Unlock bookings from Funeral Directors
Learning to write & deliver a funeral service is the easy part. Getting bookings from Funeral Directors as a newly trained celebrant is the hard bit. It is at this stage that most newly trained celebrants fall down. It is at this stage that most training organisations, in my opinion, also let celebrants down because they are ill-prepared with what lies ahead.
Here I will take you through a 5 point plan which will guarantee that you get initial bookings with Funeral Directors - but only if you execute it professionally.
Here I will take you through a 5 point plan which will guarantee that you get initial bookings with Funeral Directors - but only if you execute it professionally.
Step 1 - Do your research
No decent sales person would just rack up at the door of a potential client without doing the groundwork. And yet, you hear stories all the time that this is what newly trained funeral celebrants do. They appear at a Funeral Director's door, announce that they have recently been trained as a celebrant and then expect the phone to ring. Funeral Directors have also told me stories of celebrants turning up in jeans and t-shirt to do this, and when they don't get any referrals from the Funeral Director, they get aggressive and annoyed with them as if they were entitled to have work put their way.
At the very least, new celebrants need to make sure that they have visited all their local crematorium in order to see how they work. Perhaps you could get a tour of the "engine room". At the very least you should introduce yourself to the local chapel attendants and find out whether the crematorium uses Obitus or Wesley Media for the music.
Next, celebrants should do online research to find out who the local Funeral Directors are, where they are located and what sort of market do they aim at. Some Funeral Directors deliberately target the Anglican or Catholic communities, some pride themselves on being very local, there will be Co-Op FuneralCare branches and Funeral Directors who at first hand look like an established family run organisation, but are actually part of the Dignity Funerals Chain. Some are very modern looking with no black in sight and have a focus on the environment & sustainable funerals. Some are clearly aiming at a premium market whilst others are not (this is much easier to establish now FDs have to publish their set funeral price lists. Most do this online).
You should plot your local Funeral Directors on a physical map and and work out which ones you want to work with. Then, you need to create a ranked list of the Funeral Directors you want to work with most at the very top and those you would not be so fussed about at the bottom. Your list needs to be at least 30 Funeral Directors long. If you live in a very rural area, you could be looking at Funeral Directors that are many miles away. But a list any shorter than 30 and you will not be guaranteed results.
Step 2 - Plan your visits
For your initial introduction visit you should always phone first, introduce yourself and make an appointment to meet with the Funeral Director or Funeral Arranger. Some may just advise you to pop in when passing. So do this. But others will be rightly annoyed with you if they are busy with a family and you turn up un-announced and they don't even know you. So always phone for an appointment in the first instance.
Be prepared that some Funeral Directors even at this stage will close you down immediately and ask you simply to pop your information in an email for them to look at. It will happen. Don't take it personally, Funeral Directors see and hear from a lot of newly trained Celebrants. 75% of newly trained celebrants don't stick around for long when they realise work doesn't fall on their laps.
For those Funeral Directors who don't even want to meet you initially, go straight to Step 5 in the process but don't give up on them yet.
The most important bit of step 2 is the order in which you make these phone calls and appointments.
Go to your long ranked list and start making your telephone calls and appointments from the bottom and then move up your list.
Why?
At first you will be nervous, you will not be very good at these initial conversations but as you progress you will get better. You will have failed calls. You want to fail and not make a good connection with those FDs at the bottom of your list because it is these that you are not so bothered about.
By the time you get to you top of your list, perhaps the top 5 Funeral Directors you want to work with... these are the meetings you need to nail!
How to make these cold telephone calls effectively is in our courses and I shall cover some of this in a later blog post.
Step 3 - Be professional, review, adapt & repeat
When you go for your introduction visit take with you your Funeral Celebrant Welcome Pack (details of this are also in our courses, and I will cover this in a later blog post).
You need to look professional and so be dressed appropriately as if you have just come from delivering a funeral service.
Make your meeting conversational, take time to listen effectively, as well as to make the points you want. Again, how to structure and deliver this initial meeting is covered in our courses and I will be doing a blog post in the future about it too.
