GABE SCHAUF, NFDA:
Hello and welcome to A Brush with Death, a podcast by the National Funeral Directors Association. I'm your host, Gabe Schauf, licensed funeral director and funeral service educator.
Let me ask a question to those of you involved in fitness: What are your thoughts on Leg Day? Well, if you're like me and you've tried using a fitness plan to get into shape, you've probably tried to separate the muscle groups that you work out each day.
And if you're like me, you know that lower body workouts – or what is known as Leg Day – while very necessary, aren't something to be excited about. Here's my follow-up question for you: How is preneed like Leg Day?
To talk through that, I'm joined by Tyler Anderson. Tyler grew up in a funeral family and found early interest as an advance planner and regional sales manager with the Outlook Group. In 2017, he joined Precoa, where he serves as the senior vice president of business development. Tyler, thank you very much for joining me.
TYLER ANDERSON, PRECOA VP BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT:
Oh, absolutely, Gabe. Thank you for having me.
NFDA:
You bet. Before we dive into the topic at hand, I wanted to take a minute to learn about you. So you grew up in a funeral family. I believe your grandfather started the business and then veered into preneed. So what led you down that road?
TA:
Well, that's right, Gabe. My grandfather started funeral homes in Cincinnati in 1944.
In 1980, my dad left my grandfather's original funeral homes and purchased his first funeral home himself, which was about 35 miles north of Cincinnati in Franklin, Ohio. We moved into the house in the parking lot of the funeral home. And then along the way, my father purchased a couple of additional funeral homes.
The preneed piece of it came into play in the mid-eighties. He decided that one way to really secure the opportunity to serve families in his community was to begin reaching out to families about planning in advance. And this is really before preneed was there early on, before preneed had a significant place in the funeral profession.
When preneed insurance entered the marketplace, he then had a funding vehicle to work with those funeral homes to support them with lead generation, marketing, recruitment, training, and support of sales individuals to represent them. And that was the origin of the Outlook Group.
NFDA:
Wow, that's quite the journey. Going back to what you said about your father, he was an early adapter to preneed. So would you say the '80s is kind of when that picked up and took off and how did that grow to what it is today?
TA:
He was looking for a way primarily to ensure that families in our community purchased their merchandise from him. And he thought, “Well, if they prearranged and pre-fund this, then I can secure that.” And that was kind of the driving motivator for him around his own funeral home.
A lot of the conversation early on in preneed was around, “How do we do this? How does this all work?” What was always consistent was that the response from families was always, “This is a good idea, and we would like to learn more about how we take care of it. But we never knew how and we didn't know how the funeral home helps to facilitate that or can support us in doing so.”
We did some consumer research and we found out that 80% of people you ask will say that preplanning is a good idea, but only 20% of them will do it. And it's just a really interesting gap between “Yeah, I think that's a good idea,” and “I should do it.”
And maybe just piggybacking a little bit on Leg Day: I think exercise may be the only thing where you get the majority of people would say it’s a good idea and it's such a small percentage that do it.
NFDA:
Well, fast forward now to the present day. You're working for Precoa, which is very well-versed in preneed. Could you, for the listener, summarize Precoa and what Precoa does for funeral homes?
TA:
Precoa is a preneed marketing organization. We work with funeral homes across the country. We implement an end-to-end preneed platform that allows them to do a few things:
- It allows them to take a very proactive approach to educating individuals within their community about the value of ceremony, ritual, and gathering.
- It enables them to secure and grow their market share primarily through innovative lead generation and technology platforms that developed up, as well as through providing exemplary consumer experiences through the pre-arrangement process. We’ve been going on doing that now for two decades.
NFDA:
It's interesting to see all of the trial and error that your dad experienced in creating these opportunities for families, that Precoa is kind of taking that and developing that and then making it more easily accessible for funeral homes to utilize.
TA:
There are a number of individuals that were kind of out in front of the preneed thing early in the '80s.
Another one of those individuals would've been Mark Hornibrook, who's one of our co-founders, along with Bret Davis here at Precoa. Mark was at the forefront of building the first preneed insurance products that entered the marketplace, Michael Hornibrook – Mark’s son – is our current president at Precoa.
It's really rewarding for us to kind of see the things that our fathers were doing in the mid- and late '80s, where preneed has evolved, and the critical role it plays in education around ceremony, ritual, and gathering and how meaningful that can be for those left behind in a really difficult time.
