By Joey Haas
Transcript from our video interview with Julie Farrell at PlanHero
Heather:
Hi everyone. And thanks for checking in with us at Funeral Innovations: Trends, Tips and Technology, where we chat with industry leaders to discuss marketing trends, business tips, and technology innovation. Plus, we discuss how digital digital marketing helps you better serve your families. I’m Heather Mierzejewski. I am the marketing director here at Funeral Innovations.
Joey:
And I’m Joey Haas. I’m the marketing and design coordinator at Funeral Innovations.
Heather:
And today our guest is Julie Farrell. She is the founder of PlanHero. We’re so glad that you’re with us today.
Julie:
It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.
Heather:
Awesome, to kick us off, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself, your role at PlanHero, what PlanHero is, who you serve, that sort of thing?
Julie:
Sure, absolutely. So my background is in engineering early with the chicks and tech. And so I had a full professional life, mostly in aerospace and industrial lasers. And then when I became a mother, I decided to stay home with my kids, so I did a lot of volunteering. And this is leading to an actual answer to your question which is I found that in volunteering and serving on a number of nonprofit boards and also public school board, I found that there were a lot of inefficiencies in how people organized groups. So a couple of years ago I started thinking, gosh, there’s gotta be an easier way to do this. There’s a real problem here, and there’s no reason why we should all be looking around for who’s going to organize the next big event, whether it’s a fundraiser or something for the community. So that was sort of the Genesis of PlanHero was to make things more efficient for people who want to get things done. And from that, that really grew into realizing that we had the ability to help not only, you know, volunteers for schools or for nonprofits, but also help professionals with organizing things in their offices, whether that’s for community outreach for, you know, everything from fortune 500 companies down to small organizations who are doing great things within their, you know, limited community area to sports organizations. I mean, you name it. So we sort of run the gamut. We do a lot of work with faith organizations as well, where they’re organizing small groups or outings within their communities. So it’s really a platform for organizing groups and we call it seriously simple group organizing. So we kind of had the advantage of a lot of really good software that’s come forward and been able to start a little later than some of the other folks. So ours is very intuitive in, in, in easy to use.
Joey:
Great. So could you talk a little bit more specifically about how PlanHero works and how the software functions, like how do people organize events through PlanHero, that kind of thing?
Julie:
Sure. Absolutely. So I’ll make an example outside of your industry. But then everyone could relate to, so let’s say that you’re having a community a cleanup day, maybe you’re it’s for the park and you want anybody within the community to sign up and help out. So you need people who are going to plant the flower beds. You need people to maybe paint the small building where all this storage equipment is and the maintenance equipment, and you want people picking up trash and that kind of thing. So you would maybe have each of those items listed out and you’d have timeframes. One thing we’ve learned is that people don’t really want to volunteer for large amounts of time. They, you know, if you can make it an hour or two hours and you can know that you can surgically get in and do your thing and get out, that’s great. So we have time slots that you can sign up for. So with our software, you would just create, you put in a description, you’d put in the time slots that you want, and maybe you need people to bring things like flowers from the nursery down the street, or trash bags or snacks or whatever. You can have things to bring. And you’d annotate all of those things. And our software is very easy to use in terms of it’s very visual. So it’s like, okay, well obviously this is the next thing I click on. And then I put in a list name and how many people I need to do that. And then you launch it and then you’ve got a link and you just shoot that link out. Two an already-existing email list or you would shoot it out onto social media or all of the above to get folks to sign up. And that’s that’s sort of the broad side of it. We also have a team tool for sports teams. And then we have a club tool that are for things like a 4H club, a girl scout club or we found that organizations really liked to use it because it has some branding, some white labeling and it as well, so that their logo is what shows up on an email confirmation or a reminder notification, which by the way, those are all automated. So you don’t have to remind people about things.
Heather:
So that’s great. Can you talk a little bit about why your software is so important now because of the pandemic and maybe any adjustments you had to make once March hit?