When you leave, it is natural to evaluate how it went, be critical of yourself, but also honest about which bits felt good, natural and effective.
The best way to improve is to put this self-reflective learning into practice immediately. So if you can plan to have 4 or 5 initial meetings with FDs in one morning, afternoon or day, then you have a better chance of making rapid improvement with this conversation.
Most celebrants do not have enough of these initial conversations with Funeral Directors. Many get quickly demotivated and then give up. It can be discouraging. It's natural to want to give up. Find support and resilience in others and your biggest fans. But keep going. The more you have these conversations the better you will become at it.
You are also wanting a bit of luck, that opportunity that you weren't expecting. The Funeral Director or arranger who does have a service available which you could do for them. There is no point complaining that you are not getting luck. You create your own luck by making a lot more of those initial meetings.
Step 4 - Capture data & use it to build trust
When you make your visits you will gather information. The names & significance of individuals, what days different part-time staff work etc. People will share with you details of daily life.
Unless you have an amazing photographic memory, it is important to make good notes after a call for you to reference back to later. I include a template to record FD visits as part of "Become a Funeral Celebrant from Scratch". It is important to keep information organised & accessible right from the start. Every good salesperson keeps records on customers/clients, a funeral celebrant would be wise to keep some useful information too on the FDs on their visit list (to be compliant with GDPR, all written information must be secure, relevant and update to date). Having this information in a useful system will make your task of securing those initial bookings so much easier. Having an organised system you complete after each visit is also a lot more motivating when you get those inevitable and numerous knock-backs. Whilst you might not have come away with any firm promises of work, you will always come away with more market information than you had before you went in. Completing your notes after each visit is an unsubtle way of reminding yourself this.
In the very least, you need to enquire about the most relevant email address to reach the person you are speaking to. It is common that external email addresses are not the best ones to use.
When back in the office, it is important to email the FD or arranger (on the best email you have just confirmed) thanking them for their time and re-stating the main points you want them to remember. Importantly, you will be giving them at the top of their inbox your name and contact details so that if, upon reflection, they could put something your way, they don't have to start rummaging around to find your contact details.
When you make you next visit you should have your visit notes from last time with you for a quick read before you go in. It will help you to enquire about the things that were important last time (e.g. that holiday, their impending house move, their elderly parents etc).
Putting FD contact details into a free email system database like Mailchimp, Mailerlite or Active Campaign etc, means that you can quickly and easily email them monthly with a friendly & informative email that reminds them who you are and that you are still around working.
Ultimately, the purpose of all contacts with Funeral Directors and arrangers should be to build a trusting relationship.
The email templates I share with students at Celebrant Training School, focus on on building trust. If you already have a relationship with a Funeral Director or arranger, brilliant, use it, they will already have some level of trust in you. With some FDs it will take a lot longer for them to trust you than others.
Step 5 - Schedule regular passing visits & build trust
After making many initial visits to Funeral Directors and arrangers, you may still have no one who is willing to give you a go with your first funeral.
You often hear stories of FDs telling new celebrants to come back once they have done a few funerals. But its a bit like all inexperienced candidates for jobs, if no one takes a punt on you, you will never get the experience they want.
But you need to understand this from the perspective of the FD or arranger. Just because you are trained or have a certificate, it does not mean that you are competent. As a headteacher I have seen many "Newly Qualified Teachers" who make me wonder how and why did they ever pass! FDs and arrangers will also have seen it all before and will not want to risk their own professional reputation if they recommend a celebrant who ends up being awful. It will look bad on them.
When an FD or arranger decides to use you will depend upon their own level of risk-taking. If they are confident risk-takers, sure, they'll give you go. You want and need to find these types of people amongst your 30+ FDs you will visit. However, once established, just remember that these FDs may also not use you on-going. Why? Because they like to always give a chance to the new kid on the block. When you are no longer the new kid....someone else will be!
But eventually, in time and sometimes it could be a very long time, you will fall into their category of risk-taking and they will use you.
