Transcript from our video interview with Barbara Kemmis at Cremation Association of North America (CANA)
Heather:
Hi everyone. And thanks for checking in with us at Funeral Innovations, Trends, Tips and Technology, where we chat with leaders in the profession to discuss marketing trends, business tips, and technology innovation. And we talk about how digital marketing helps you better serve your families. I’m Heather Mierzejewski. I am the Marketing Director here at Funeral Innovations
Alex:
And I’m Alex McCracken, the VP of sales here at Funeral Innovations.
Heather:
And today we’re delighted to have Barbara Kemmis here on the show. She is the Executive Director of the Cremation Association of North America or CANA, as it is known for short. So glad you’re joining us today.
Barbara:
So happy to be here. So great to see you, Heather and Alex. It’s been a long time.
Heather:
It has been too long. We miss you, miss seeing you. So tell us a little bit about yourself and what CANA does to get us started.
Barbara:
Sure. So my role is Executive Director, so I’m the chief staff officer and I came to CANA through associations just a little over nine years ago, coming up on 10 years. And I’ve worked in a variety of different associations in the past. So I’m not a funeral director, but my members are funeral directors, cemetarians, crematory operators and managers, suppliers who serve all of the above, students, consultants, basically, anyone who or any business that is interested in cremation.
Alex:
That’s great. And can you tell me a little bit about the mission that CANA has nd,a and who the ideal people you serve are?
Barbara:
Absolutely. Our mission is to be the leading authority in cremation. So we were founded in 1913 by cemetarians who were interested in bringing the practice of cremation from Europe to the United States. That’s a whole interesting story in its own because how far have we come? Right? Our members are more than cemetarians now. They’re basically like I said, anyone who is interested in learning best practices in cremation and, and providing cremation services, whether that’s cremations itself at a crematory or a memorialization of cremation or cremation services to the public.
Heather:
That’s great. So let’s talk a little bit about last year. It was clearly a rather unusual one and hopefully an anomaly. So looking back a little bit, reflecting on 2020, what do you think were the biggest trends you saw?
Barbara:
Yeah, a lot of the trends we observed kind of continued in the “before times”, as I like to say now, the pandemic times and why do I look forward to the next times? But we saw a trend, a steady increase in cremation rates across the country. So I’ll start with that. We also saw a trend toward direct cremation, unfortunately. CANA believes that cremation is preparation for memorialization, but too often people were choosing cremation, taking the urn home and saying, “Oh, we’ll do it ourselves, or do something later,” or, you know, not making decisions at the time of death about what to do with those cremated remains. So I’ll reference some of those things as we talk. But first the cremation rates, we noticed a slow and steady increase basically from the 1970s of about one and a half percent cremation rate growth year over year until last year until the last year. And we did a snapshot study where we looked at the pandemic months, six months, the first six months of the pandemic and saw that that cremation rate had jumped to at least two and a half percent, as much as 3% in some areas.
So that’s twice, twice the growth rate. Now some of your listeners will hear that and think “that’s crazy. My cremation rate jumped, you know, five times exponentially” because it kind of felt like that all around because often when we think of cremation, we think of that direct disposition, no services. And so for a lot of funeral homes, crematories, and cemeteries, they saw their caseload increase with total numbers. And then on top of that, it felt like the cream, the percentage or the rate was increasing because they weren’t providing the gathering services, funerals, celebrations of life, whatever you want to call them due to the restrictions that the pandemic placed on those businesses. So it’s kind of a double whammy. It was all of a sudden our members were in the position of having to say “no” to families when that’s all they were about is saying, “yes, what can we do to make this service meaningful and helpful to you?”
Nope. Now all of a sudden new restrictions using zoom for the first time for a lot of them right now, they’re now they’re experts. And then just trying to manage the sheer caseload, you know, the sheer numbers of deaths. And unfortunately, that’s one of the things we’ve tracked throughout the pandemic that in the first few months, as you reflect back, it was primarily first in Seattle and then in New York and in the Northeast. And we kind of thought, Oh, maybe this is an urban thing, right? Maybe this is just going to be limited to cities. And alas no fast forward a year. And it’s pretty much everywhere in the country, right. The death rates are up significantly.