Julie:
Yes, absolutely. And I well, in my previous life, I would have said it’s a signkrzoid, but now I’ll say it’s a roller coaster. Because we really, at the beginning of COVID saw this nasty drop-off and we’re a relatively young company, so it was really hard to see people unsubscribing, you know, we’re immediately reaching out and saying, hey, is there anything we’ve done here? And there’s, they, they, their response was no, we’re not having a fundraiser this year. We can’t have any events, we can’t gather. And therefore we’re not organizing groups, right. Because all of us at the beginning of COVID were no one knew understood what was going on. You know, people pulled back and obviously we had the, the shutdowns. So people were also very concerned financially, so they were cutting wherever they could in terms of their expense line items. So initially that was a little bit shocking to us. We were happy to know it wasn’t because we did something wrong, but it’s nonetheless it’s okay. Well, we organize groups. So we definitely needed to look for that silver lining and see where we can help people. And we found all kinds of different applications for things like a County testing facility where they’ve got testing sites all over the County and they need volunteers to help direct the cars. You know, I don’t know if you all have been tested yet or not, but you go through that process and you’ve got volunteers showing you which way to go. And so they have people who sign up to be volunteers to do COVID testing. So it’s a different kind of gathering and things like public swimming pools over the summer. That was another interesting one where they want people to be able to swim, but they can only have they, they put families in two-hour allotments and you could only have, you know, 10 families in the pool at once. So it was just a real shift in terms of what the usages were. Another big one is faith organizations where people really wanted to get back together in person and could only have maybe 50 people in their sanctuary or their synagogue. So that was another use care.
Joey:
Gotcha. And so kind of along those lines, could, would, would you mind talking about how you guys help funeral homes serve their families?
Julie:
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s that’s, that’s been really interesting for us. So obviously when you lose someone and sadly during this process, you know, people have been lost to the pandemic as well as other natural causes, you want to get together and pay your respects, right? And, and really remember that person and celebrate their life. And for the funeral professionals, that’s been a real challenge because wherever you are, you have your local regulations, right? There’s the state. And then the County level regulations that limit how many people can get together at one time. And what we found in starting to work with some of the funeral professionals was that they wanted to be able to have people, you know, get together, but still not expose anybody. I mean, the last thing of course you want to do when you’re dealing with this death is exposed someone else to something that could be life-threatening. So what we did is we worked together to where there’s really sort of two ways that, that funeral professionals are using us and that’s for visitations. They will have either maybe a 10 or a 20 minute time slot and they’ll have X number of people. So they might say from, you know, 9:00 AM to 9:10, you can have eight people. And then the next 10 minutes slot is another eight people. And so people can sign up and know that during their spot, they’re not going to be exposed to more than eight other people. And for the, for the funeral professional, then they know that they’re not exposing others in the wrong way that they’re following regulations. So it was interesting because we very much initially looked at it as we were solving a problem for the funeral directors. And what we’ve learned over the process is that we’ve also really solved a problem for the loved ones in that they can then pay their respects and celebrate the life of someone whom they love. But in addition, they can see clearly on their signup that there will only be so many people there. And that’s really comforting to them to know that they’re not going to be exposed to a lot of other folks. My parents are older in their late eighties and, you know, they’re worried about going out, but if their friends pass away and they’ve seen a lot of that, they want to feel comfortable going and paying their respects. And you kind of forget what that phrase really is because it’s used so much, but you do want to go and actually physically be there. So, sorry, long-winded answer Joey, but that’s essentially what we’re doing.
Heather:
That’s a great answer. And I think we talked to one of our clients that have been using you. They said they have about 75% of their families that come through, sign up through PlanHero. And another benefit they mentioned was that a lot of the families, the family members who are staying at the firm the whole time, they really like to know who’s coming next so that they can anticipate they’re going to see Joe or the Smith family or whoever. So it really gives them a sense of who to expect when and helps them negotiate that.
