[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to Monument Matters, a podcast produced by the Monument Builders of North America for all things memorialization.
Each episode is an extension of our monthly magazine, MB News. Monument Matters invites everyone to listen and share. You'll find all of the episodes on Apple, Spotify and YouTube.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: I'm your host, Mike John C.
From the Johns Carabelli Company Cimarano Monuments and Flowers in Cleveland, Ohio. I'm also a past president of the Monument Builders of North America.
So today, please join me in welcoming our guest, Jason Troyer, PhD. Jason is a grief and ritual expert and the co founder of the Healing Path Cemetery system. He helps end of life professionals promote the value of permanent placement, offer meaningful grief support, and generate new leads through innovative engagement strategies. Jason, good morning.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Good morning. Great to be with you.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Awesome. Glad to have you here. So today is a special episode of our podcast, being that our guest is not only an author in the November issue of MB News, he will also be speaking at the MB News at the MB University and Fort Worth, Texas in February.
So keep your eye open for more information on that event.
So, Jason, you've described four horsemen of the cemetery apocalypse that are reshaping memorialization. Can you give our listeners an overview of what those forces are?
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I that four horsemen of the Cemetery apocalypse, it's a little bit tongue in cheek, but honestly, it's also some serious business. So I use that descriptor that that category as a way to draw attention. These are four very powerful social and cultural forces that are having a big impact on end of life professionals and how families approach end of life decisions and those sorts of things. So, a brief overview. One of the horsemen is what I would consider to be increased mobility. No big secret that Americans and North Americans are moving around more and more. In fact, we're starting to see a little bit of you. 20 years, 30 years ago, we talked about the boomerang effect. And there was even that movie with Matthew McConaughey, like, about boomerang children, these college kids who couldn't find a job, especially during the Great Recession, coming back home and staying with parents. Well, now what we're seeing is what we call the reverse boomerang. Those kids have found a job. They probably have a, you know, a 3% mortgage, but things are a little bit tight. It's not easy to move jobs. They certainly don't want to give up that mortgage rate. And so they say to their aging parents, like, if you want to see the grandkids see us, you've got to move closer to us. And the, the baby boomer parents, who probably have a little bit more flexibility, maybe have built up some equity in their home and have some options, are then now moving to them. So what that means is the bottom line for us is that it means that more and more people are not, you know, passing away near their local family cemetery or the community that they're used to. And so with that means that they're moving to a new place, there are new options they don't have long standing relationships with retail sellers that they might have used in the previous community in those sorts of situations. So that's our first one. Second one is that we increasingly are living in a death denying culture. We have these wonderful advancements in modern medicine. My mother had a heart valve replaced in almost outpatient surgery a couple of months ago. It's astonishing what we can do in terms of end of life healthcare and those sorts of things.
But the, the downside of that is I think increasingly we have this impression that we, we live forever and so we push off these decisions, end of life decisions, until later and later, until we're forced to make them. And so then we're making those decisions under quite a bit of stress and in the midst of our grief.
The third horseman is a lot has been made about the changes in religious affiliation and the rise of the nones. The N o N E S is the unaffiliated folks. And a lot of ink has been spilled over that. But the practical matters for, for our professions are that as people are saying goodbye or kind of, you know, getting away from their traditional faith communities, they're also saying goodbye to many of the rituals and funeral practices that go with them. And so now when the inevitable happens, they're faced with these decisions of, well, I don't want to do what's always been done. I don't feel like a part of that group anymore. But what do I do? I don't have anything to replace it with.
And then the fourth horseman is certainly, probably the biggest factor would be the increase in cremation rates. When cremation was 5% in North America, 5 or 10%. You know, that just meant that the casket had to go somewhere. That casket had needed a monument or a marker. And so it was kind of, you had to be better than the other guy. The other options, it wasn't, they're not going to do anything. It's we just need to be the best option available or the most recognized option available. But now increasingly folks, you know, have all sorts of options with cremation and unfortunately, what we see is that when folks haven't made a decision, they have no plans in place, they're overwhelmed by grief, and the disposition has been cremation. Our default is to go with the path of least resistance, like we do in almost any stressful situation.
The path of least resistance in that situation is to take an earn home. They don't have to have a meeting with anybody, they don't have to write a check to anybody. Those sorts of situations. And so that's what we're seeing. And increasingly, I'm still waiting for the really great study that I feel like is really comprehensive. But you know, we've got estimates of 25, 40%, 50% of people taking earns home as opposed to a permanent placement decision. And so all four of those have a huge impact. Now what I'm very quick to, when I talk to groups, I'm very quick to say, look, these factors are not our fault. These are social and cultural factors that are beyond any of us.
