.
00:01:05
Speaker
I always say to people that everyone is entitled to my opinion.
00:01:10
Speaker
And it's true.
00:01:10
Speaker
You know, I may be wrong.
00:01:13
Speaker
I'm open to being proved wrong.
00:01:15
Speaker
But I do have very strong opinions and I do my research.
00:01:18
Speaker
So I love that we met the first time you went to an NFDA.
00:01:25
Speaker
And I don't even remember what city.
00:01:26
Speaker
Was it Charlotte?
00:01:26
Speaker
Charlotte?
00:01:28
Speaker
I've been doing this 10 years, but I don't think, I think it was eight years ago maybe that I came to my first NFDA.
00:01:34
Speaker
And the NFDA, by the way, anybody who doesn't know is the National Funeral Directors Association.
The Significance of the NFDA: Networking in Funeral Services
00:01:38
Speaker
It's one of the biggest parties, I'm going to say, on a funeral directors calendar.
00:01:44
Speaker
I'm just going to call it as it is.
00:01:46
Speaker
But it's where people from all over the world in the funeral community get together.
00:01:51
Speaker
And yes, there is alcohol.
00:01:53
Speaker
Yes, there is chat.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yes, there is intellectual chat, but it's a great way to like people swap opinions, swap stories.
00:02:02
Speaker
And it's a great way for innovators and new people, I think, to meet each other.
00:02:06
Speaker
I think it really is.
00:02:08
Speaker
And we met at a party, of course.
00:02:12
Speaker
I think it was the international reception.
00:02:15
Speaker
And they had an open bar and you and me and Chris Farmer just kind of
00:02:20
Speaker
clicked and 10 years later, eight years later, our backgrounds aren't very similar.
00:02:25
Speaker
Obviously, you're not a cremation person per se.
00:02:30
Speaker
I am the cremation guy.
00:02:31
Speaker
I mean, there's probably not many other guys that can say
00:02:35
Speaker
They've been around as long as I have and have such a rounded experience.
00:02:40
Speaker
I grew up, my dad at 14 years old was the director of operations for a manufacturing company of cremation
Consulting in Cremation: Filling the Information Gap
00:02:48
Speaker
equipment.
00:02:48
Speaker
So I grew up in it basically.
00:02:51
Speaker
And I went off to university, I came back.
00:02:54
Speaker
I had to work in a field of something other than before I was allowed to work with my dad.
00:03:00
Speaker
We started our own company and I sold it basically
00:03:05
Speaker
almost five years ago and I've been consulting ever since.
00:03:09
Speaker
And everyone says, oh, consulting, what does that mean?
00:03:12
Speaker
There was such a vacuum of information for people who wanted to either get cremation equipment as part of their business or effectively use cremation as a marketing tool because it's there, people want it and we weren't doing it right.
00:03:35
Speaker
As a profession.
00:03:36
Speaker
Funeral directors, they're like everyone else in that we don't like to change.
00:03:42
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:03:43
Speaker
But you know what?
00:03:44
Speaker
My mom always used to say, you change or you die.
00:03:48
Speaker
And we have to change.
Cremation vs. Embalming: Industry Perspectives
00:03:51
Speaker
And to this day, 2020, there are people that think cremation killed embalming in the U.S. Well, no, it didn't.
00:04:00
Speaker
You know what killed embalming?
00:04:02
Speaker
Bad embalmers.
00:04:03
Speaker
Cremation just happened to come about starting around in the 60s.
00:04:09
Speaker
We all know who Jessica Mitford was.
00:04:11
Speaker
If you don't read her book, I'm not afraid to say she had a lot of good points in that book, but she was misguided and we didn't react to it properly.
00:04:22
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's interesting actually you say that, Larry, because I'm actually rereading her book at the moment.
00:04:27
Speaker
I just finished reading a book that just came out in September by a gentleman.
00:04:31
Speaker
who basically wrote a book rebuttling everything.
00:04:35
Speaker
I don't even know if rebuttling is a word, but it was a rebuttal.
00:04:38
Speaker
It's new.
00:04:38
Speaker
I like it.
00:04:39
Speaker
It's fine.
00:04:40
Speaker
It works.