Alex:
Yeah. That’s really interesting about the kind of double whammy and in how you know, the funeral professionals have had to adjust to it. And I’m curious if you’ve seen any trends in terms of how the success, the most successful funeral professionals have managed that. I mean, what were the things that maybe they did before the pandemic that prepped them for this transition? And also what about during, were there things that you saw that really determined whether they had more or less success in handling this rapid change?
Barbara:
That’s such a great question. I think our members, those with a service mindset that their mission was about providing excellent service probably responded more quickly and, and were able to, to change on a dime. But I remember talking to members thinking, you know, if you’d asked me, you know, say in April two months ago, if I’d be doing arrangements via zoom or FaceTime, if I would, if I would have to turn people away from the door of my business, right. And, and force them to, to make arrangements by phone or, or screen, I would’ve thought you were crazy. I would never do online arrangements. Right. I would never, ever, ever consider doing that. Our strength is face-to-face and in person. And then as soon as that was taken away, boom, they had to transition to do what they do best. And it turns out their strength isn’t face-to-face, their strength is service and their strength is connecting with the families and getting what they need there. So it was incredible to me to see how quickly that member’s adapted to and learns new technology. I’ll give you a personal example. My grandmother died on March 22nd. So it was really the week after the lockdown. And I remember, you know, really, I mean, here in my workday, I’m talking to members every day about, okay, well, “who’s doing what” and “how can we change?” And there was a lot of kind of drinking from a fire hose of all this information about the virus and what we could do or couldn’t do. And meanwhile, then my grandmother dies and I talked to my mom, who’s in Texas. My grandmother died in Iowa. I’m in Illinois.
What are we going to do? How are we can’t be there? We can’t go there. We’re locked down. And it was the funeral director who, while making arrangements with my mother said, well, you know, we can live stream via YouTube for the graveside service. And we can do a zoom funeral later. And sure enough, that’s exactly what we did. The pastor was at the graveside, the funeral directors set up a YouTube live stream, drop the link in the obituaries. So my relatives all over the country could watch the graveside service. My local relatives were there waving at the camera. They couldn’t see us, but we could see them. And it was, it was incredible. I mean, that was with weeks notice. They had never done a YouTube live stream before this funeral director of this wonderful woman figured this out to make it happen for us. So that’s just one example of how on a dime people figured out, well, if I can do this in my personal life, I can apply this to my business. Right.
Heather:
Well, first of all, sorry about your grandmother. Extra hard time to lose somebody, I think. And second of all, I think I’ve heard this a lot from funeral directors that like this year has taken an emotional toll on them because they’ve been so busy, but they haven’t had that. I hear a lot of them say they haven’t had the time to give that same sort of emotional care in some respects. And they miss that personal interaction even though they really have jumped in. So I just want to acknowledge how hard people are working in the profession. It’s been really impressive and just attribute to the dedication of the professionals. So if you could think a little more about 2020, what would you say the key learnings were for the death care industry in general and for cremation specifically?
Barbara:
Yeah, I think there’s so many. Okay. So I’ll try to organize my thoughts and, and throw out a few. One thing, and this kind of goes back to the previous question of, of trends, one trend I noticed, and maybe this was just me, but I think this was, this was a real trend that more funeral homes in particular, but often cemeteries did community Memorial services. And sometimes they were via Zoom like this. Sometimes they were hybrid, maybe there was an in-person outdoor gathering, but then it was live-streamed. And I think that was so critical because while they may have done that normally around Memorial day or the 4th of July or the end of the year around the holidays, just as a service to the families they serve throughout the year and an acknowledgment that this is a day, a particular day to remember our loved ones.