But that doesn't mean we can choose not to respond to them. We've got to have a response in those situations because it's absolutely changing everything about end of life care and decision making.
So those are the four. Kind of a brief overview of the four for horsemen, apocalypse for cemeteries.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Okay, so you indicated families are on the move. They're not growing up, living and dying in the same place anymore as monument builders. How do we stay relevant to those type of families that don't have the traditional deep roots in a community?
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. I think the first step may go without saying, but I think it's the most important step is acknowledging. Acknowledging that we've got a lot of. Hopefully you're in a community that actually has a lot of new people. And hopefully you're, you know, unfortunately, I know a lot. I grew up in, in Iowa. I know the small towns in Iowa and the Midwest. We've got a lot of people fleeing from those areas, but hopefully you're, you know, you've got some new people coming in, acknowledging simply that most people don't know you or that we can't take repeat business for granted. We can't assume that families who have always been loyal to us. I know loyalty has been traditionally strong, but I would bet dollars to donuts that that loyalty is not what it used to be. And so we've got to reestablish that trust and prove that we're the best option in those situations. So we can't just assume that there's no marketing strategy. We can't assume that people will naturally find us in those situations. So there needs to be, I mean, there needs to be a marketing plan and there needs to be outreach, as if you were setting up a new shop in this community and not taking any of that for granted and doing some creative things to reach out to folks.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: That's a great perspective. Starting out like you are brand new to the business and what would you do to promote yourselves that way? I think that's a, that's a great way to, to look at this situation, for sure.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah. I think anybody who owns a small business has. We all, we all get into ruts. You know, work is hard, life is stressful, and so we do the things that work and we become more efficient in those ways. And that's, that's good business practice.
However, once in a while, almost no matter what small business you're in, we need to kind of step back and we've got to. Okay, let's, let's re examine the customer journey with fresh eyes. How are people first hearing about me? Are they first hearing about me? And what impression does that create? How am I building trust so that they will listen to my marketing messages and feel that I'm someone trustworthy to answer their questions and then just take them all the way through? I think that's a great staff meeting to just kind of sit down and say, okay, let's just go through the entire customer journey, take our blinders off and like, look, are there any fresh ways to approach this, new ways to reach out to folks, services that, that people these days would find? Maybe we tried it five years ago and it was too early, those sorts of things, and maybe it's time to bring some of those things back again. Maybe, maybe there's some technology that would allow us to leverage some time and make that a little bit easier when it wasn't available five or 10 years ago?
[00:09:14] Speaker B: I think one of the things that we're starting to see, even though cremation is on the rise and increasing, I think the idea of final disposition of the cremains is becoming more top of mind. You know, we hear more on the news about the, you know, the ashes found in the. The abandoned home or the abandoned funeral home and so on and so forth.
More and more people are considering the fact that having a central place to inurn those ashes, so generations have the opportunity to go back to a particular place to reflect, and they're starting to see that there really is some significant value in that Type of situation.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I would agree, I would agree. And it depends on how, how adventurous you want to be in your marketing. But I see I have this vision of a marketing campaign where it's like, look, your, your great nephew doesn't want your earn. You know, it's like at a certain point it kind of trickles down to the, these, these people and the families who seem to be the hubs who kind of gather like everyone pawns the urns off on them. It's like, what am I, all of a sudden, I've got four or five urns here. What am I going to do with this? And maybe marketing messages directed towards that, that kind of segment of the population is like, I've got a real problem here and I don't want to pass the buck or kick the can further down the road. What might that be? There's a, there's a variety of different creative ways to go about that. Of course, given the nature of our work, it's, it's tricky to kind of hit the right tone and on one hand educate folks, but also be careful about what they're going through and how they might react to the, those sorts of marketing messages.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Absolutely. So monument builders know that people are delaying making memorial decisions and that leads to important, these important discussions taking place during times of grief. So what, what's contributing to this delay?
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I think a lot of it is that the movement and the death denying culture, a couple of those factors of the four horsemen coming together, where they, they are putting the decision off. And then when the inevitable hums, maybe that's, maybe that's a sudden loss, maybe that is a diagnosis, a decision be placed on hospice, all of a sudden something breaks, breaks through that kind of shell, and all of a sudden we're forced to make those decisions. Unfortunately, I think for folks, the opportunity. So let's say even though, even through the best of our efforts and trying to maybe do some outreach and suggesting that people make these decisions earlier, a lot of times those are going to fall on deaf ears. So what can we do in, in our office in that conversation with folks? And I think as a grief educator, as a, as former therapist, there is an amazing opportunity there that I don't think everyone is ready for.
