Frequently Asked Questions about Funeral Celebrant Training

Sep 21
Over the last 5 months we have been holding weekly or bi-weekly "Celebrant Success Maker" online events where over 170 prospective Celebrant trainees have booked their place and submitted questions in advance. 

Participants have given great feedback about what they have learnt and how it has helped them to decide (or not) to become a Professional Independent Celebrant.

Many have gone on to train with us, graduate with us and are now working as Successful Celebrants. 

We have just gone through all the questions participants submitted upon booking their place and it made sense to share the most commonly asked questions & their answers with you.
Q: How long does it take to train as a Funeral Celebrant?
A:
"Become a Funeral Celebrant from Scratch" includes over 40+ instructional videos, e-books for you to print out, read and annotate, quizzes to check your learning, 8 written assignments and 3 live one-to-one online assessment and development sessions. To complete the course fully it will take students about 40 hours. This shows how thorough it is as some alternative courses try to teach you to be a Funeral Celebrant in just 3 days (equivalent of 24 days). This should indicate how much they are missing out. These 40 study hours can be reduced if participants do not want to watch all the videos in full. For example, if you are already a competent public speaker, then you have the control to fast forward these. Some participants have managed to complete the Funeral Celebrant course in a week or spread it over two weeks. Others, have decided to complete it over a longer period because of work and family commitments.  There is no time limit or start or end deadline. You complete the course at your pace the way you want to. 

Q: What is the cost of training as a Funeral Celebrant?

A:
Module 1 of "Become a Funeral Celebrant from Scratch" is FREE. This is so you can learn in detail about the job of a self-employed Funeral Celebrant and what skills are required. We tell you the benefits but also the potential pitfalls. It is important to us that we are honest about the job as it is not for everyone. If participants like what they have learnt and like the style in which we provide the teaching and learning, then it currently costs £897 to enrol onto Modules 2-6 of "Become a Funeral Celebrant from Scratch".

If people want to enrol on more than one course, e.g. they would like to also train to become a Wedding Celebrant at some time in the future after completing their Funeral Celebrant training, then we provide "Bundle Offers" which is where there is a saving on enrolling on more than one course at a time. 

Our most popular bundle offer is "The Complete Celebrant from Scratch & Coach". Normally the three elements ("Become a Funeral Celebrant from Scratch", "Become a Wedding Celebrant from Scratch" and "Your Celebrant Coach") would cost £2491. But bought as a bundle offer, you can save £494 and pay only £1,997.

Q: How do I build a business / get work / bookings from Funeral Directors once I have finished my training?

A:
"Become a Funeral Celebrant from Scratch" is a practical Celebrant Business Training programme and so throughout the modules we give top tips and context to what people need to focus on in order to be a successful Professional Celebrant. We advise people who want to be a Celebrant only as a hobby that they may be better to consider training with another provider. Module 6: "The Funeral Celebrant Business Launch Pad" is specifically focused on what you need to do in order to guarantee that you will get bookings. We provide you with marketing tools and downloadable documents which you can edit to help you start your business quickly and efficiently.

Q: What sort of promotion and marketing do you need to do get bookings?

A
: In the Funeral Celebrant Launch Pad we specifically teach the "Tip-Top Celebrant Touch-Point Plan" and the 5 R's which if applied will guarantee successful bookings as a Funeral Celebrant. People can learn more about this at the FREE online "Celebrant Success Maker" event. 

Q: Is the market for Funeral Celebrants not saturated?

A:
The market for great Funeral Celebrants is NOT saturated. Many Funeral Directors will tell you however that there are many average or poor Funeral Celebrants who have been trained by many of the long-established training providers. In many areas, Funeral Directors are very keen to discover and provide bookings for new and better trained Funeral Celebrants. So far, none of our Celebrant Training School graduates who have applied our techniques and strategies have had any problems with getting initial booking and growing their new business. 

Q: Is it possible to actually make a living out of being a Funeral Celebrant?

A:
A successful Funeral Celebrant has the opportunity to earn approximately £20k a year part-time or £40k full -time. Fees are very locally based  and can vary from £200 - £350 for a funeral. A Funeral Celebrant could deliver between 50-150 funerals a year depending upon their efforts and time. Many Funeral Celebrants drop out of the industry within two years because 1) they are not growing getting repeat business because they are not very good (this sadly comes back to inadequate training) or 2) they end up earning less than the minimum wage because they are not being efficient when running their business.  This is why in our Funeral Celebrant Business Launch Pad we teach time and money saving tips to run your business efficiently and effectively right from the start (sadly, it comes back again to inadequate training).

Q: What qualification/accreditation/professional membership do I need that is recognised by the Funeral Industry to be a Funeral Celebrant?

A:
You do not need any qualification/accreditation or professional membership to work as a Professional Independent Funeral Celebrant. All you need is good and effective training and competency. All Celebrant Training organisations are privately run organisations even though may decide to call themselves a "College", "Academy", "Society", "Institute" etc. Some provide an OFQUAL qualification which covers Funerals, Weddings and Baby Namings. This is not required and involves having to submit 8 written pieces of coursework (mostly essays). It is an academic qualification and not a practical qualification. NOCN and City & Guilds provide "accreditation" to some courses but this is simply a marketing transaction. Many Funeral Directors know from years of experience that a "piece of paper" does not mean that a newly trained celebrant is competent Funeral Celebrant. Instead, you have to develop a trust and rapport with Funeral Directors which we teach in the "Funeral Celebrant Launch Pad". Sadly, some organisations may try to make you believe that you need a "nationally accredited qualification", but sadly this is not true. Check out for yourself the guidance on the UK Government's own career service website. Sadly many people have wasted their time and money on getting this so-called qualification and it has not only not helped them get work as a Celebrant, but it has set them up to fail. 


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