By Joey Haas
Transcription: Interview with Josh Rae from Golden Considerations
Megan:
Welcome and thanks for joining Funeral Innovations: Trends, Tips and Tech. In these videos we’re going to chat with industry leaders to discuss marketing trends, technology innovations, and how digital marketing helps you better serve your families. I’m Megan and I’m a client success manager here at Funeral Innovations.
Heather:
And I’m Heather. I’m the director of marketing.
Megan:
So today our guest is Josh Rae. He’s from Golden Considerations and he’s going to talk about the state of pre-need and just some recent changes that we’ve seen in the industry. So as you all know, the novel coronavirus pandemic has really reshaped the way that we’ve interacted with one another and changed the way that we’ve done business. So we’ve asked Josh to join us today to chat about how pre-need and pre planning has been going since the pandemic. So again, thank you Josh for joining us.
Josh:
Yeah, thank you for having me, Megan.
Megan:
Yeah, of course. So just to kind of kick things off here, can you please just tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do and what Golden Considerations is?
Josh:
Yeah, sure. I am third generation death care. My grandfather was a funeral director. My dad was a funeral director, you know, they say, once you get into this industry, you can’t get out. So here I am. When I was six years old, we moved to York, Pennsylvania, where I still live. And my dad took a job with kind of the legendary, the icon in the industry, Ernie Hefner to run his pre-need program. And in the first few days, Ernie walked in to my dad’s desk and said, hey, your new leads are here for the year. And he flopped a big yellow pages down onto his desk. And so that’s where we started a phone books. I know some people don’t know they existed, but that’s where we started, you know, 30 years ago. And it’s been a windy path. But I would say it’s suffices to say I’ve had the real honor of watching my dad and a few other very hardworking people kind of lived the American dream and built something from nothing. And last year we did over $130 million of pre-need. So it’s been a really exciting story. Now, things have changed this year. But I guess long story short, like most of death care, it’s a good case of nepotism, that’s how I’m here. At GC, we have kind of a unique approach to pre-need. That was one of the things my dad kind of created and brought. It’s the industry and that’s that we don’t work with just one carrier. Whereas most pre-need reps and companies, you know, it’s like that old adage of if all you have is a hammer, every one is a nail. We work with all the major carriers in the business, which allows us to provide actual impartial advice. We’re able to take the consultative approach from products to marketing to sales staff, the whole nine yards. No two firms are identical and no two firms should be treated the same way. So we, we find their needs and desires and we try to match them with the appropriate products and services. We work with everything from mom and pops to large, 10 location enterprise accounts and we’re in 37 States.
Megan:
Fantastic. Thanks Josh. So you just kind of talk about, you know, what, like you mentioned things have changed recently. So what is the state of pre-need right now given the pandemic and just, you know that crisis that we’re facing. Can you just talk about that a little bit?
Josh:
Sure. yeah, and honestly it’s, it’s pretty brutal out there is the, is the tough reality. I’ve spoken with many, you know, higher ups at various carriers and I’d say the general sentiment is pre-need programs are down at about 70%. So a pretty dramatic impact on revenue for funeral firms that depend on that. When it comes to agents, it’s really all across the board. You have kind of the most traditional super passive firms that just essentially, write Medicaid spend down business. They’ve probably been the least affected. And then I would say those firms that are very aggressive in their pre-need programs and do a lot of outbound marketing, the ones that have actually continued with that they’re actually doing all right. It’s, I’d say the firms that are in kind of the middle of the road who have been hardest hit. I would say that the one silver lining in all of this is unlike let’s say, restaurants or pro sports leagues where, you know, people either ate at home or they watch Netflix instead. They’re, there still is essentially all this pent up demand. There are all these people who otherwise would have preplanned but it just didn’t happen because of what’s happened in the country. So I think that our general sentiment is we’re pretty bullish about you know, the, the future here, we think that once things reopened, there’s going to be a lot of opportunity.
