3 New Year’s Resolutions Every Deathcare Professional Should Make (and Keep!) in 2022
It’s hard to believe that 2021 is already drawing to a close. This second year of the Covid-19 pandemic has brought even more change, energy, and attention to the deathcare space. Over the past year, deathcare professionals have learned so much about the needs of today’s death planners, as well as how to look ahead to the future of deathcare in today’s world. As 2021 comes to an end and we shift our focus to what lies ahead in 2022, it’s worth taking note of what we have discovered in the past year, in order to move forward with intention and purpose. Here are three new year’s resolutions for deathcare professionals in 2022 that will help grow your funeral business and serve today’s death planning families more completely.
1. Bring Innovation to the Deathcare Profession!
One thing that every deathcare professional has learned during the Covid-19 pandemic is that change is not only inevitable for the deathcare space, but can also be beneficial. We had to learn how to offer meaningful virtual/distance memorials during the first Covid lock-down, which met a need that many families didn’t know they had. Most funeral professionals don’t foresee virtual memorial service offerings going anywhere, even in a post-pandemic world. This forced innovation in deathcare actually provided a way for families to be served better than before.
In the next year, deathcare professionals can make the resolution to bring an innovative spirit into other areas of funeral businesses. Innovation is what moves deathcare forward, and so embodying an innovative spirit in our funeral businesses only helps them grow. We are seeing new trends emerge in death planning and what families want, like personalization, ritual building, eco-consciousness, and more, so staying on the cutting edge of what is possible in deathcare will help your business be relevant and offer more options to families
Ryan Thogmartin, CEO of DISRUPT! Media and Connecting Directors spoke about innovation in the deathcare space, and how the profession is primed for disruption and moving forward in this moment on the Deathcare Decoded podcast:
“[In deathcare] I think we need more rebel disruptors who think ‘No, this system worked for along time, but it’s time for something new now.’ For example, if Nintendo had never invented the Super Nintendo we’d all be really disappointed. So, we need innovation on top of the existing ecosystem (and I do think that’s where innovation and disruption happen… off the back of new money from outside investors being put into this existing system). If you’re not going to partner with the existing deathcare landscape it’s going to be a struggle […] but the existing landscape has a lot of changes that will need to happen. I think now is the most exciting time to be in deathcare. Deathcare is more mainstream now, the conversation is more mainstream now than ever before […] so it’s a really exciting time. We have consumers that are poised for new options because they’ve been wanting them for some time, so when those new options begin presenting themselves it’s going to be really exciting. There are things that have been festering in this space for a while that people are finally ready to pull the trigger on, and that’s where money from outside is going to be beneficial, but it’s so exciting. The opportunities are endless on the technology side, because we still have very outdated technology in the deathcare space. Even the most innovative technology is still built on 1995 platforms, but then we just had a technology service in the deathcare space that was bought for 1.2 billion dollars last year! The multiple X on potential earnings to get to 1.2 billion dollars is crazy, so the takeaway is that we are ready. The time is now.”
Don’t know where to start innovating? Ask yourself and your staff questions like “What is a problem faced by many families in death planning that doesn’t have an easy or elegant solution yet? How could we solve those problem/s? Where is our industry lagging behind? What does an ideal future of deathcare look like and what changes need to be made for our profession to get there?”
2. Be More Creative in Death Planning!
Thinking outside the box and being creative is an underestimated skill that funeral professionals need to be successful. Working with many different families with as many different needs requires the ability to be creative in making arrangements that accommodate each individual vision. We all know that memorial services should reflect the unique qualities of the individual. More and more contemporary death planners are looking for ways to personalize memorialization experiences. Embracing creativity in the arrangement room will help funeral directors be able to make every service meet individual families where they are in their needs.
This year, think about how you can bring more creative energy into your arrangement room, the services your funeral home offers to families, and how your business thinks about death planning and funeral services in general.
In an interview with the Deathcare Decoded podcast, Sandra Walker elaborates on the role of creativity in the arrangement room:
“One of the things that I always tell the arrangers I am training is that you should enter every arrangement like a blank canvas. It should be a totally blank slate from the previous family that you worked with because you don’t know who you are meeting and what their needs are. You have to be present during the arrangement, and really hear what it is that family needs from us. Then, like artists, we have to paint a beautiful picture to memorialize this person, who is the reason that family is here with us. It’s our responsibility to really be able to bring that specific vision to life for that family, so I see us as artists, using that creative side. I love creativity […] and I love the concept of being creative in the arrangement room [in order to make unique experiences for families].
To learn more about how embracing creativity as a deathcare professional can take your funeral career and business to the next level, listen to the full episode of Deathcare Decoded with Sandra Walker, Episode 10: Creativity in Deathcare, here.
Kickstart creativity in your funeral home by asking yourself and your staff questions like “How can I re-think the services that I offer to meet my families’ needs in new and unique ways? What changes to existing services would amplify the positive experiences that families have with my funeral business? What were past requests that my funeral business was unable to accommodate, and what would it take to problem-solve and fulfill those requests in the future? How can I inspire my staff to think outside the box in order to plan fresh, unique services for families?”
3. Focus on Experience Building for Cremation Families!
This year we learned that we are in what experts call an “experience economy.” This means that consumers across industries are looking for ways to participate and invest in complete experiences. For the deathcare profession, that means cultivating new ways to create immersive, meaningful experiences for all death planning families.
In the past, it has been easier and more intuitive to plan memorial experiences for burial families than for cremation families. This is largely due to the fact that burial has had hundreds of years to grow established rituals, whereas cremation has only had about 30. That means it’s up to today’s funeral professionals to help families understand what experiences are possible when cremation is the chosen disposition method.
There are 1 million “cool things to do with ashes” today, and educating yourself and your staff on all of the options available for creating meaningful experiences around cremation, including and expanding beyond traditional service options like embalming and memorial services before cremation. Do some research and choose service providers, vendors, and products to partner with that will best serve the needs of all of the families you serve.
For example, if a family knows they are seeking a ritual that involves a special location or travel with cremated remains, A Better Place Forest, the Neptune Society, or Parting Stone might be excellent options for building meaningful experiences into that ritual. Or, if a family expresses a need to interact with and keep the cremains more, or a desire to safely touch and hold them after cremation, cremains glass, cremation jewelry like Eterneva, or Parting Stone’s solidified remains would help build a platform for the immersive cremation experience that family is looking for.
To learn more about cremation ritual building and curating meaningful cremation experiences for families, click below to download a free ebook about contemporary cremation rituals.
The Future of Cremation
We now know from research performed annually by CANA that cremation is a consumer driven trend in deathcare, and it isn’t going away anytime soon. We can look at this information as a call to action for funeral professionals who want to listen to today’s families and understand how to serve them best.
These three new year’s resolutions for deathcare professionals will help you transform your cremation services into meaningful death planning experiences for families, while simultaneously helping increase revenue and grow your funeral business in a world of increasing cremation.
