Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to Monument Matters, a podcast produced by the Monument Builders of North America
[00:00:10] Speaker B: for all things memorialization.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Each episode is an extension of our
[00:00:14] Speaker B: monthly magazine, MB News.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Monument Matters invites everyone to listen and share.
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[00:00:22] Speaker A: Apple, Spotify and YouTube.
Hello, and welcome to another exciting episode of Fun with Flags. No, I'm just kidding. I'm not Dr. Sheldon Cooper. I'm Michael Johns, CM, AICA, from the Johns Carabelli Company, Cimarano Monuments and Flowers. And this is season two, episode 17 of MBNA's Monument Matters. And today's discussion is about the Monument Builders Academy salesman sales module.
Our guest today is Joey Cashmore Johnson. Joey is a branch manager of North Chicago Memorials, which is part of the Peter Trooce Monument Company in Waukegan, Illinois. She's actively involved in MBNA, serving as District 7 Trustee representing Illinois and Indiana. Joey, welcome to our podcast.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Thanks, Mike. I'm glad to be here.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: I'm glad you're here as well. See, I told you. Fun, fun, fun.
So when you think about monument sales today, what makes this one of the most unique and challenging sales environments there is? Why is it so different?
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Well, I think our industry is incredibly different because this isn't a purchase that most people want to make. Nobody's here with initial excitement, and I think that's what makes what we do very unique. And my approach is always actually to make the process fun and cathartic.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Okay, that's. And, you know, it's not only something that they're really not looking forward to, but have generally zero experience, right?
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Very much so.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: What are some of the most common mistakes you see monument professionals make during the sales process? Not because they don't care, but because they may never receive formal sales training, especially not geared to our industry.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: I think that a lot of times a sales professional will forget that this is something very unique and special that they. That the family wants to give to their loved one. And because we work in this every day, I think sometimes we forget that this is a unique experience that the person across the desk has likely never gone through before.
And we're not sensitive to that enough.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Sure.
So the new sales module of the Modular Academy begins with the retail experience. So tell us how the physical environment, displays, samples, organization, and even how choices are presented can affect the family's experience and ability to make decisions.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: This is a topic that's actually pretty near and dear to my heart. I spend a lot of time trying to craft the experience that the families I serve will receive as they walk in the door.
And literally from the second they walk in the door, I'm conscious about the cleanliness of the environment, the clutter in the environment.
And I also want to make sure that I have examples to show someone physical examples because I can talk all the skin trace, deep carved, I can say that. But they have no reference for it unless I can show them physically. And so I'm pretty conscious about creating the experience that I would want to have and then give that to the families I serve.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Sure. It's a, it's the idea of putting yourself in their shoes, Right?
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: And, and, and looking at your environment in. Through fresh eyes. Right. The whole, you know, it's, it's very easy to walk in day after day and not notice those things. So training yourself to, to look at your environment with fresh eyes I think is a really good takeaway for sure.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: I agree 100%. I actually recently just had a customer point something out to me on a display I've been looking at for nearly 10 years and just never clicked because I wasn't looking at it in that aspect. So it was a good learning lesson for me that sometimes you have to look at things from a different angle.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Sure.
So one of the course themes is adaptive selling rather than using the same approach with every customer. So what signals should a good salesperson be paying attention to during a conversation with a family?
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Well, I think I am going to pay a lot of attention to body language. Sometimes I think the way someone moves or interacts with the environment says a lot more than their actual words.
For instance, I have a vestibule as you walk into my building and there are people who really hesitate in that vestibule. And that really gives me an indication that this is a person that is unsure and nervous. And so I'm going to approach that person with a little bit more of a kick glove kind, caring and guidance than perhaps somebody who walks in with a file that says, oh, I did this five years ago, I just need a final date.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Uh huh, Sure. I think body language, a lesson in body language is definitely one that is really beneficial, especially in our, our business. You know, there's, when you, when you sit down with a family and you take them from the deer in the headlights look as they come in to crying and laughing and you know, just release of those emotions, you know, you've, you've made a connection and it's to me and I don't have a lot of experience in sales in our industry. That's not my area.
But when you make that personal connection. And it's a connection that you don't generally make with the guy that sold you your refrigerator or your furniture. Right.
It's.
You get something out of it. Right.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: 100%. I. I talk a lot about the perspective that doing what I do for a living gives me. I still get angry in traffic. I'm still working on that. But I think that I get told every day what's truly important in life and what I should get riled up about.
