Telling The Story of Your Funeral Home Business

A key part of leadership is being able to tell the story of your funeral home business. This is especially true when you are trying to recruit new funeral directors. Watch this short video to learn the four steps involved in telling any great story.

Here’s an AI generated transcript of the video (excuse any typos, AI isn’t perfect yet)

 

Imagine if you will, you’re at a job fair at your local moratory science college and you desperately need to recruit more funeral directors.

You’ve lost some staff during COVID everybody’s stretched way too thin, and you need to find some new people to work.

All of your competitors are there. SCI has a large booth at one end. Carriage services has a large booth at the other end and half a dozen of your competitors are scattered in between each with a small booth.

A young woman approaches you and says, “tell me about your funeral home.”

What you say in the next minute is going to make the difference between whether she becomes a candidate for your funeral home, or she turns and walks down the aisle to one of your competitors.

I’ll give you two options.

Option one. My great, great grandfather started this funeral home over a hundred years ago. We’re now on our fourth generation and soon to be fifth. We serve over a thousand families every year. And we’re looking for funeral directors who we can train in our special way of conducting a funeral.

Option two. The loss of a loved one is one of the hardest things anybody can ever experience, but we know that by sharing and celebrating the stories of a lifetime, you can begin the healing process.

The problem is that the vast majority of funeral homes know how to take care of the deceased, but really don’t know how to do anything other than conduct a traditional funeral. We don’t do that.

We serve over a thousand families every year, but more importantly, we’re on a mission to grow by an additional 50% in the next three years, because we believe that every family deserves the opportunity to share and celebrate the stories of a lifetime.

We have openings all over our business, everything from the prep room to conducting funerals, to being a storyteller. Wherever your skills may lie, we have openings for you.

We have a very diverse group, but we have one mission to help families experience healing by sharing and celebrating the stories of a lifetime.

Which option do you think is going to pull better. I guarantee its option two.

 

This series is all about helping funeral, home owners transition to becoming funeral business builders, where know how to grow their business. Leadership is a key part of it.

We’ve talked about mission statement. We’ve talked about characteristics and actions that you need to take. The third part of leadership is being able to tell a great story.

You might be thinking, John, I’m not a storyteller. How do I do that?

 

There’s a formula for how to tell a great story.

Part one. What’s the problem. What’s the problem that you’re solving.

Part two, agitate that problem, probe it a little bit.

Part three, present yourself as the solution. You’re not the hero. You’re the guide. You guide people through this process.

Part four, what’s the happy ending.

That’s the standard formula for a great story.

If you go back and replay what I just said for option two, you’ll find that it follows that formula.

Funeral business builders have to become great leaders to grow your business. And part of being a great leader is learning how to tell a great story.

It can make all the difference between whether she becomes a candidate for your funeral home, or she walks down that aisle and joins another firm.

Next week, we’re going to start talking about productivity. A key part of being able to grow your business is being able to be productive all the time. Lots of owners are really productive when it comes to serving families, but when it comes to doing things like working on their marketing or working on their great story…not so much. We’re going to start working on that problem next week.

 

 

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