NFDA:
Well, I want to go back to my original question: How is preneed like Leg Day? I came up with this question based on a conversation that you and I had about this a long time ago, but I'd like to hear a little bit more of your perspective.
TA:
I guess if I were to run with that analogy around Leg Day – which anybody active in fitness avoids at all costs – it's one of those things that is easy to put on the back burner.
When you think about at-need, it’s called “at-need” for a reason. We have a family that just lost a loved one. It's all hands on deck and we need to take care of them and wrap our arms around them. And that is the singular focus of the funeral home, as it should be in that moment.
Therefore, we have a habit at times of pushing preneed to the back burner and overlooking the critical role it can play in the sustainability and growth in your funeral home.
And I kind of look at that like Leg Day. Oftentimes people will remind you that your legs are the biggest muscles in your body and they're the foundation of everything you do from a mobility standpoint, and for your vitality especially as you get into older age.
I think the sustainability piece is where that analogy resonates with me on the preneed side of it, because if we did allow ourselves to continue to put preneed on the back burner, I think we miss a very significant opportunity to grow our business, to create a sound foundation to it and to provide a exemplary service for the families in our communities.
They might not be walking in the funeral home all the time and saying, “I want this.” What we know is they are thinking about it. And if we can find the appropriate way to reach out to them actively, they're quickly raising their hands and saying, “I want to learn more.” And that just enhances the reputation and enhances the services you provide.
So I think it's one of those things – like Leg Day – to push to the side and you miss significant opportunities. When you take the time to have an intentional and focused strategy around preneed, it can be that foundational strength that leads not only to sustainability but really incredible growth.
NFDA:
And there is a little bit of a negative stigma with preneed as well, because consumers, they're not jumping up and down to come in and talk about when they die. And likewise, like you just said, for the funeral professional it's hard to approach that with a consumer and say, “Hey, who wants to come in and have a chat about this?” It's an awkward and uncomfortable conversation to have.
TA:
I think there's no doubt it can be an awkward or uncomfortable conversation. I mean, when people wake up in the morning, their feet hit the floor, very few people are saying, “I am excited to talk about what my funeral services will look like.” But what I would point to is within the preneed profession, historically, what we've often told people is that the benefit of preplanning is you get to plan the funeral you want.
And then we're shocked or surprised or disappointed when that individual looks at us and shrugs their shoulders and they kind of have a look of discomfort on their face and they say, “I don't care. I'm not going to be there.” And that's true. And it's a very reasonable and logical response to that value proposition. And what I go back to is that we're telling them what the benefit of it is instead of asking.
So again, if I can just use an example of that, it's just kind of referencing my father since we talked about him earlier. His name is Charles. If I ask Charles, “What do you want for your funeral,” he'd say, “Don't make a fuss.” He owned and operated a funeral home for 40 years and consulted families during incredibly difficult times about how to have a service and a relevant connection and meaning for those left behind.
If I asked him what he wanted, his first response would be, “Don't make a fuss.” But if I ask him, “What do you think my sister and I will need,” his answer is going to be very different.
And so I think it's the reframing of that value proposition, from saying that you get to plan the funeral you want to a question of “What does it need to look like for those left behind? What will they need at that time?” And then it just shifts it all over to the fact that the funeral doesn't belong to you, it belongs to everyone who ever loved you.
And it reframed it to, “This is about those left behind, what they're going to need, not necessarily this idea of the funeral I want.”
Now, they're not exclusive. You can certainly plan the funeral you want and provide for the needs of those left behind. But I think most people, when you ask them what funeral you want, it puts them a little bit in that awkward position, versus “Let's have that conversation about what you think those left behind will need.” Then you take that first meaningful step towards healing.
NFDA:
The two thoughts that come to my mind are: First, funerals are for the living, so you approach it from that perspective. And then from the funeral home’s perspective of reframing it: It's not what you say, it's how you say it.
TA:
Yeah, I agree with that. And I think what we would submit is that those conversations can happen in a very different way ten or 15 years before a loss has occurred versus 24 to 48 hours after a loss has occurred and you're at the funeral home for an at-need arrangement.
Don't get me wrong: We can have those conversations, and there are plenty of incredibly talented and skilled funeral directors who do that well. What we're saying is that it’s a more difficult circumstance to have that conversation when a family sits down in an at-need arrangement and says, “We don't want anything” versus when you sit down in the prearrangement and the family starts the conversation off by saying “We don't want anything.”