So I'm very grateful for. For that. This. That's a very unique experience, and it's an intimate thing that we do. So even though you might only sit with that family a handful of hours, you are connected in a way to them for forever.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: And it's, you know, it's such a.
It's a niche industry. You know, people don't have a lot of experience with it. And I've been in this business for a long time, as most of the listeners know.
And when people ask me what I do, I still, honestly, I still get a little hung up and say, I make headstones.
And I try to go from there. So when people ask you, how do you respond?
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Actually, my tagline is, I'm your friendly cemetery monument maker. And I try to cut off at the past that this is not all doom and gloom.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: I had a client early in my years say to me, thank you, Joey. You helped me put a period at the end of my husband's sentence.
And. And I've carried that with me through all these years because that's. That's what we do. We're. We're giving a gift to your loved. Helping to give someone a gift to their loved one for the last time.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
And I think that, you know, now every sales experience, every interaction with a customer, isn't that right? Some are just. It's very clinical. I need to mark a grave. I'm really not interested in anything beyond that. Let's 1, 2, 3, let's get that done. But for every one of those, I think there's still two or three of the other experience. Right. They want to do something more. It is that gift. It's. It's about that closure. It's about, you know, the celebration of a life and not the. Not just the sadness. Right.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Well, this is meant to represent the life and legacy of the person we're memorializing.
So. So yes, it is in honor of their death, but just like a celebration of life, it is supposed to be the, you know, I hate to use the word celebration. Again, but the celebration of all the beauty that that life was, the things that brought to you, the memories that you will take with you. That's what we're honoring.
Not so much the loss.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Right. It's not if you're doing it right, if you've got the right mindset, if you work with the families. Right. It's about commemorating the life, not marking the death.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: The death.
That's beautifully said, Mike.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you.
But it's, you know, that's the way I think we need to approach this. And we need to understand that most people don't really necessarily come in here with the mindset of that life celebration. They come in thinking that they're, you know, someone died. Now we have to make a memorial. No, someone lived. That's why we have to make memorial. And I think that makes all the difference to a family when. When a salesperson or. Or however you want to categorize yourself, how you interact. Right.
Because, you know, the other. The other thing is that, you know, we've said salesperson a number of times, but the exchange between a client and you is much more than a sale, isn't it?
[00:10:12] Speaker B: It's a therapy session.
It's a way to get out feelings.
It's a way to work through a portion of your grief. So it. I don't ever refer to myself as a salesperson. I mean, I do. I sell things, but that's not.
That's not what I'm doing here. I. I'm. I'm helping with a grieving process. It's a. It's a mental and emotional support system.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Right, I agree. And. And like I said, I think there's a world of difference when you start from that point of reference.
So. So the sales module also covers things like cemetery regulations, copyright documentation, and compliance.
So what are some of the sales problems that can occur when those issues aren't addressed early enough in your conversation with a family?
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Well, disappointment is the biggest thing that I think of.
I could share a recent story. I was working with a cemetery that's a little bit out of my standard area, and I. I didn't quite grasp their rules, even though I had read through everything and they were very specific about a slant type. And I submitted one that was incorrect, and it was difficult to navigate with the family because they had their heart set on what they had chosen. And I had to go back and kind of, you know, fix the situation.
So it's incredibly important to know that what you're showing a family is manufacturable and Installable.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Knowing what is and isn't acceptable, as far as the cemetery goes, is really critical.
And we have to do our due diligence. We have to know up front, which is not always easy to do for sure.
But when you get into a situation like that, the other thing I think that can be important is not to focus on what you can't do, but what you can do and use where you started as a jumping off point to something more positive instead of, you know, focusing. Oh, you know, that darn cemetery won't let you do that, Mrs. Jones. Boy, they're just horrible people. No, we're in this together. Right? There are families.
So taking that position isn't helping anybody.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Right, agreed. Agreed. It is a team effort. And at the end of the day, that family is not the last family you're going to install on that cemetery. So you also have to be conscious about preserving the relationship with the cemetery because you want the cemetery to also know you're competent, professional, and easy to work with.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, when you have a relationship like that, it's a whole lot easier to get to a place that's within the cemetery's regulations and satisfies the customer's expectation.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: All right, Joey, so you've had an opportunity, I assume, because we're sitting here talking to review the full sales module. Was there a topic, lesson or approach that made you think, you know, I wish more people in our industry understood blank.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Well, that's a really good question.