Julie:
Yeah, I, and I hadn’t really thought about that. That’s fantastic. My sister actually lost her husband just a month ago when it was it, you know, it’s that same thing, you know, who’s coming in and knowing that is very important now.
Heather:
Yeah. so do you offer any specialized services or features specifically for funeral homes?
Julie:
I think the biggest thing would be just these, the time spots we’ve made it really easy for them to lay that out. I mean, literally you can whip it up in a couple of minutes and have that all set. And then our reminder notifications, we send out your, or you as the organizer can choose to send out two of those. And it could be like one day before and then the other one comes out, you know, two hours before so that people are reminded that they’re coming. And in addition, the user can choose to receive text messages as reminders too. So that’s, I think those are really nice things. And then we also have a post that outlines, you know, how to set it up with some video content so that we make it really easy to do that. And then we’re always happy to dive in directly and help people out, which we have done a number of times. Because it kind of depends on how you’re set up within your physical structure too. If you have a good way of saying people enter here and people leave here, then you could have like those 20 minute sessions back to back. But if that isn’t quite the way things work out within your facility, then you may want to have a five minute gap in between each group and we can handle either one of those. So there’s a little bit of a different setup to do that, but that’s that’s all there too.
Heather:
Yup. Very interesting. Do the funeral homes get the contact information from there later? Is that saved in the system?
Julie:
Yeah. Great question. Yeah. So, so we have two things that we offer so they can download a PDF and that PDF would be the thing that would show them what you were alluding to earlier, Heather, which would be who’s coming at what time. So they could sort of, the family could be looking at that as well as the funeral director. But then we can take a CSV file of everything. So when someone signs up in order to confirm their sign-up, they have to enter their name and they have to enter their email address. So those are both in there. And then optionally, you can choose to check a box for your event settings that collects a phone number. So that’s kind of handy, you know, if you need to call and say, Hey, you know, you were going to be here. Did you remember, do you want us to reschedule or something like that? But in addition, if the, if the funeral professional wanted to be getting that information too, they would get it. So now it’s in a CSV file. And as you know, a CSV file can be uploaded into any email clients, so that constant contact or whatever to them, you know, talk about your services later to other folks. Oh, I should say, sorry, there is one more thing. Once you set up your first say visitation template then you can duplicate that as well. So you wouldn’t have to, you know, you can change the individual’s name and you know, if you’re, if you’re sort of always doing it from 11 to one or something that would already be done, it’s easy to change that too, but you can duplicate. So that, again, that we’re all about efficiency and saving time. So that saves some additional time as well.
Joey:
That’s great. And I, yeah, I think that you were just mentioning the, like customizability of PlanHero. I just think that’s so great. Cause obviously like different families might want different things. So yes, like even though duplicating saves time, I think it’s great that the, the software set up so easily, so that funeral directors, you know, can organize it which, you know, best suits their needs. So that’s awesome.
Julie:
Yeah, absolutely.
Joey:
Yeah. And so I just wanted to hear your thoughts on what makes PlanHero different from other organizing tools?
Julie:
Well, one thing I mentioned earlier is I think we’re a little bit newer on the block, which I, you know, that, that leads to a couple of things. One thing, we’re very customer centric, so we’re very responsive to our customers which I do think sets us apart from a service and sales perspective. We are much more visually oriented and more intuitive because we’re able to take advantage of more modern software. So our competitors mostly started around the 2009/2010 timeframe. And if you think back to, you know, when you first had your iPhone or when Mark Zuckerberg was starting with Facebook, you know, we’re not too far into it at that point. So we were able to really make ours a web based app that’s fully responsive and looks great on any device. So that’s part of it, just the aesthetic is better, the user experiences better. But the, the other major one is we don’t do any banner ads on our sign-ups ever. And that was kind of part of my frustration when I did finally realize, Oh, wait, there is some stuff out there that wouldn’t do some of this stuff. And we were, we were looking at it. There’s sort of that premium model that you can use, but you get ads on it. And then, you know, as you start going up into the, to paying for a subscription, you know, you get X number of signups without ads, and then you start getting ads and then you’ve got to pay the next level up. So it just gets complicated. And I, you know, for me, if it’s my family member and I’m sending a signup out, I don’t want my signup to also say on the sidebar, you know, “female balding, click here” you know, on an ad and, and I’ve literally had one and I’m not balding yet, but not that there’s anything wrong with it. But I think that really keeps us more professional looking than sort of having that like, kind of feel like it’s, it’s makes it harder for folks to see what they’re supposed to do. You know, and I get it, there’s a, trade-off economically for how you do that, but ours is, we really want it to be clean, you know where you’re supposed to click. And I think particularly for you know, the applications where you have folks in the older age groups, it’s really important that it’s super simple to click that sign-up button and confirm and be done with it. Yeah.