00:04:41
Speaker
But it's interesting you say that because as somebody slightly innovative or at least with fresh ideas coming into the- Slightly.
00:04:48
Speaker
Come on.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:50
Speaker
With no background in funerals.
00:04:52
Speaker
I completely agree.
00:04:53
Speaker
She had some absolutely great points, but it was done in a very, I mean, the funeral guys, quote unquote.
00:04:59
Speaker
And again, I'm giving a little bit of story to this because I want to actually do a whole podcast on it because I do things that I love doing for what I call them, Joe public, basically the guy on the street who doesn't want to really know a whole lot about the funeral business is the funeral industry are seen as cowboys and robbers that way by the media.
00:05:20
Speaker
And that is not fair.
Breaking Funeral Industry Stereotypes
00:05:21
Speaker
You're not a cowboy or a robber.
00:05:23
Speaker
Neither am I. I know hundreds if not thousands of people who are absolutely the polar opposite.
00:05:28
Speaker
And I think it's unfair to stereotype.
00:05:30
Speaker
Like, all Irish people are drunks.
00:05:32
Speaker
We're not all drunks.
00:05:33
Speaker
Most of us.
00:05:34
Speaker
All the ones I've met are, but...
00:05:37
Speaker
Well, stereotypes are good for a reason and they're not good for others.
00:05:41
Speaker
And I just feel like the funeral industry has gotten this, you know, painted on them.
00:05:45
Speaker
And yeah, so we will definitely get into it whether we do it today.
00:05:49
Speaker
Larry, I feel like this could be a Larry series.
00:05:53
Speaker
It'll be the Glam Reaper podcast.
00:05:55
Speaker
Then there'll be a sub-series of the Glam Reaper and Larry.
00:05:58
Speaker
Well, I'm happy.
00:05:58
Speaker
I love to engage with people.
00:06:04
Speaker
who think beyond.
00:06:06
Speaker
I hate the phrase, think outside of the box, but I know, right?
00:06:10
Speaker
There's no other way to say it.
00:06:12
Speaker
You can't limit your thoughts.
00:06:14
Speaker
If you want to be a success, you've got to think beyond the normal.
00:06:18
Speaker
And God knows I'm not normal.
00:06:20
Speaker
So I'm right in there.
00:06:23
Speaker
Not normal club.
00:06:26
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:06:26
Speaker
And I don't want to be normal.
00:06:27
Speaker
I don't want to live my life based on what the media says and based on what I think
00:06:34
Speaker
Jessica had points, but she didn't know what the funeral service profession was doing at the time.
00:06:42
Speaker
The whole thing with caskets, we used to back well before we were born, used to price the funerals based
Historical Pricing Models and Value Perception
00:06:50
Speaker
on the casket.
00:06:50
Speaker
So if you pick this casket, it's $6,000.
00:06:54
Speaker
If you pick this one, it's $7,000.
00:06:56
Speaker
If you pick this one, it's $8,000.
00:06:57
Speaker
All of the services and all of the stuff that is involved in a traditional casket,
00:07:04
Speaker
funeral was all lumped in there.
00:07:07
Speaker
What did that do to us as professionals?
00:07:09
Speaker
It completely devalued professional services.
00:07:13
Speaker
All the public saw and all that Jessica Midford talked about was that we mark up that casket 200 times, 300 times, 400 times, and we're robbing.
00:07:24
Speaker
Well, we're not robbing.
00:07:26
Speaker
We just had a different model.
00:07:28
Speaker
And was it the best model?
00:07:30
Speaker
No.
00:07:32
Speaker
We can blame back then the casket manufacturers, the Batesville's, the Hildebrand.
00:07:37
Speaker
They came up with this model and combined that with the rise of cremation.
00:07:43
Speaker
And we tended to basically assume that cremation families don't want to spend any money.
00:07:52
Speaker
Dumbest thing we ever did.
00:07:53
Speaker
Dumbest thing.
00:07:54
Speaker
Cause I'll tell you, cremation families will spend money and
00:07:59
Speaker
There are people out there that don't want to spend money, but guess what?
00:08:04
Speaker
Every single consumer transaction price is going to play a part in.
00:08:08
Speaker
It doesn't matter if it's funeral or whether it's, I mean, do you own a Louis Vuitton pocketbook purse?