I think it was a gift to their communities and probably their staff as well to acknowledge that we’re grieving more than just the people who died in 2020, but so much more right. A loss of the way of life. I don’t even have to list it all. We all can, we all can know what we’ve lost in 2020. And I think that was an important way for these members of CANA, but these businesses to connect with their communities and say, Hey, we, you know, we’re your local experts on grief, and we’re going to provide this opportunity to come together safely whether it was virtually or in-person and, and grieve together and remember what we’ve lost. So that, that was something I hope that we retain and continue into the future. I think that was an important lesson learned and a relevance that amongst all of us saying no, that, and the change and the adaptation that funeral professionals had to at the same time, they could sit back and say, wait, I got this right. Fundamentally we know how to help people grieve. So back to the, back to the foundations of what they do, the calling of why they do this, they were still able to, to use that as the foundation of everything they did and then build on that and they did it quickly. So so that’s one of the lessons. I think one of the most important lessons it’s like, okay, we, this, this looks a lot different. This feels a lot different, but fundamentally we know what we’re doing here. Right? We got this.
Alex:
Yeah. You, you mentioned well, I guess first off, I definitely agree about the grief support. I think that is more now than ever needed because the traditional ways that people could understand and process grief are gone, you don’t have that support structure. And I think it’s true to what you’re saying. There’s going to be a lot of community members who come out the other side of this and realize that they didn’t get the proper, proper grief support that they should have. You know, during this time. So you mentioned one of the things that you hope we keep is obviously being, being nimble and being able to be responsive and help these family members, and then the service aspect of it. I mean, that’s always been around, but do you feel like there are other things that have come from this that you hope stick around after, you know, this, this pandemic is over?
Barbara:
Yeah. I think one tough lesson y’all learned is how we as human beings in a service relationship, tend to put others first and not take care of ourselves. And it’s perfectly fine to push through busy seasons and accept this whole year has been a busy season. So many members have said, you know, they’re one of my board members. I was talking to a couple of weeks ago and I asked him if this was a good time. And I thought there’s no good time. There’s never a good time. And his response was, “yeah, the caseload this week is only twice what it was last year, not four times. So I’m feeling pretty relaxed this week.” I mean, wow. Okay. So but I think to this, you know, we’re stretched so thin and there’s, I think there’s a recognition of like, wow, this isn’t sustainable.
And I’ve, I’ve heard from members and we throughout the year have conducted these member COVID calls. We call them, they started out as conference calls, and then we quickly moved to zoom, realizing it’s helpful to see each other when we can’t be together. And we’ve talked about everything from, you know, proper disinfecting all the way now, vaccines are the topic on everyone’s mind right now, but also on like, how can we care for each other? So in December, we partnered with Canadian funeral peer support who has now rebranded as funeral professional peer support. And we did a great hour-long webinar that’s available for free on our website, sorry for the blatant plug. But it’s awesome talking about like how to recognize burnout and really how to recognize more serious post-traumatic stress because we’re there for a lot of people, not, I’m not saying we me, I’m saying a lot of people have experienced so much and they’re experiencing it now so much overwhelming death that overwhelms local resources that can lead to trauma, right.
That is a form of trauma. And so it’s not something to brush away and power through. It’s something to acknowledge and seek help if you need it, but certainly, seek support from peers. And that’s probably the cruelest aspect of this pandemic. Where do we find support from our peers? At professional gatherings, at conventions, at local restaurants and bars. I mean, on every level we’re humans, we’re communal we try to come together and that’s been certainly the hardest thing for me this past year is not coming together as we have in the past. So I certainly hope we leave that behind. And when we come out of this, we can come back together in person. But I also hope we’ve learned lessons about our own limits and how we can support each other and move forward and, in a healthy way, right. To keep that support.
Heather:
I love that about self care and taking care of yourself. You have to fill your well to be able to pull water. And you said that’s available on your website. It is, yes. Okay, great. While we’re talking about some of the things that CANA offers to its members, are there other upcoming events or seminars that you guys are planning that you want to talk about? Are you planning on having a convention? That sort of thing?