Heather:
Yeah. And I think particularly in the funeral profession, that kind of concurrent advertising is just very unpleasant to a lot of people. Like a lot of people don’t want. That makes sense.
Julie:
It just, it, it seems like they’re at loggerheads with each other.
Heather:
Yeah. Yeah. So what kinds of technology GE, what kinds of technology trends do you see happening in the next year? It could be like, if you want to talk about the scheduling space or do you, have you seen any specific new things happening?
Julie:
You know, Zoom is a verb now, right? I’m going to Zoom just like, can you Google that? Right? you know, two years ago I had someone introduced me to Zoom and maybe a year and a half ago and is brand new for me. And now it’s, you know, it’s all part of our lexicon. So I, I really think, I think the pandemic has forced us into this notion that we don’t have to hop on an airplane to go see someone, you know, again, pros and cons to that. But I think, I think that we’re really going to be doing a lot more of just what we’re doing right here, and it’s much more acceptable and and will become the norm. So I do think that scheduling things online, having things sinking with your calendars and, and doing a lot more things virtually will definitely be a big part of it.
Joey:
That’s great. Yeah so this is our last question. We ask everybody this question. So what is the biggest lesson you’ve learned since serving in your profession?
Julie:
In my profession or within the funeral area?
Joey:
Well, it could be both, you know, obviously you guys serve a large range of customers and so it could be within funeral industry or the planning space.
Julie:
This is actually super easy, Joey. And it makes me, I mean, I can’t now, now you’re blurry, but it’s really important to me actually, especially, you know, given where we are in America right now, and that is, there are so many great people in this country and they’re all out there helping people in their community and really want people to do better. They want to give them a hand up. They want to give him not, not a handout, but, you know, let me help you in any way I can. And it gets super corny for me, but I, I, it is, it is such a treat for me to get to see that really from the inside out. And we hear all the vitriol you know, in the news. And what I see is a country full of great people, no matter their political persuasion. And it’s very clear, you know, you can see which side they probably are on politically on every side, just great people out there doing really good things to help other people out. And within the funeral industry, what I’ve seen is people who genuinely want to help people celebrate somebody’s life. And it was striking to me how genuine that is as well. So for me, it’s just, it’s great. Because I get to feel really good about our country, regardless of what’s going on, because I get to see what people are really doing on, on the, on the ground.
Heather:
So I would say that’s the best answer we could’ve gotten on election day. This won’t go out in our email till later, but yeah, great, great message to have. So love that. I love that answer.
Joey:
Well said, definitely. So thank you so much, Julie. We really appreciate your time. And thanks for joining us this week in Funeral Innovations: Trends, Tips, and Technology. So we’ll be posting this video on our blog, on our YouTube channel, and you’ll be able to access it on our Facebook feed. And we’ll be back with another show soon. So check back in with us next week. If you have any topics you’d like to see discussed or someone you’d like to hear from, in an interview add it in the comments down below, and if you’re looking to schedule a funeral service or organize remembrance services of your own, make sure to visit PlanHero’s website, which will be linked at the end of this video, and be sure to download our free Remembrance Services ebook, which will be linked in the description box below. Thank you so much. Have a great day and stay well!