Heather:
So from a marketing perspective, at Funeral Innovations, at the beginning of the pandemic, we saw a real retraction from any sort of advertising or marketing around pre-need and a real pushback from communities for anybody who was marketing pre-need. But that’s kind of been shifting a little bit, I’d say in the past month. Have you guys seen that too? That there, there is a maybe a return to normalcy or some returned to how some returned back to how things were just the change in that tenner that people were more receptive again.
Josh:
Well yeah, I think that your point about, I think the retraction was generally in the mind of funeral home owners. You know, they were afraid to put out marketing and it’s not, it’s not totally their fault. You know, you don’t want to come across as ambulance chasing. So there is a fine line and you don’t want to walk across that. That being said, there’s a lot of soft touch pieces. We, I mean kind of the bread and butter for pre-need marketing for 20 years has been direct mail surveys, community surveys. We’ve had some firms that never stopped, never altered the course of those. And there’s one guy, an agent down in Maryland who is about to set records for a brand new agent. This guy was the funeral director for 10 years. He’s, he’s not an experienced veteran pre-need sales person and he is about to have a record year because he never stopped. He just kept working. So I’m not sure how much of that was in kind of the mind of the funeral director to, to pull back because I think that, I mean, if seniors aren’t faced with their mortality now, you know, will they ever be, so it’s, it’s gotta be the right messaging. But I certainly, we are gearing up across the board for some major marketing efforts with anybody who will listen to us.
Heather:
And what is that you say you have to be the right messaging. What are you seeing that’s really successful? Or how are you softening the message or changing it or are you changing it at all?
Josh:
Yeah, I mean we’re definitely, you know, there’s a, it’s probably too basic to break it just in half as to like aggressive and passive marketing, but we’ve always kind of, as I said, steered towards community survey type advertisements that would eventually be nurtured into an opportunity for a sale. I would say in terms of some of the digital programs and Facebook ads we’ve run you kind of, you frame it as, look, we’re, we are putting this out here because we’ve had so many requests from the community for information, which is true. Funeral homes have been getting calls like never before. So you’re just, you’re trying to answer the call. You’re trying to provide information that people are seeking. And if you frame the marketing message in that way, I think it’s, people are much more receptive saying, hey, look, they’re responding to, to us rather than trying to ram something down our throats.
Heather:
That makes total sense. Megan, did you have another question?
Megan:
Josh as you talk about the right messaging and things that are working you know, can you just talk about what or what’s, what’s something important that you think funeral directors should know as they’re navigating pre need and just that, that new messaging?
Josh:
Hmm. Two things occur to me. The first is we were so lucky, we made a hire just a month before this whole thing broke out and hired a digital strategist. Keith, if you’re listening, we really appreciate all your efforts and I’m so thankful you’re on the staff. I’ve been able to sit in on having Keith speak with a lot of our clients and do some consulting for them and you know, it’s just been completely eye opening on so many levels. So that is just one of the things I think funeral homes need to get sharp on and, and death care always tends to get, we were like 10 years lagged behind the rest of the industries out there. So we need to play catch up and play catch up faster than ever when it comes to everything digital on the pre-need side and kind of get into nuts and bolts of the products. And if you’re a funeral home owner or decision maker, you need to understand this, get out of the high growth pre-need products right now. For those of you who don’t know, generally commissions and growth rates are kind of on a seesaw. You trade one for the other, they’re inversely related. And the growth rates that the insurance carriers provide are discretionary. And with what the federal reserve has done over the last two months to kind of help the economy survive. Interest rates have gone down into negative territories on a nominal basis at least. So find a provider, here’s if all that economic jargon doesn’t make any sense. Find a provider who can pay you the most commission possible. Don’t worry about the growth rates, the growth rates are gonna get cut. This is a situation of a bird in the hand versus two in the bush and the two in the bush are about to get shot. So take, take what you can with the commission.