To this end, you need to schedule monthly visits to all those FDs you want to work with. How many you re-visit will depend on your geography and time but ideally it should be about 10 from your initial list. When you re-visit you no longer need to make an appointment. You just "pop-in". If you try to make an appointment you need to have a reason for the appointment and "to have a chat with you" is probably not going to be a good enough reason for them.
Instead, even though you have it timetabled and scheduled in your diary, when you arrive, you quickly re-read your previous notes and then you "pop-in because I was passing".
When you arrive for an unannounced visit you firstly need to double check that they do not have a family with them. If they have, don't even go in, re-schedule it in your own diary.
If they don't have anyone with them, ask them some open questions like "How are you doing?" or "How has your day/week been?" etc. From these early questions you should be able to judge quickly what capacity and willingness they have for a chat. If they seem open and ready to speak to a friendly face....brilliant. Sit down and have a friendly catch up. If they seem terse and abrupt, its likely they are very busy or hassled. Don't wait for them to tell you they haven't got time for a chat...just tell them it was nice to see them again and leave.
Even though it was simply a "pop-in", still email them when you get back to the office. Still update your notes, albeit briefly. When you look back at your visit notes you can begin to look for patterns and perhaps even consider doing something different. At various times of the year, consider making your "pop-ins" more purposeful, for example, to deliver cupcakes you've made or little seedlings you've grown. Don't make gifting regular or a big thing, it is neither very economical or ethical, but what you are doing is "good networking": you are showing your face, you are not demanding anything, you are simply reminding others that you are there, you are a nice person and you are a professional they can trust.
I have personally had FDs and arrangers who used me very quickly even after just a couple of visits. I have also had FDs who have waited a year, had many visits and many emails before they now decided to use me, and now do so very regularly. There are other FDs and arrangers who even after my initial visit I decided I did not want to work with them. Remember, this goes both ways. One of the benefits of being successfully self-employed is that you can choose who you work with and who not to work with.
Get in touch with me if you feel you need specific help, motivation or guidance in getting started as a Funeral Celebrant.
As well as coaching celebrants whom I have trained I also coach celebrants who had their initial training with other organisations but now need the help to launch or grow their celebrant business.
Whatever you do, follow this 5 point plan and don't stop. Step 5 never stops until you stop being a celebrant.
No decent sales person would just rack up at the door of a potential client without doing the groundwork. And yet, you hear stories all the time that this is what newly trained funeral celebrants do. They appear at a Funeral Director's door, announce that they have recently been trained as a celebrant and then expect the phone to ring. Funeral Directors have also told me stories of celebrants turning up in jeans and t-shirt to do this, and when they don't get any referrals from the Funeral Director, they get aggressive and annoyed with them as if they were entitled to have work put their way.
At the very least, new celebrants need to make sure that they have visited all their local crematorium in order to see how they work. Perhaps you could get a tour of the "engine room". At the very least you should introduce yourself to the local chapel attendants and find out whether the crematorium uses Obitus or Wesley Media for the music.
Next, celebrants should do online research to find out who the local Funeral Directors are, where they are located and what sort of market do they aim at. Some Funeral Directors deliberately target the Anglican or Catholic communities, some pride themselves on being very local, there will be Co-Op FuneralCare branches and Funeral Directors who at first hand look like an established family run organisation, but are actually part of the Dignity Funerals Chain. Some are very modern looking with no black in sight and have a focus on the environment & sustainable funerals. Some are clearly aiming at a premium market whilst others are not (this is much easier to establish now FDs have to publish their set funeral price lists. Most do this online).
You should plot your local Funeral Directors on a physical map and and work out which ones you want to work with. Then, you need to create a ranked list of the Funeral Directors you want to work with most at the very top and those you would not be so fussed about at the bottom. Your list needs to be at least 30 Funeral Directors long. If you live in a very rural area, you could be looking at Funeral Directors that are many miles away. But a list any shorter than 30 and you will not be guaranteed results.
Step 2 - Plan your visits
For your initial introduction visit you should always phone first, introduce yourself and make an appointment to meet with the Funeral Director or Funeral Arranger. Some may just advise you to pop in when passing. So do this. But others will be rightly annoyed with you if they are busy with a family and you turn up un-announced and they don't even know you. So always phone for an appointment in the first instance.