I believe, and I just know from personal experience we can all think of situations. Maybe you were traveling somewhere, maybe you're traveling internationally, maybe you were some situation where you were in some sort of crisis and you felt pretty alone. I think that's what a lot of our families feel like. In those situations, I've got. I've got some things that need to be taken care of, and I don't know who to go to for the answers. And if you've ever had somebody kind of help you reach out, speak your language in a foreign land, whatever that metaphor might be, if we can create that opportunity where it's like, I know exactly what you're, I understand what you're going through, and I'm here to help you. And if we can create, there's an opportunity to create a relationship there that can build trust very quickly. And so I encourage, you know, retail sellers, other folks who are directly working with the families, to be ready for that conversation. And the first thing we need to do is we have to address the elephant in the room, which is the loss or the impending loss, and have a conversation about that.
Now, in some situations, the family doesn't want to talk to you, or they've got support or they've got things figured out, those sorts of things. But you might be the only person who's really listening to them in an effective, compassionate, empathetic way. And if you are, they will remember you. And it also immediately builds trust with that family. If you can understand what they're going through, then you probably have the answers to my questions about monuments, markers, other options, those sorts of things. And so we've got to really focus on.
On their needs and building their trust first before we can go into memorial design, memorial options and those sorts of things. So a lot of that is about certainly what not to say, not to use some of the typical cliches. There's a lot of things that we hear, a lot that seemingly we would think would be helpful for the family, but really aren't. And that's actually what I'm going to focus on at NB University when I speak. I'm talking about the five things we. That you should. Should never say to a recently bereaved family. And they're all five things that we think are helpful is the problem. We're just absolutely throwing out the stuff that we know is unhelpful. You know, that that's rude or crude or whatever, but the five things that we think are helpful that might actually help you folks. Not saying those and replacing those with some things that really build that relationship in a short period of time, really empathize with what that family is going through, building that trust, and then we can have. I think they're more open to the conversation about memorialization options and, and you've built that Trust so that they're gonna, they're gonna trust your expertise, which you have. It's just a matter of kind of building that quickly with that family because you've got a relatively short period of.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Time, then I think that's, you know, obviously that's important. But I think that, you know, personally, if you have someone coming in or making some kind of an inquiry, that is 60% of the battle because they have recognized the fact that, that the memorialization is important.
I think where we have the greatest opportunity is before that. Right before there is a need to reach the people to get them to understand that memorialization is maybe not something that you're ready to have a conversation about. Maybe you're not ready to pre plan or any of those things. But let's talk about why having that focal point for the family or that remembrance of that life, what the benefit is of that. Because once you, you tip that scale and they're no longer thinking in terms of direct cremation. Put the ashes on the shelf. You've expanded your target audience exponentially. So getting the message out to those folks that don't recognize the value yet I think is our greatest opportunity. Because at that point they haven't spoken to anybody at the cemetery. They haven't spoken to a funeral director. There is nobody else in the conversation yet.
So I think it behooves us to find creative ways to have those conversations with people that really weren't even necessarily considering having the conversation yet.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: I agree wholeheartedly. You're right. You're, you're, you're, if we use the typical kind of funnel metaphor, we're, we're, you're talking about further up the funnel so that we have these in person conversations. I would agree that creative ways to reach out to folks and I think that I'm biased, I'm a grief educator, so I think a lot of things come to this. But if you think about most, what most people are going through and where their mind space is, I think there's a huge opportunity with providing grief resources that most people don't recognize sometimes. I'm a former college professor and so sometimes I use the college search as a metaphor.
How long do people actually are parents and the students actually thinking about like, you know, typically we, we start talking to kids, you know, sophomore, junior, senior of high school. Are you going to go start visiting colleges? Where are you going to go visit colleges? Those sorts of things. Things. So there's a pretty, there's like a three year window that admissions offices are Kind of focused on that. And then there's about, you know, hopefully there's four years that they're going to college. Well, we, we've got 15 years from birth before that. And so a good college is going to have. They're going to invest in athletic, but they're going to get you on campus. We're going to have camps for soccer or cello camp or programming camp. We're going to have our sports teams. We're going to have events in our fine arts center that people want. We want to get you on campus. And ideally the best ones will have an experience where that, that junior high student, that young high schooler can have a direct encounter with either a coach or a professor. And in that situation, you can start to build that relationship. So now with, for example, retail sellers, what they can do is there's a relatively narrow time when people are thinking about the actual monument, but there's a huge amount of time. Almost every adult has had a significant loss.