I think that we are pretty special in the fact that most of the people who do what we do are all here for the right reasons.
We're here to help.
But it reminded me that perhaps again, we do this every day. So sometimes we forget what really is attached at the end. And so it kind of revitalized and reminded me that we always have to have that at the forefront. We're worried about granite. We're worried about size restrictions. We're worried about carving techniques that will withstand the test of time. But we also need to be conscious of the empathy, compassion, and support. Support that we give the families that we. That we take care of.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: So how did you come to terms with that in your journey as a. As a memorial person?
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Well, I think that's something I work on every single day, trying to constantly keep myself on the cutting edge of what we can do. Making sure that I understand how to customize something, but also recognizing when I need to meet a customer, where they are, when perhaps. Perhaps my idea out of the box for Them, because of course, I know all the things we can do, but they only see what they see in the cemetery.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: And so sometimes, I guess I have to quelch my excitement about the opportunity of things that we can do when the family is looking for something maybe a little bit more standard.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: So is it, I imagine. And again, I don't sit face to face with families very often, but when you get in that situation, how do you throttle back? Are there things that you're looking for? What are some of those clues that you're a little bit beyond the place where you can. Where you bring them to?
[00:15:24] Speaker B: I think, again, I go back to our conversation about body language. You know, when you're. When you're talking with the family and you can see that, like, their eyes are rolling in the back of their head and they're really not.
Like, you can see the overwhelmedness on their face. And so to me, that's a clear indicator that perhaps we need to roll back a couple of steps and maybe start with some of the more basics and then kind of build from there.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: So when. And we're going to go off script here a little bit for a second. When you, when you meet with a family, can you give me a little bit of a quick overview of how you go through the process? In other words, are you. Are you talking about.
What are you talking about first, second, third, when you're sitting down with the family?
[00:16:17] Speaker B: So I always let the family lead. So sometimes the. The first set of our conversation has nothing to do with monuments, monument, making death, celebration. It doesn't. Because you can. You can see that they need to kind of get comfortable just sitting in
[00:16:35] Speaker A: the chair and with you. Right?
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly.
And then, of course, when I'm. I'm ready to actually start a true conversation about the topic at hand.
I. I think the first question I always ask a family is, do you have a concept in mind?
And. And do you have vi versions of that that you can share with me? Because that'll tell me, are we talking to somebody who. That kind of is the first inclination, if we're transactional or something more in depth. And if they have a design concept, obviously we start with that. If they don't, then I literally start piecing things together. And we start with the basics, colors, styles, shapes.
And then I break it down kind of element by element by asking leading questions about their loved one and about their relationship with their loved one and their tastes. I'll often talk about how I want to know what you don't like, just as much as I want to know what you do like.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: So is it easier for you when a family comes in, you ask them, do you have anything in mind? Did you come here with any ideas? Is it easier for you when they say yes, or is it easier for you when they say no?
[00:17:54] Speaker B: Kind of depends, really.
I'm actively working with a family. They had ideas, but their ideas could not have been more opposite end of the spectrum.
So it took a lot of crafted, guiding conversation to figure out what it was in those two designs that they had brought me that they actually liked.
Because when you got down to some of the nitty gritty, some of the things that I saw as a monument maker, textures, colors, different materials, that's not really what they were liking. And it took conversation for me to actually understand that. I think I like best working with somebody who wants to collaborate, who wants to say, this is my monument. But you're the professional, and I need to understand how the process works so I can create something that is truly what I need it to be. So I like it best when we work together as a team, and they tell me what they're looking for, and then I say, okay, here's the four ways we can do that. Which do you like best? And we kind of build something together.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that, you know, we try to take an approach that's more really about the life and less about the monument itself. Because, you know, when. When you start the conversation, you're not really sure where their comfort level is in terms of price point or what is really going to be permitted in this part of the cemetery. That part of the cemetery. So, you know, obviously that's, of course, important, but I think that if you connect with the family in a way that you're, you know, you're talking about, we want to tell the story, and we can tell the story on this canvas or this canvas or that canvas, depending on, you know, what. What appeals to you not only aesthetically, but in your pocketbook as well. So, of course, I. I think that Trying to. I get disappointed when folks tell me that they spend so much time on the nitty gritty of the monument itself. You know, is this part polished? What is that color? Because in the end, there's. There's just a lot of odd. There's a lot of different ways to skin a cat, as they say, and there's a lot of different ways to. To tell the same story, but in a way that fits for this family and that life. Right? For sure.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: For sure.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: All right. Very Good points.