Be prepared that some Funeral Directors even at this stage will close you down immediately and ask you simply to pop your information in an email for them to look at. It will happen. Don't take it personally, Funeral Directors see and hear from a lot of newly trained Celebrants. 75% of newly trained celebrants don't stick around for long when they realise work doesn't fall on their laps.
For those Funeral Directors who don't even want to meet you initially, go straight to Step 5 in the process but don't give up on them yet.
The most important bit of step 2 is the order in which you make these phone calls and appointments.
Go to your long ranked list and start making your telephone calls and appointments from the bottom and then move up your list.
Why?
At first you will be nervous, you will not be very good at these initial conversations but as you progress you will get better. You will have failed calls. You want to fail and not make a good connection with those FDs at the bottom of your list because it is these that you are not so bothered about.
By the time you get to you top of your list, perhaps the top 5 Funeral Directors you want to work with... these are the meetings you need to nail!
How to make these cold telephone calls effectively is in our courses and I shall cover some of this in a later blog post.
Step 3 - Be professional, review, adapt & repeat
When you go for your introduction visit take with you your Funeral Celebrant Welcome Pack (details of this are also in our courses, and I will cover this in a later blog post).
You need to look professional and so be dressed appropriately as if you have just come from delivering a funeral service.
Make your meeting conversational, take time to listen effectively, as well as to make the points you want. Again, how to structure and deliver this initial meeting is covered in our courses and I will be doing a blog post in the future about it too.
When you leave, it is natural to evaluate how it went, be critical of yourself, but also honest about which bits felt good, natural and effective.
The best way to improve is to put this self-reflective learning into practice immediately. So if you can plan to have 4 or 5 initial meetings with FDs in one morning, afternoon or day, then you have a better chance of making rapid improvement with this conversation.
Most celebrants do not have enough of these initial conversations with Funeral Directors. Many get quickly demotivated and then give up. It can be discouraging. It's natural to want to give up. Find support and resilience in others and your biggest fans. But keep going. The more you have these conversations the better you will become at it.
You are also wanting a bit of luck, that opportunity that you weren't expecting. The Funeral Director or arranger who does have a service available which you could do for them. There is no point complaining that you are not getting luck. You create your own luck by making a lot more of those initial meetings.
Step 4 - Capture data & use it to build trust
When you make your visits you will gather information. The names & significance of individuals, what days different part-time staff work etc. People will share with you details of daily life.
Unless you have an amazing photographic memory, it is important to make good notes after a call for you to reference back to later. I include a template to record FD visits as part of "Become a Funeral Celebrant from Scratch". It is important to keep information organised & accessible right from the start. Every good salesperson keeps records on customers/clients, a funeral celebrant would be wise to keep some useful information too on the FDs on their visit list (to be compliant with GDPR, all written information must be secure, relevant and update to date). Having this information in a useful system will make your task of securing those initial bookings so much easier. Having an organised system you complete after each visit is also a lot more motivating when you get those inevitable and numerous knock-backs. Whilst you might not have come away with any firm promises of work, you will always come away with more market information than you had before you went in. Completing your notes after each visit is an unsubtle way of reminding yourself this.
In the very least, you need to enquire about the most relevant email address to reach the person you are speaking to. It is common that external email addresses are not the best ones to use.
When back in the office, it is important to email the FD or arranger (on the best email you have just confirmed) thanking them for their time and re-stating the main points you want them to remember. Importantly, you will be giving them at the top of their inbox your name and contact details so that if, upon reflection, they could put something your way, they don't have to start rummaging around to find your contact details.
When you make you next visit you should have your visit notes from last time with you for a quick read before you go in. It will help you to enquire about the things that were important last time (e.g. that holiday, their impending house move, their elderly parents etc).
Putting FD contact details into a free email system database like Mailchimp, Mailerlite or Active Campaign etc, means that you can quickly and easily email them monthly with a friendly & informative email that reminds them who you are and that you are still around working.
Ultimately, the purpose of all contacts with Funeral Directors and arrangers should be to build a trusting relationship.