00:08:16
Speaker
I do.
00:08:17
Speaker
Of course you do.
00:08:19
Speaker
Would you, would you say how much it cost?
00:08:21
Speaker
I can't actually remember.
00:08:23
Speaker
It's so old.
00:08:24
Speaker
I actually can't remember.
00:08:25
Speaker
But you're, you're, we're talking thousands, not hundreds.
00:08:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:29
Speaker
And I think I know where you're going with this because, and I'm just going to, for the people back home, I read this in a branding book one time that right now consumers like me will go out and we will buy a Ryanair flight.
00:08:42
Speaker
Now for anybody who doesn't know a Ryanair flight, a Ryanair flight can cost $2.00.
00:08:47
Speaker
I can go from Dublin to London for $2 plus taxes, right?
00:08:51
Speaker
But the same
Consumer Spending and Market Perceptions
00:08:52
Speaker
person, aka me, will walk into Brown Thomas and purchase a Louis Vuitton bag and I will go to a five-star restaurant, stay in the Shelburne Hotel back home in Dublin, equivalent to over here of staying in the plaza,
00:09:05
Speaker
going into, you know, Bergdorf's, but at the same time, when I'm searching for flights, I want the buttest, cheapest, where can I go, what can I do?
00:09:14
Speaker
Or like my clothing could be like a $5 shirt, but it's where you can't box us in as much as you used to.
00:09:21
Speaker
And marketers used to have little tidy little boxes for us all.
00:09:25
Speaker
There was the luxury brand.
00:09:26
Speaker
There was the cheap asses.
00:09:28
Speaker
There was all these different.
00:09:29
Speaker
And now it's so true.
00:09:31
Speaker
Now you've got people who can't afford to put food on their plates.
00:09:34
Speaker
They're going to put all their money into a Louis Vuitton bag.
00:09:37
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:09:39
Speaker
I thought you were going with it.
00:09:40
Speaker
100%.
00:09:40
Speaker
And it just, it goes towards my point of perceived value.
00:09:47
Speaker
Where do we see value?
00:09:50
Speaker
Do we see value in a crotchety old funeral director that's going to take our money when we can do something on our own?
00:09:57
Speaker
Or do we see the value of an embalmed body saying goodbye to our mother, our grandmother, looking good, not full of makeup, not gray, not hard as a rock?
00:10:11
Speaker
Yep.
00:10:11
Speaker
Then you have everyone who went to that visitation saying to their husband or wife or whomever, don't do that to me when I die.
00:10:19
Speaker
Please don't do that to me.
00:10:21
Speaker
I couldn't agree more.
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:10:24
Speaker
And it's such a simple thing.
00:10:26
Speaker
Funeral directors listening, please open your eyes.
00:10:32
Speaker
Open those eyes.
00:10:34
Speaker
Call me.
00:10:34
Speaker
I'll give you a free consultation.
00:10:36
Speaker
There you go.
00:10:38
Speaker
We'll add that in for sure.
00:10:40
Speaker
But it's so true, Larry.
00:10:42
Speaker
And it's like one of the things how I came to be, as you know, was 10 years ago, unfortunately, a couple of friends of mine passed away, way too young.
00:10:51
Speaker
I literally got the greatest slap life can give you on the face where I went, whoa, I could...
00:10:56
Speaker
Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa.
00:10:57
Speaker
I could die any minute now.
00:10:59
Speaker
What has got, what, what?
00:11:00
Speaker
Excuse me?
00:11:01
Speaker
I have things to do, places to go, people to be, people to do, things to do, all these things, right?
00:11:07
Speaker
No, like I can't go anywhere.
00:11:09
Speaker
But the realization that holy shit,
00:11:13
Speaker
I don't get a choice in this, really.
00:11:15
Speaker
And then it was, well, I might be Catholic, which I am, but I don't want the church dictating how my final funeral goes.
00:11:23
Speaker
I just don't want it.
00:11:24
Speaker
Because I don't believe in the mass ritual.
00:11:27
Speaker
I just don't.
00:11:28
Speaker
I don't believe in having somebody up there preaching at me when they don't know how to live life the way I know how to live it.
00:11:35
Speaker
And that's a whole other podcast episode.