So for the experienced monument professional who says to you, listen, I've been selling cemetery memorials or designing them for 20 or 30 years, I know what I'm doing.
What can this course still challenge them to rethink or to.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: I would challenge someone who said, I've been doing this for 20 or 30 years, I know it all. To really listen to what this course has to say.
I think we can very quickly fall into a pitfall of this is our profession, this is what we do, we know what we're talking about and stop listening to the person on the other side of the table.
I think we're commissioned artists and the fact that, that we might create the painting, but we're definitely not doing it of our own fruition or free will.
And we definitely have to keep that in perspective. And the longer I sit on this side of the desk, the more I have to check in with myself to say, am I earnestly listening or am I applying my tainted version of what I do to what the family needs?
[00:21:46] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's, I think a really great way of putting it. You know, it's very easy to get into that side of things where you've got a job to do and you want to get it done and you just cannot lose sight of who's sitting across that table from you and what their needs are and what their expectations are to get out of the experience.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: So right now we're talking about the sales training module, which is one module out of the entire academy program.
What do you say to the person that doesn't do sales as a day to day job? How does this taking sales module benefit those folks?
[00:22:34] Speaker B: So I've sold everything from houses to screws in my life. And there is one common factor in every industry.
Those who face the customer and those who face the product have different goals.
Right. So my goal is to take care of the family, but my productions team goal is to make a monument and they very infrequently get to interact with the family directly.
But I think that just like I as a front facing professional need to remember that my team behind me needs certain support. So to be able to function appropriately, those who support me on the back end need to understand what I face going forward to the customer. And having that understanding between the two types of departments is how you have a cohesive team that works together for the common goal, which is creating a beautiful piece of art that honors the life of someone that has been lost in love.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Sure.
Well said.
Awesome. I'm glad you feel that way, because that's the whole idea behind this entire academy. You know, getting those that are in this area to understand what happens around them and how their role fits into the grand scheme of things. And when you. When you don't have the understanding, or I should say, when you do have the understanding of all those other areas, all those other things that it takes to create a memorial, it puts it all in a better perspective. It gives you a much clearer understanding of what's going on around you. And that way, I think it just.
It's just better to know how it all fits together.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. How can I provide the proper details to my production team if I don't understand what they need? And how can they meet my expectations if vice versa, they don't understand what my expectations are.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Right. And from the. The production perspective, knowing how you interact with the family and what that process looks like will give them a little better insight into how everything on that work order got to be the way it is.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Super.
All right, well, Joey, I think it's time that we draw to a close. Unless there's some final thoughts that you want to share that we didn't quite get to. So if so, please do just.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: I encourage everyone in our industry to take a peek at this module. Specifically. We don't have anything to make if we don't have a family that wants to purchase it.
So this is the beginning of the process. And. And I think that it's important for people of all generation and in all position to understand this particular point. And I would encourage, the longer you've been in the industry, the more I encourage you to take a course like this to understand maybe some things that. That we forget and that get missed as we're working through the minutia of our day to day.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Awesome. So Joey says that it's just as important for the seasoned vet as it is for the neophyte, because you forget.
So let's not let that happen. Right.
All right, well, Joey, thank you for joining me today. And thank you all, everybody out there and podcast land, for taking time out to listen to today's installment of Monument Matters and the September issue of MB News Previews, the new sales training module of the Monument Builders Academy. So I encourage you to read this issue and if you have a topic you'd like to have covered in a future podcast, please leave a comment in the comments below, which are there somewhere. So MB&A invites you to stay connected through Facebook and LinkedIn or visit us at www.monumentbuilders.org for upcoming events and webinars like our Convention in Mobile, Alabama in February of 27th. More details on the website and in MB News. So for MBNA and Monument Matters, I'm Michael Johns. Thank you for taking time out of your day to listen in. If you found this content worthwhile, and I really hope you do.
Please share a link with a friend again for comments and feedback. We'd love to hear from you, so please drop a note to infoonumentbuilders.org thanks and good day.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: Thanks Mike. Have a great day.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: All right, you too. Joey. Thanks for joining me.
