A lot of folks in funeral service seem to be singing the blues these days, especially those who haven't yet awakened to the fact that funeral service today is windfall abundant. There are more opportunities for service than at any time in our 5000-year history.
But, let's be fair, some people may have the right to sing the blues, lets take an honest look at who does and who doesn't.
Singing the blues is different than just plain old complaining, there are blues rules, standards to qualify. If you qualify, you have “blues rights”. If you don't qualify you are just an ordinary complainer with no “blues class”.
If you've got a woman with the meanest face in town, bad teeth and she weighs 500 pounds, you may have blues rights. But if your daddy left you a business and your cremation rate keeps going up you don't qualify for the blues because there is nothing wrong with cremation if you know how to make the ceremony right. You may have the right to sing the blues if you still truly believe that selling boxes is the answer to all your problems. But, no one will believe you if you wear a suit, less you happen to be an old person like me, and you slept in it.
I'm afflicted with male pattern baldness but they tell me that's no reason for the blues. Now, a woman with male pattern baldness, bless her heart, has clear and obvious blues rights. You can't have any blues if you have cash flow and an office. But if you insist anyway, you have to go outside to the parking lot and sit by the dumpster in the rain. Other legitimate places for the blues are the highway, jailhouse, an empty bed or the bottom of a whiskey glass. Bad blues places are any over done slick casket sales room, funeral service educational programs at ski resorts, golf courses and cruise ships. Definitely no blues rights if you still believe you're a victim of changing values. Because there are no victims, only people who have been victimized and we're not them.
You may still have the right to sing the blues if you're older than dirt, blind, shot a man in Memphis or can't be satisfied. But, you can't sing the blues just because your direct disposition rate keeps climbing year after year because your still making funeral arrangements like your dad showed you how 25 years ago or you learned how from your casket company, that's just a fox in the hen house. You can't claim blues rights if the man in Memphis lived or you're still attending funeral director meetings where they keep talking about the” need to change” that's just depressing. But you might break the blues habit entirely if you start attending funeral director functions that deliver “how to solutions”. If you can find one.
If you're thinking about dying from substance abuse in a cheap motel, getting stabbed in the back by a jealous lover or going to the electric chair you can sing the blues. But, you can't have a blues death if you die wearing wing tips at a cookie cutter funeral where you're the funeral director or at an NFDA function or during liposuction even if they all seem similar. But definitely no blues rights if you're slowly losing your volume to a new aggressive young competitor whose market share keeps increasing because his funerals are innovative and fulfilling for his clients and yours aren't. But yours can be.
If you're “feeling lowdown today” because you're stuck in a ditch and can't get out, now that's the blues. But if you're feeling “lowdown” because your market share is slipping to the other guy and you can't stop the slide, you're just looking in all the wrong places and you lose your blues rights.
You can't sing the blues if you still believe in flavor of the month solutions, or you still believe that a personalized funeral is a memory board, personalized casket corners and a few funeral props.
And I don't care how tragic you think your life is… if you have an opportunity to be of loving service to your fellow man but resist emotional bonding with your clients - you cannot sing the blues, no matter how many men you shot in Memphis .
Most of us happily may not qualify to sing the blues. Never the less we do have serious challenges in funeral service today. But we also have magnificent opportunities. We need serious people who can respond to those challenges with a clear vision of the opportunities. We also need serious leaders in funeral service who are unafraid of controversy within our ranks. Fear of controversy kills leadership because those at the bottom of the food chain will always think that the innovator is crazy. Leadership that is afraid to make waves is not leadership at all, just a pacifier for the un-motivated.
We are not victims of changing values we are recipients of great opportunities. The floodgates of opportunity swung wide open when the perceptions of value in the cookie cutter funeral began to change. It just meant that the market was asking for innovation, value added and meaningful but definitely not “remodeled traditional funerals”. Making something out of something is just remodeling and only delivers an illusion of change. Making something out of nothing is creating, now that is change. It takes new skills, a vision of the possible and a little courage to take a risk. It takes a willingness to learn from your families. It takes an open mind willing to learn what their perceptions of ceremony value are even when they may not know them at the outset. It takes skill to know how to structure the arrangement conference in order to create, package and present a dynamic event.
You may have a right to sing the blues if you still believe that everything you ever learned about making funeral arrangements will somehow magically result in innovative interactive healing human relations experiences. After all, that is all a funeral really is: a human relations exercise. A cookie cutter human relations exercise is one that has stopped working for increasing numbers of us. You certainly will be singing the blues if you're waiting for your families to bring you the innovation. For every family that does, there are 200 who would like to if they only knew how or knew what would energize them in a ceremony. Only a few do, most don't, and so most families will opt for nothing or next to nothing.
What does it take? It takes willingness and an ability to use new and effective communication skills to truly understand the family's frame of reference. It takes a willingness to connect emotionally. It requires you to acquire new and innovative arrangement methods so you can understand the family's vision of their loved one. It requires you to gain the ability to implement the newest, most innovative ceremony procedures so that you can package a ceremony around the family's perceptions of value. And, it requires the professional ability to describe for them (not suggest) a moving experience from beginning to end that will spark their imagination and energize their spirit.
If you are willing to learn how to do all that, and I assure you that the specific educational opportunities for learning these new skills are currently available for the taking. You then will have a repertoire of powerful solutions for every client that will last another 200 years.
Innovative, interactive funeral ceremonies that appreciate and celebrate the spiritual or philosophical point of view of the deceased, their accomplishments and their relationships are like great art and great music. The appreciation of the master of the subject can always be recognized in the art. Creating good funerals is an art. It is an art that is acquired through learning new skills and cultivating a willingness to maintain a vision of the possible.
Ain't no blues here. But I would love to hear some of your blues antidotes.
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Bill Bates is CEO and founder of Life Appreciation Training Seminars. Since the origins of Life Appreciation Training in 1974 he has been a leading figure in the movement to personalize American funeral practices. Talk to Bill at, BillBates@LifeAppreciation.com or 1-800-877-8905 or for more information about Life Appreciation Training Seminars please visit www.LifeAppreciation.com or to use a personalized funeral ceremony planning form on line use www.FuneralCeremony.com an interactive site linked to over 6000 participating funeral homes.