So if you can connect with them on that level, you know, the first mother's Day without your mother, your first father's Day without your father, like, if you can connect on a message where it's like where you're sending out that message saying, I understand what it. Have some sense of what it's like to go through this and you're not alone in that. And let me be really clear, my goal isn't to turn everyone into a grief therapist. You don't have time to do that, you don't have the training to do that, those sorts of things.
But you can have some pretty efficient ways to deliver some resources that would connect with people and also send the message, look, it's okay to come in here and, and be upset and cry. These are big emotional, human things that we do. Caring for this few things are more personal than caring for the deceased and their, and their legacy and those sorts of things. We get that we do more than just carve stones around here. We, we have this huge sense of those sorts of things. So sending various messages out there in creative ways and I think, you know, social media does give you the opportunity to do that. I see, I work with about, you know, about a hundred businesses, end of life businesses on social media and what I. So I look on Facebook and other places a lot and it's like, you know, talking about your sales every three days is just not breaking through. What breaks through is the custom memorialization that you do for unfortunately, that child who died way too early, that officer, that firefighter who you know, those sorts of stories are what cut through. And when people see something that is unique or it may be traditional, but it has a beautiful story connected to it, those are the things I think that are much more likely to break through, to kind of introduce you to people. Now all of a sudden you're on the radar screen, and when you eventually walk through the door, you can kind of follow up on that. But. Sorry, that was a long winded answer. But I completely agree.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: No, no, no. I think you're. What, you're accurate. We are not grief therapists by training, but in a real sense, when done properly, that's a huge part of who we are to the families that we serve.
They don't just come in to buy a canned stock item off the shelf.
There's so much more meaning associated with the memorial.
And understanding that and learning how people process grief and what role the memorial plays in that whole process is just as important as knowing what rules and regulations govern this cemetery versus that cemetery.
So anyone that has that additional background, training, whatever, is certainly going to have a leg up on his competitor.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Otherwise you're just a commodity. Right. It's just a matter. Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: And if you're. If you're doing the right things, then what you're selling, what you're providing is way beyond a commodity. Yeah, absolutely. There was another point that you made. Let me see if I can bring it back into my mind. I'm probably not going to get it, but, you know, understanding that there's way more layers in what we do is definitely, definitely important.
And I think that, you know, again, the free event messaging, that's where I was going. Okay. So, you know, you talk about you go to college at this age, so you prepare for college in this window beforehand. Well, if we knew that we were going to die at this age, maybe we'd have a better focus on planning in this period, but we really don't. Right. So as long as we can kick the can down the road, that's always going to be our preference for sure. As people, I think the majority of people now, there are planners, there are people that are better at it than I am, that, you know, plan ahead and all that stuff. I'm.
I do my best work. I feel like. Or maybe I just do most of my work in that fourth quarter, you know, in the. In the last three minutes of the game. That's just how I. I don't know that. That's been my experience. So, you know, we have to figure out a way to have the kind of conversations that keep us top of mind for the future, for when that customer decides to become a customer.
Right. So it's all that development of know, like and trust to the great masses that, that are our potential customer, but not necessarily our customer yet.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I would agree. Yeah. Sometimes you're just simply sprinkling seeds and the goal is at least I'm on the radar screen, you know, so if I walked into your town, I went to the, you know, the, the oldest community restaurant or diner and said, you know, my aunt died. She lives here. We're using a cemetery where, you know, she's going to be buried here.
Who's a monument dealer in town, you know, who's a, you know, who's a retail seller around here that is like, I don't know much about them, but, you know, this, you know, I've seen something about this group, at least that. And you're right, because some, you know, we'll never. The powers of denying our own mortality are impressive, impressive forces to overcome. It would be almost impossible to do that in many cases, but at least be the first call, so to speak. The first place that they Google those sorts of things.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: That's, that's where we, our best, best efforts, I think, would be placed in teaching the general public that we should be their first stop, not their last stop. Because so many decisions that are already made by the time a family comes to see us narrowly define the memorialization options that a family will have. Oftentimes we find a family saying, well, I want to do this or this, and us having the bad news of having to tell the family, well, you know, the property, the place where you have internment rights will not permit you to do this or that.