In a prearrangement situation, they're not under the emotional distress of having just lost a loved one. So that's really where we see there's significant opportunity within preneed. Because what we know is the biggest headwinds we have in our profession are shifting consumer preferences. We think preneed is a platform where we can actively address those shifting consumer preferences years ahead of time and years before they're cemented.
NFDA:
I just had this thought that the consumer and how their brain is working in a preneed scenario versus an at-need scenario could be kind of similar to how the funeral director is working in the same situation. In a preneed scenario, the consumer might have some questions, and the funeral director has time to research it, provide more options, and talk through it.
But in an at-need scenario, there is that sense of urgency. We're limited in options because we only have this window of time to work within. And that can be something to consider when discussing the value of preneed with the consumer.
TA:
I think one of the things with at-need is that you have so many constraints upon you, one of the biggest ones being the time. But also that kind of the circumstances is that the family you’re meeting with just lost a loved one.
We have done a great job in our profession of creating products and services that personalize a service, enhance the relevance to those left behind, and increase connection. If you think about all the ways in which you look at funeral services today, they are very personal to the individual that has been lost and very meaningful to the family members and friends that are left behind. And those things are great and we should do more of it and we should double down on it in our opinion.
At the same time, sometimes we overlook that those are really for the willing purchaser who's already said, “I find value in a funeral service.” We seem to at times overlook that we are having fewer and fewer willing purchasers. And what we think we can address with ProActive Preneed is increasing the number of willing purchasers because we're having those conversations ten or 15 years before.
NFDA:
If you could, I would like you to summarize maybe some of the values to the consumer that the funeral home could make them aware of. Likewise, it would be great to understand some of the values to the funeral home that embraces and works to establish that preneed program.
TA:
Too often what we talk about is the opportunity to help relieve this emotional and financial burden that can come at a time of loss.
You know, there's the emotional burden and uncertainty as to what a loved one would have wanted, and what the family left behind needs. “I need to make these decisions within the next few days. I need to ensure that everybody is informed and understands what we're doing.” It just puts a lot of emotional stress on an already highly stressful circumstance.
And so by having those decisions made in advance, by having a road map to what an intentional plan to what this service will look like, that can help. It doesn't alleviate it, but it can help relieve some of that emotional burden. So that's the planning part. And we are steadfast believers in that everybody should have a plan.
For those that can and have the means to fund in advance, then you had the opportunity to alleviate that financial burden. So often, on top of that really difficult circumstance, the family is trying to figure out, “Where do we find the dollars to pay for the service we know is reflective of our loved one and what we will need?” And so there is that ability to relieve that financial and emotional burden at a really difficult time.
But I think as we've seen with shifting consumer preferences, one thing that we believe is a major contributor to this is the rise of what is referred to as “religious nones.” Those are individuals who would be defined as they would say that organized institutional religion does not play an important role in their day-to-day lives.
And that now represents 29% of U.S. adults aged 18 and above. If that were a religion, it would be the largest religion in America today. And why that's important, and what I'm kind of going back around to, is that religious institutions for years have informed families as to what we do around ceremony and ritual when we lose a loved one.
If fewer and fewer people belong to those religious institutions at the time of loss, they are left with uncertainty and confusion as to what to do. As funeral professionals, it's our opportunity and responsibility to step in and help inform, guide, and facilitate that. And so that's where the real consumer benefit is. That they're allowing themselves to learn how ceremony and ritual can play a very key role in helping their loved ones and their friends after they're gone.
They take that first meaningful and healthy step towards healing and make informed decisions that help them to do that well in advance.
So those are a few of the consumer benefits we would point to very quickly.
There is a lot of value to the funeral home engaging in an active preneed program, but I'll just maybe hit a couple at a high level again. Two that are often discussed are the opportunity to secure and grow market share.
By actively engaging families that you had the privilege and opportunity to serve in the past, ideally, you're securing that opportunity to serve them again in the future. That's what we would point to and what we mean when we say secure market share.
When we say grow market share, when you're engaged in a very active preneed program with an omnichannel online-offline strategy in terms of how we're generating interest from families in the community, there's a high likelihood that you're going to be interacting with families that you don't have a relationship with, that you haven't had the privilege to serve in the past.