00:11:37
Speaker
If we're going to talk religion, we might as well block off the rest of the day.
00:11:41
Speaker
Exactly,
COVID-19 and the Shift in Funeral Services
00:11:42
Speaker
exactly.
00:11:42
Speaker
You and I have so many similar thoughts.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
00:11:47
Speaker
And so I just, for me, like I could not agree more with what you're saying because especially during COVID, right now my job has gone from throwing beautiful life celebrations for 500 people to sadly streaming it to that same amount of people.
00:12:03
Speaker
I have noticed that even though most people are choosing direct cremation because they're terrified,
00:12:09
Speaker
of COVID, they're kind of gathering together.
00:12:11
Speaker
Every single one of them have said, we want to do a memorial.
00:12:15
Speaker
So you're exactly right.
00:12:17
Speaker
It is not, oh, they're gone for direct cremation, they're cheapskates, or they're this or they're that.
00:12:21
Speaker
In fact, to be honest, that shouldn't even enter into somebody's brain.
00:12:25
Speaker
When you're sitting across a green family, you shouldn't be like, well, these people are cheap if they're going down this route.
00:12:30
Speaker
It shouldn't be about that.
00:12:30
Speaker
It should be about serving them.
00:12:32
Speaker
End of story.
00:12:33
Speaker
What is it that they want?
00:12:34
Speaker
But there's actually a quote from that book
00:12:37
Speaker
I think his name is Eric, the rebuttal of Jessica Mitchell's book, where he actually says funeral directors are not the weird people that the public is if they don't want to have a funeral.
00:12:50
Speaker
I completely disagree with that.
00:12:52
Speaker
Completely disagree.
00:12:53
Speaker
Because what's for me, Larry, is not for what's for you.
00:12:56
Speaker
What's for you isn't for me.
00:12:58
Speaker
Now, for you and I, we probably are actually very in line.
00:13:01
Speaker
Pretty much.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah, but it doesn't matter.
00:13:03
Speaker
There is one person out there.
00:13:05
Speaker
I don't care if there's one person or 100 people in the entire world.
00:13:08
Speaker
And if they don't want to have a funeral, don't want to see their mom, if that's their way of doing it, that's their way of doing it.
00:13:15
Speaker
Stop judging them.
00:13:16
Speaker
Stop telling them they're weird.
00:13:18
Speaker
Stop judging them.
00:13:19
Speaker
I say probably in every presentation I give, whether it's Zoom, which has been lately, or keynoting the Kena convention, the days of funeral directors knowing what's best for the family are over.
00:13:34
Speaker
They've been over.
00:13:35
Speaker
And we need to get on the train of how can I help you and use these?
00:13:43
Speaker
The internet changed everything.
00:13:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:46
Speaker
Everything.
00:13:47
Speaker
And we just don't realize it.
00:13:48
Speaker
Have you watched that show on Netflix, the social experiment?
00:13:52
Speaker
I refuse to watch it.
00:13:54
Speaker
And now I don't know.
00:13:54
Speaker
Is it the right one that I'm thinking of?
00:13:56
Speaker
It's about how your life is not private anymore.
00:14:02
Speaker
Oh no.
00:14:03
Speaker
Everything about you is on the internet now.
00:14:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:07
Speaker
Oh, I know.
00:14:08
Speaker
It is.
00:14:08
Speaker
But,
00:14:12
Speaker
I even had a funeral director and this was a couple of years ago and I won't say who it is obviously, but she said to me, she was, she was not agreeing with me and she was one of those, you know, dig your heels in.
00:14:23
Speaker
And if I want to embalm with milk, I'm going to embalm with milk.
00:14:27
Speaker
And she said, I've been an advocate for funeral directors for 25 years.
00:14:33
Speaker
And right away I said, so-and-so wouldn't it be better if you were an advocate for your families and
00:14:41
Speaker
And then you wouldn't have to be an advocate for funerals, funeral service, funeral directors, funeral anything.
00:14:51
Speaker
It's such an easy fix.
00:14:53
Speaker
And it does, there's no set answer.
00:14:56
Speaker
Every community is different.
00:14:57
Speaker
Every person who walks in your door could be different.
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:01
Speaker
I feel like I'm preaching and I am an evangelist when it comes to that.