So getting people to understand that part of the. The equation is also important. But the other thing that I think is interesting that you, you mentioned, and I don't know if I just never put two and two together because, you know, I'm not always the sharpest pencil in the box, but the, the soccer clinic at the college and those kind of things that are putting the public in touch with the institution in a way. They're not talking about come to college here.
They're talking about get to know us. We're offering this, this and this. And then when it comes time for college, they go, oh, yeah, right. So it's about developing those kind of connections with our intended audience.
Well ahead of the time that they're going to purchase. So when they're ready to purchase, your name is already Embedded in their, in their.
Several other reasons, you know, and it's identifying those opportunities. I think that that can be our biggest challenge, for sure. And don't get me wrong, we are certainly one of those firms that's on the. We could certainly do a whole lot better side of that equation than. We've got this all figured out, because we really don't. And you know, like most firms, most small family businesses, that kind of focus often gets pushed to the wayside because you're just so focused on what's here and how to get it out. What's here and how to get it out.
So, you know, kudos to the folks that have a little bit more bandwidth and, and, you know, savvy to say that's not enough.
You know, you have to be, you have to be priming the pump or the pump's going to run dry. So.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Yeah, and I, I think you make a good point. And I think, of course, like, like we've talked about, you know, given the nature of what we do, it to me, it makes the best sense to have something related to the business and what you do. You know, I guess you could give away coupons for sandwiches or car washes or whatever, but it's not connected to what you do. That's why I think some form of, of grief support or those sorts of things naturally fits with what you do and, and kind of naturally eats people back where you can. Like we're gonna.
So I was a college professor. Just a quick story.
And I started working with end of life businesses because I met a local funeral homeowner and he wanted me to. Grief and losses always been my area of research. And he's like, I really care about having good, accurate information.
I want you to review our grief support materials that we hand out. And I said, yeah, sure. And then I said, actually, these are pretty outdated. And he said, you know, if you write something, I would buy it from you and I would just give it to our families. And I thought, oh, you know, instead of. I just come back from a grief conference where I'd presented to five people and spent a year on the research study and had gone nowhere. I'm like, I could actually write something that would help anybody. So I think because a professor was actually doing something useful, the local paper was just kind of, you know, did a small story on it and, and we were handing out free booklets and those sorts of things. This is 15 years ago. And we had, they had a woman drive across town and walk in the front door to the funeral home and, and to get a grief booklet. And when they asked, they just said, you know, my, unfortunately, six months ago, my adult daughter died in a different state. I'm worried about my grandkids.
So think about that for just a second. In the age of Google, she drove across town because she heard that somebody had a resource that would help somebody that she cared about, and she walked through the front door. Now, when she, and she was, you know, someone who had moved to the town five years ago, didn't know anybody else, who's she going to call when she needs a funeral home? She's already been there. They had, they had an answer for a question that was important to her. Those sorts of situations, you know, it's a, it is not much to do. But those ways of connecting and the opportunity to build the relationship and build that trust, are there other creative ways to do it? Obviously, like I said, I, that's what I focus on. So that's, those are the examples that I have. But we need to be, yeah, we ideally, we want to be doing something like that to kind of reach more families to have that first opportunity to serve them in a way.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: Right.
Well, Jason, this is quite a topic for sure. I think that we could all use a leg up in bringing this back home to our businesses.
In February, we'll talk a little bit more about the religious affiliation and how that impacts, how the impact of that has changed over the last 40, 50 years or generation, what have you. We'll talk about how monument builders can connect with families and educate them. Some strategies for that. I don't want to, I don't want to give away any of those tidbits today, but I want to tell folks that they will be there in Dallas Fort Worth come February. So at this point, I think it's time to thank Jason Troyer for taking time out of his day to spend it with us and to educate us a little bit. I want to thank the audience for taking time out of your day to hear what Jason had to say and hopefully you found it interesting. The November issue of MB News has an article from Dr. Troyer expanding on the trends reshaping memorialization.
And registration is now open to attend NB University in Fort Worth in February. To learn more, details are online at www.monimalbuilders.org.
if you have a topic you'd like to have covered in a future podcast or NB News article, please leave a comment there. For MB News, I'm Michael Johns. I want to thank you for taking time out of your day to listen again. If you found this worthwhile, please take a minute and share the link with a friend for comments and feedback. We love to hear from you. As always, please drop us a
[email protected] so with that, I'll say again, thank you to Jason and all of you. Hope you have a great rest of the day.