There's a statistic that stands out to us 60% of U.S. adults live in a community they do not identify as their hometown. So that means six out of ten people live in a community they don't identify as their hometown, which means there's a lower likelihood that they would have any prior experience with a funeral home in that community, even a third or fourth-generation funeral home.
And so that's the opportunity we would point to to inform and educate to “Why your funeral home?” and also to grow your market share when you're engaging individuals or families that have no prior experience with you. And so those are two commonly discussed benefits of a proactive preneed program: to secure and grow market share.
Another one that isn't discussed as frequently is consumer demand – actually meeting a consumer demand.
As I mentioned earlier, there's a high percentage of individuals that say “This is a good idea,” and there's a low percentage of them that actually do it. And by having a ProActive marketing plan and lead generation strategy, you're again increasing the likelihood that you get to engage those individuals in a place where they raise their hand and say, “I would like to know more about it,” and you're putting your funeral home in a position to be the source of authority to provide that information and education. That enhances your service, enhances your reputation, and puts you at the forefront of your community.
And so that we think, is a significant benefit that's often not discussed as frequently, which is you're proactively addressing a consumer demand. Most families, if you ask them the first step you take to prearrange your funeral, a majority of people say, “I don't know.” And so you're really putting yourself in the forefront.
And then the last one we would point to may be an oversimplification, but we look at two main challenges funeral homes face. Those are downward compression on average funeral value – which we would attribute to a shift in consumer preferences – while incurring an increasing cost of doing business. And preneed, if you are securing market share and providing exemplary prearrangement experiences, gives you the highest probability of sustaining or growing your average funeral value.
And if you're growing your market share through ProActive Preneed, then you are serving more families in the future, which are the two ways that we know can actively address those challenges. And so those are some of the values we would quickly point to of a proactive preneed.
NDFA:
So very good. This could be a whole other podcast episode, but let’s say I am a funeral home that has a so-so preneed program, and I want to grow it more. Can you summarize some of the steps to establishing a solid program and help us embrace it and make it thrive as a funeral home?
TA:
One of the things I would point to, being a part of a preneed marketing organization – and there are several preneed marketing organizations out in the marketplace that do a wonderful job – is to look for a path to partnership. Look for a partner that can show you that [preneed] is what they do. They're an expert and they become your trusted partner to help you execute a proactive preneed program that allows you to focus on the things that matter most today, which are serving those that need families.
So one path to setting up a preneed program is looking for a trusted partner that can help you grow and expand your program, which ultimately and ideally helps you grow and expand your footprint as a funeral home and your market share.
Another path, of course, is to build that capability internally at the funeral home.
And one of the things that is always challenging is, “How do you do that from a staffing perspective?” One of the things we would point out to you pretty quickly is that a dedicated staff is critical and that sharing responsibilities between preneed and at-need is challenging because at-need needs everybody's attention in the moment.
So if you're trying to wear both hats, you inevitably will be pulled back to at-need because of the nature of it. But if you have dedicated individuals on your staff who run the preneed program, then you don't have that risk of them being pulled into at-need, with preneed being pushed to the back burner.
So from a very simple approach, the first would be dedicated staff. And then what we really would encourage you to look at is some sort of market share analysis, because we know that market share by zip code can impact the effectiveness or success of any lead generation campaign online or offline. And so trying to have an understanding of where to best make your investments so that you can ensure you get the best return.
And of course, there's product analysis and all the things that you have to do to ensure that, you know, you have a product that's designed to meet the needs of your funeral home and your community. And so there's a lot that goes into that. But again, there's a lot of trusted resources out there in our profession to help funeral homes and guide them through that decision-making process. Whether you're looking to partner with somebody to help run that on your behalf or in partnership, or if you're looking to build that capability internally, there are a lot of consulting services and resources to help you get that foundation set up.
NDFA:
If people want to connect with you and want more information about you or Precoa, what's a good way to reach out and connect?
TA:
First and foremost, our website is precoa.com. If you have any interest in learning more about Precoa, that is a wonderful resource. If you want to connect directly, I love talking to anybody and I love talking about the funeral profession, about preneed in general, about the future of our profession, where we're going, and what role Precoa can play in that.
You can reach out to me via email, which is just tanderson@precoa.com. Happy to connect with anyone and have a discussion.
NDFA:
Very good. Tyler, thank you very much for joining me. This has been wonderful and I hope to see you sometime down the road.
TA:
Thanks so much, Gabe. I really appreciate the opportunity to join you.