Barbara:
Yes, we are. So, in 2020 we were one of the first national associations to go virtual with our convention. And we did that with about two months’ notice and wow, we’re still recovering. No, I’m kidding. It was, it was, you know, Hey, if our members could change on a dime, why can’t the staff of CANA, you know, really, really tackle that steep learning curve and produce a virtual convention. And we did, and it was, it was great. It was a success on all accounts. It wasn’t the same as being in person. And so I’m very grateful that we did it. And I’m certainly hopeful that this August we can come together for our annual convention in Seattle, Washington. We’ll do so safely. We’ll do so, whatever that looks like with distancing with wristbands, so people can say, “yeah, I want to shake your hand. Yeah. You can hug me.” There are all sorts of things meeting planners are doing now to to help people navigate these gatherings and come back together safely. So yes, the first weekend in August, we are planning to be in Seattle. We know that there are obstacles to people attending. We know that. So we’re also planning for maybe a more intimate gathering than we’ve had in the past. But we’re, we’re committed to doing that in the meantime, all our events will be virtual. So actually as we’re filming this I would normally be in Las Vegas at our cremation symposium, but not this year. So instead what we’ve planned is what we’re calling the crucial conversation virtual series. And this is going to be a series of Zoom Conversations.
Cause it’s going to be like this. It’s going to be gallery views so we can all see each other. There’s going to be a virtual round table. There are going to be small group facilitators under each theme that say, “Hey, I had this case study from a client interaction,” or “I have this solution to this problem that a lot of you are facing. Let’s go into a breakout room and discuss this topic a little bit further.” So it’s short, deep dives into these topics and themes. And there’s four of them over four weeks. And we certainly hope that the promise of interaction and even if it’s via screen will give people some joy and a respite during their week and an opportunity to take a breath step back and look at problems in a different way. So stay tuned for more information on that. And the, probably the education we’re most known for is our crematory operator certification program. And we actually brought that online four years ago. And our it’s remarkable how people have found us and continue to get certified through the online CFCP and we just updated the curriculum to include alkaline hydrolysis. So if you’re interested in getting a crematory operator or becoming a certified crematory operator, plus alkaline hydrolysis, we got the class for you. So again, on our website.
Alex:
That’s awesome. Yeah. I am particularly excited, not only for Seattle but to just be back in the amidst of people. And I don’t know if there’ll be handshakes at that point, but at least fist bumps or
Barbara:
Elbow bumps. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out. Big smiles behind masks, I guess. I don’t know.
Alex:
So obviously you mentioned you know seeing people in person is something that we’re trying to get back to, you mentioned some vaccines. Do you feel like there are other things you’re seeing from either the professional level or other levels that you hope to see in this, you know, as we, hopefully, exit out of this pandemic?
Barbara:
Yeah. Oh, wow. I hope to see more innovation because you know, this is a small thing, but for example, I doubt I’ll ever fly on an airplane again without wearing a mask, you know, and I’m one level I’m looking forward to, you know, ditching the mask when I go to the supermarket and that kind of thing, but why did we get on planes? And we’re perfectly fine being sick afterward. Like why, why did we ever that as a reality? So that’s a kind of silly example, but I imagine that every business person out there is thinking, why didn’t we do this from the beginning? Why did we use DocuSign for EU documents? Why didn’t we give, you know, make sure that our arrangers could meet with families and not just conference call someone in, but actually, video conference them in. So the whole family regardless of where they were could participate in making arrangements.
I think a lot of people are stepping up. Like I’m focusing a lot on technology, but I want to go back to fundamentals too. And they’re thinking, you know, hoping that this is going to be a busy spring of services that people couldn’t gather, but now, or maybe they didn’t do the graveside element or they didn’t do this, that, or scattering or whatever, and now they can come together and do that. So when it’s better weather and we can be outside. So I hope we see a lot more of all of those things, I think too. This is a little bit more serious than a business topic. I think a lot of firms this year experienced the impact of direct disposition is on their bottom line. And it wasn’t good. Our research shows that while the cremation rate increased, it didn’t increase nearly as much as people felt it increased, right?