00:15:08
Speaker
Yeah, but honestly, Larry, like this is part of what I want to bring.
00:15:12
Speaker
Like I've been doing, I'm 38 and I've been doing this for 10 years.
00:15:17
Speaker
And I know what I'm saying.
00:15:19
Speaker
What I wanted to do with the podcast, because I did, I sat down and I thought about like, what are the various different elements I could do?
00:15:24
Speaker
And I could do one just for funeral directors.
00:15:26
Speaker
I could do one for just...
00:15:28
Speaker
Joe Public.
00:15:29
Speaker
But honestly, I feel like there needed to be something that, for want of a better phrase, straddled both.
00:15:35
Speaker
Because I feel like Joe Public has so many questions and I already have so many questions that I'm going to have to do like a Q&A or maybe introduce some.
00:15:44
Speaker
But they do.
00:15:45
Speaker
They have so many questions.
00:15:46
Speaker
And funeral directors, or the funeral community, should I say, sometimes are terrified to answer in case it's taken and blown out of proportion.
00:15:54
Speaker
And I don't blame them for that.
00:15:56
Speaker
I really don't.
00:15:56
Speaker
I don't either.
00:15:57
Speaker
Yeah, because it is.
00:15:58
Speaker
It's not fair.
00:15:59
Speaker
Some of the rack that they've gotten is not fair.
00:16:01
Speaker
But equally, if we're not willing to open the conversation, then how can we ever come to any sort of resolution?
00:16:07
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:16:08
Speaker
And I always say this too, and it's not to get business because being a consultant, but if you're not a people person or if you're uncomfortable speaking, say, to the media, get someone who is.
00:16:23
Speaker
Hire a PR firm.
00:16:25
Speaker
Or hire someone that can talk the truth about what's going on and not worry about saying the wrong thing.
00:16:33
Speaker
Because you know what?
00:16:34
Speaker
We all say the wrong thing sometimes.
00:16:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:38
Speaker
When I do, I get over it and I move on.
00:16:42
Speaker
No one's perfect besides Jennifer Moldovey.
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:46
Speaker
Well, thank you.
00:16:47
Speaker
Good sir.
00:16:48
Speaker
Payment coming in due course.
00:16:51
Speaker
I'll bill you in Europe.
00:16:53
Speaker
But I'll tell you, we just need to get over that secretive mystery of funeral service that, you know, it permeates everything.
Promoting Transparency in Funeral Services
00:17:05
Speaker
And, you know, I can remember when a family would ask to go into the crematorium and now it's commonplace.
00:17:17
Speaker
I think you should let people go into your prep rooms after they've been cleaned and are empty.
00:17:22
Speaker
No people.
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:24
Speaker
What's wrong with that?
00:17:26
Speaker
Be transparent.
00:17:27
Speaker
And the minute you say, no, I can't do that.
00:17:31
Speaker
They want to know why.
00:17:32
Speaker
And what are you doing that I shouldn't know about?
00:17:35
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:17:36
Speaker
Well, it's interesting that you say that as well, because I've been in funeral homes where, say, the family, something is needed to be signed and the family, they're not thinking or they're it's not even not thinking, but they're just, oh, sure, I'll come in the back and I'll sign it.
00:17:50
Speaker
And they kind of go to follow somebody in the back.
00:17:52
Speaker
And no, you can't go in the back.
00:17:54
Speaker
You can't go in the back.
00:17:55
Speaker
It's just offices.
00:17:56
Speaker
But here's the thing.
00:17:58
Speaker
I do understand from the funeral side that because the offices are not attractive or in disarray or just don't look like you want them, you know, professional and polished or whatever it might be, they don't want the family in.
00:18:09
Speaker
And that applies across the yard to any industry, to be honest.
00:18:13
Speaker
But really and truly, when you think about it, that, to be honest, is...
00:18:18
Speaker
is a flaw in itself because your back office should represent your team that work for you should feel comfortable, safe.
00:18:26
Speaker
It should be as comfortable and fabulous a room as the rooms that you're having your families in.
00:18:31
Speaker
And that's, again, another gravy podcast, but it's how funeral homes are managed today.