Megan:
Thanks Josh. You know, you’re, you’re talking about some of the things that funeral directors do. What’s one of the biggest mistakes you see that funeral directors are tending to do? Whether it’s you know, before the pandemic or just because of what’s happening and some advice you can give.
Josh:
Well, I mean we kind of touched on it previously. I would say that if you’re not gearing up for heavy marketing right now, you’re making a massive mistake. The combination of the pent up demand mixed with the fact that seniors have this sense of mortality that they haven’t seen in a century. I think the next few months after reopening should be one of the biggest opportunities to grab market share in our lifetimes. And the firms that sit on the bench are going to be punished for that because others will be going for it. So put your, whatever you have left in your marketing budget get ready and when you have a chance to reopen, I would put it out there because we’ve seen basically across the board from traditional direct mail surveys to online Facebook webinars to just, you know, a basic online advert to a squeeze page. Any type of advertisement has performed better than normal, so long as it doesn’t cross that line that kind of Heather was talking about earlier where it appears to be ambulance chasing.
Heather:
If I could just have one follow up question on that. I’m, do you think there’s going to be a deeper market do on top of it being a bull market and kind of the traditional age group, do you think younger people are going to be more interested in pre-planning?
Josh:
Do you have any evidence for that at this point? You know, that’s actually an interesting question. I sure hope so because from a premium perspective, commission is much, much better for younger age groups. So that would be one, fantastic. I don’t, I can’t point to any specific evidence there Heather. One thing we have done and this is just a tip for anybody who’s doing any type of digital marketing, we’ve stopped restricting the, basically the ads to specific demographics, whereas before, kind of the, the, the run of the mill advice was 65 plus females are you who you target regardless of what type of marketing you’re doing. Mmm. Especially with like Facebook or Google, we’ve opened it up and kind of allowed their algorithms to do the work of identifying the right audience. So that doesn’t really answer your question. Although I guess we’ll see from the results of that in the near future cause that’s a change we’ve made in the last few months. If we start, you know, garnering a younger audience that would be an even greater effect than I think some of these other forces at play because the, as I said, the younger audiences and younger clients that are extremely profitable in the pre need world.
Heather:
But I just, I wondered because my husband and I are in our late forties and we’ve never talked about pre-planning despite the fact that I’m in the funeral industry. But this is the first time we’ve really been like, this is probably something we should make a plan for to protect our kids, you know?
Josh:
Yeah, absolutely. I, I’m not quite sure generally speaking, traditionally the younger audiences are more inclined to be purchasing things like term insurance or traditional what’s called a final expense insurance that’s not specifically tied to merchandise from a funeral home. No. However, with what you see in the, in the growth of cremation, which has been one of the largest forces over the last 15 years in the pre-need industry, driving kind of face values down the affordability, let’s say for a younger person to purchase a lower dollar amount cremation pre-need is, is greater. It’s more affordable for them and the premiums could line up with what they’re probably paying with final expense insurance. So, I mean, honestly, it’s, it’s a very interesting thought and something I’d like to test. Hmm.
Heather:
It’s interesting. I’ll keep bugging you about your results.
Josh:
Yeah, please do. That’s really interesting.
Heather:
Yeah, super interesting. How do you see pre need and pre planning changing over the coming months, either due to the pandemic or just what did you see as trends approaching before the pandemic and do those still apply?
Josh:
Yeah, so in regard to that last piece, I think that we were finally seeing a transition from traditional marketing methods to digital. And so I think that this entire pandemic has sped up that transition and we’re going to see kind of the optimization and refinement of digital sales funnels generally. So, you know, it took 40 years for that to get refined on the direct mail side of things. And what we’re probably going to see that get refined down into some basic models that are just effective at a, at a minimum on the digital front. I think that, you know, agents are going to have to become more methodical and adept at using technology to nurture their client base. Especially if we have this whole new normal thing where people were hesitant to meet in person, it’s going to be really important. You know, a lot of counselors would just count on the fact, hey, if I can get belly to belly with somebody, I can, I can make the sale 40% of the time. Well, if you’re talking to somebody on a webinar or on the phone, the chances are that percentage is going to drop. You know, because you don’t have that interpersonal play that you benefit from as a sales person. So I think you’re going to need more at bats to be effective in the pre-need world. And you know, things like CRMs and other technologies help you keep track of those at-bats and, and optimize those at-bats. So I, you know, to echo again, I think all the changes that have come to other sales industries are finally coming to pre-need. All that being said, the demographics are in our favor for the next 10 years. I think that the, the frame of mind of seniors and perhaps younger people as you alluded to is positive. So I think our services are more in demand than ever. We just need to be, have the right tools and the right mindset to approach it.