The email templates I share with students at Celebrant Training School, focus on on building trust. If you already have a relationship with a Funeral Director or arranger, brilliant, use it, they will already have some level of trust in you. With some FDs it will take a lot longer for them to trust you than others.
Step 5 - Schedule regular passing visits & build trust
After making many initial visits to Funeral Directors and arrangers, you may still have no one who is willing to give you a go with your first funeral.
You often hear stories of FDs telling new celebrants to come back once they have done a few funerals. But its a bit like all inexperienced candidates for jobs, if no one takes a punt on you, you will never get the experience they want.
But you need to understand this from the perspective of the FD or arranger. Just because you are trained or have a certificate, it does not mean that you are competent. As a headteacher I have seen many "Newly Qualified Teachers" who make me wonder how and why did they ever pass! FDs and arrangers will also have seen it all before and will not want to risk their own professional reputation if they recommend a celebrant who ends up being awful. It will look bad on them.
When an FD or arranger decides to use you will depend upon their own level of risk-taking. If they are confident risk-takers, sure, they'll give you go. You want and need to find these types of people amongst your 30+ FDs you will visit. However, once established, just remember that these FDs may also not use you on-going. Why? Because they like to always give a chance to the new kid on the block. When you are no longer the new kid....someone else will be!
But eventually, in time and sometimes it could be a very long time, you will fall into their category of risk-taking and they will use you.
To this end, you need to schedule monthly visits to all those FDs you want to work with. How many you re-visit will depend on your geography and time but ideally it should be about 10 from your initial list. When you re-visit you no longer need to make an appointment. You just "pop-in". If you try to make an appointment you need to have a reason for the appointment and "to have a chat with you" is probably not going to be a good enough reason for them.
Instead, even though you have it timetabled and scheduled in your diary, when you arrive, you quickly re-read your previous notes and then you "pop-in because I was passing".
When you arrive for an unannounced visit you firstly need to double check that they do not have a family with them. If they have, don't even go in, re-schedule it in your own diary.
If they don't have anyone with them, ask them some open questions like "How are you doing?" or "How has your day/week been?" etc. From these early questions you should be able to judge quickly what capacity and willingness they have for a chat. If they seem open and ready to speak to a friendly face....brilliant. Sit down and have a friendly catch up. If they seem terse and abrupt, its likely they are very busy or hassled. Don't wait for them to tell you they haven't got time for a chat...just tell them it was nice to see them again and leave.
Even though it was simply a "pop-in", still email them when you get back to the office. Still update your notes, albeit briefly. When you look back at your visit notes you can begin to look for patterns and perhaps even consider doing something different. At various times of the year, consider making your "pop-ins" more purposeful, for example, to deliver cupcakes you've made or little seedlings you've grown. Don't make gifting regular or a big thing, it is neither very economical or ethical, but what you are doing is "good networking": you are showing your face, you are not demanding anything, you are simply reminding others that you are there, you are a nice person and you are a professional they can trust.
I have personally had FDs and arrangers who used me very quickly even after just a couple of visits. I have also had FDs who have waited a year, had many visits and many emails before they now decided to use me, and now do so very regularly. There are other FDs and arrangers who even after my initial visit I decided I did not want to work with them. Remember, this goes both ways. One of the benefits of being successfully self-employed is that you can choose who you work with and who not to work with.
Get in touch with me if you feel you need specific help, motivation or guidance in getting started as a Funeral Celebrant.
As well as coaching celebrants whom I have trained I also coach celebrants who had their initial training with other organisations but now need the help to launch or grow their celebrant business.
Whatever you do, follow this 5 point plan and don't stop. Step 5 never stops until you stop being a celebrant.
I am David Willis.
After a long career as a business educator and now a Professional Celebrant, I offer you my Celebrant Training School.
My mission?
To help train and develop other people who would also like to run a successful celebrant business.
After a long career as a business educator and now a Professional Celebrant, I offer you my Celebrant Training School.
My mission?
To help train and develop other people who would also like to run a successful celebrant business.
Contact
-
Contact form
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david@acorn2oakceremonies.co.uk
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+44 07865 400 312
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