00:18:37
Speaker
And like that secrecy, that transparency,
00:18:40
Speaker
It just needs to happen.
00:18:41
Speaker
It really does.
The Importance of Online Presence and Price Transparency
00:18:42
Speaker
And actually, I just read an interesting article this morning that I did want to talk to you about anyway, which is price transparency, because that's a huge thing in the business.
00:18:49
Speaker
The media attack the funeral community at, oh my God, every other day there's an article.
00:18:55
Speaker
What's your thoughts on that?
00:18:57
Speaker
Should pricing be completely transparent?
00:18:59
Speaker
Do you think there's any pros or cons?
00:19:02
Speaker
Or, you know, what's Larry's thought on that?
00:19:05
Speaker
Larry's thought, and I have a few, shocking.
00:19:09
Speaker
Shocking.
00:19:10
Speaker
I am 1000% in favor of price transparency because again, back with, well, if you won't give me your prices, I'm going to call someone who will.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:26
Speaker
The funeral rules are pain in the butt.
00:19:28
Speaker
I get it, but it's pretty easy to comply with.
00:19:32
Speaker
And it's coming down the pike where you're going to have to publish on the internet, your prices.
00:19:39
Speaker
If you have a website,
00:19:40
Speaker
That's another podcast about websites because your websites are, they're not about selling flowers and getting a 10% kickback.
00:19:51
Speaker
They're actually your first employee that most people see.
00:19:55
Speaker
It's about getting people in the door, not about the jewelry you can sell.
00:20:00
Speaker
Again, another podcast.
00:20:03
Speaker
Whenever I'm engaged to,
00:20:06
Speaker
for pricing strategy or any kind of thing like that.
00:20:10
Speaker
I always, almost always suggest taking all of your retail product, including caskets, containers, marking them up enough to cover the leg bill and increase your service fees, non-declinable professional service fees.
00:20:30
Speaker
That's where the value is.
00:20:32
Speaker
And if we don't value ourselves,
00:20:35
Speaker
We can't perpetuate that to the families and then we're not going to be valuable to them.
00:20:41
Speaker
And then we're going to be in the same situation we were 10 years ago when people were actually not thinking we were worth it.
00:20:49
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:20:49
Speaker
And again, I couldn't agree more with you because it's like going to a doctor's office and you paying, you know, maybe ten dollars for the doctor.
00:20:57
Speaker
But then all of a sudden your prescriptions are thousands of dollars and you're there going, whoa, what's happening?
00:21:02
Speaker
And it becomes a minefield.
00:21:04
Speaker
And as a result, you don't value that doctor's service.
00:21:09
Speaker
Because I know you're a consultant, I'm a consultant, what we do is we don't have product, we don't have something tangible.
00:21:17
Speaker
So what you're borrowing is our expertise, our knowledge, our innovation, our brains, our everything, right?
00:21:25
Speaker
And so I know I do under, I completely get it as a startup.
00:21:29
Speaker
You know, it was so hard for me to figure out pricing.
00:21:32
Speaker
how, you know, when you don't have something tangible, but if the funeral business don't start doing that, they are going to become their biggest nightmare and become a disposal service.
00:21:43
Speaker
And I know that, and my heart breaks for them, but if they don't put themselves in that consultant, professional, I'm here to hold your hand the entire way through, I got you, I got your back,
00:21:57
Speaker
then where are we at?
00:21:58
Speaker
As you said, it just becomes a trinket store.
00:22:00
Speaker
Like, I mean, as somebody who has a jewelry line, I don't sell in many funeral homes because I don't want it to be just something they add on here and there.
00:22:10
Speaker
I want it to be something, it's something special.
00:22:12
Speaker
There's a part of a service to it.
00:22:20
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening to the Glam Reaper podcast.
00:22:23
Speaker
It has been something I've been working on and muddling with for over two years now.
00:22:27
Speaker
So I appreciate your time to listen in.
00:22:29
Speaker
Every episode will have a new guest we hope you will find interesting as they tell their own story.
00:22:35
Speaker
So stay tuned for the next episode or have a look through the Glam Reaper episode collection.
00:22:41
Speaker
Find your nugget of gold as we talk all things life, love and loss with a dash from the funeral world.
00:22:49
Speaker
Until next time.