Heather:
I’ll just piggyback on that and say that something I’ve talked internally with my sales team about as while in-person meetings are dropping if you need more at that. So you can do more virtual meetings than you ever could in person meetings with people being late and scheduling time to come in. And so you have more opportunity for at-bats, too.
Josh:
I mean it couldn’t, it’s so true from our perspective. We have a staff of what we call regional directors who are our work with our funeral home clients around the country. And traditionally those reps were out pounding pavement, you know, cold calling funeral homes, knocking on a door, establishing a relationship. It’s something like our sales cycle is something like 18 months of visiting a new territory before we start winning funeral home accounts. You know, it would be like how Funeral Innovations approaches funeral homes. It’s probably a much shorter window cause you’ve been focused on digital for so long. But the transformation that’s taken place internally on our team teaching some of these folks who, you know, always hated a zoom meeting or a RingCentral meeting to how to use these tools. And as you said, get in front of many more people. Cause if you’re driving from funeral home to funeral home and that’s your, that’s the old normal, you know, you might be able to see six people a day if you’re lucky. Whereas you can potentially talk to 20, 30 people a day in this fashion. So yeah, I mean everybody’s going through it. It’s, and it’s, it’s kinda nice because you don’t have to look stupid, you know, as you learn something because everybody’s a little more forgiving as we all get our noses bloody so to speak with the technology.
Heather:
Excellent point. It’s a perfect time to learn cause everybody’s doing it.
Josh:
Exactly. Exactly.
Heather:
Megan, did you have other questions?
Megan:
We have one more question for you. Josh. This is a question that we ask everybody on video interviews here. So what’s the biggest lesson that you’ve learned from serving in this industry? Whether it’s just because of the pandemic and things that you’ve learned over the past few months or just over your entire time being in the industry? The biggest lesson.
Josh:
I’d say something that comes to mind is, you know, you, you, people from the outside looking in always say and joke that like death care is recession-proof. But I would say we recently learned is it’s not the case and this doesn’t just go towards pre-need. I mean, funeral homes on an at-need basis are getting crushed as well, where all the traditional services are drying up. It’s, it’s all extremely small scale services or obviously a lot more cremation and there’s not as much margin generally speaking in those products. So no, we’re not recession proof. I’d say that that kind of teaches me that you can’t ever take anything for granted in business. You always need to stay focused on trying to improve the lot of, of your customer. We’re privileged to work with many of the very best agents and funeral homes in the country and you know, that’s who we’re looking to serve. I don’t think anybody really knows where we’ll find ourselves in six months, but I really feel bad for the funeral homes and agents. that have to go it alone. Or if you’re just with some big monolithic insurance company you need somebody experienced to consult with and to try to build a plan with. And so yeah, I’d say that’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned.
Heather:
Well, thank you so much for your insights. This has been really great for me to hear what you guys are thinking and I appreciate you sharing your insight with them with our audience. We will post this on our Facebook page, our blog, and our YouTube channel. Anybody who’s listening to the playback, feel free to reach out to us if you would like to see a topic covered or like to see us interview someone, we do reach out to people if we get suggestions. So just leave a comment on our Facebook page or you can email us at info@funeral innovations.com. And we hope you all stay well out there. And Josh, thank you so much for your time today.
Josh:
Thank you, Heather. Thank you, Megan. Nice meeting you.