Because, and the distinction there is if you’re doing a whole bunch of direct burials and direct cremations and your caseload are up, but there are no services. Well, it feels like cremation, right? Because cremation is direct cremation. No. So I’m really hoping we can break that connection and see cremation for what it is a form of disposition and cremation families for who they are that they want to celebrate their loved one. They want to come together and gather, and, and they need options. They need an expert funeral director, an expert cemetery, and who builds a beautiful cremation garden, you know, or builds beautiful memorialization options and appeals to those people with those plastic earns in their closets because they weren’t given any other options. So I think we’ve learned a lot collectively all in one period of time, about how wrong direct disposition feels and, and how that’s not what we’re about that we’re about serving the family, you know, the families and all sorts of ways. So I hope we retain that. We remember, Oh, how uncomfortable that was. And we don’t want to carry that forward. So what can we do to connect with families and give them what they need?
Heather:
Yeah. And, you know, that leads perfectly into my next question, which is about traditional funeral homes can sometimes feel a little afraid of the cremation trend. And I mean, it does impact their bottom line, but even more than that, I don’t think people, families understand the importance of that memorialization too. It impacts the families too, even if they don’t realize it. So what can you suggest to help funeral homes and cemeteries stay successful as, I mean, that rate is only going to increase and maybe even recoup, you kind of mentioned a little bit about recouping for last year and helping those families who didn’t get that time to grieve then.
Barbara:
Well, I would definitely echo smarter people than me out there in the profession who are saying, go back and reconnect with families, call it aftercare, call it whatever you want, but the families who, who couldn’t have the services, they want it for whatever the reason, go back to them and say, “Hey, we’re here. And we know how to plan great Memorial services. So where are you and your family? What, what would you like to do? And how can we help you?” Engage them in conversation. Even if the answer is difficult to hear, “Oh, we just did something ourselves. We just did something on Zoom” or “we decided not to do anything at all.” I mean, obviously, you don’t want to pressure them, but it’s perfectly appropriate to reach out and say, “Hey, you experienced a loss and you didn’t have the experience that you would hope to have. It was out of all of our control. So can we still be of help? Can we do something moving forward?” So a lot of funeral professionals are doing are reaching out and offering that service. I’m going to channel one of my smartboard members here and say that maybe the dichotomy isn’t, you know, traditional versus personal or, or whatever that is, think more about value versus volume because here’s the deal. Even among CANA members, we see “volume businesses,” right? Maybe they’re all online. Maybe they’re called cremation societies. Maybe they have “simple” in their name. You know, you can imagine the kind of business I’m talking about, and there’s a really important place for them in our profession. They play a really, really important role. And maybe they’re about volume in that they’re not offering a wide variety of services or a whole selection room full of earns or keepsake jewelry.
But they’re meeting the need of, of families who, who choose them and who may want to do their own services, because I should also take a half step back and say if anyone listening to this think cremation families are choosing cremation because they want to do nothing. Let me disabuse you of that. Cremation families always do something. It’s just a matter of whether they do it with your funeral, home, your cemetery, or they’re doing it with themselves. So think about values. So you have the expertise, you have services, you can offer, you have a beautiful space when people are allowed in it, you have all of these things you can offer, but how are you communicating value? Because this comes back to another fact that when consumers are asked why they want to choose cremation, they always focus on price, right? That’s the number one answer.
CANA’s research reveals that everybody’s research validates that, but is it really about cost or is it about value, or is it both, are those two sides of the same coin? Of course, they are. So they’re saying price, but they want to know they did. They made a great choice. So we have CANA members who own multiple brands, right? And so they have a wealthy family coming to them and saying and arranging through their cremation society or their online thing for a direct cremation. And then coming back to their high-end funeral home and saying, can we have a brunch there from my father, husband, we want your space to use for this. Right. How does that make sense? They’re doing business with the same company choosing low end and high end. Well, it makes sense because that’s what they want.
That’s where they see the value. So I think that’s an important thing to, to wrap around it’s, it’s tough. It’s tough. We have all these people who are unemployed. We have this is kind of breaking news and I don’t know a lot about this yet, but in the last COVID relief bill, there actually was money set aside for funeral costs, reimbursable funeral costs, and via FEMA. And so we’re going to hear more about exactly how to access those funds. And I think it’s important for funeral homes and cemeteries, in particular, to get the word out again, reconnect with those families. You served over the last year and say, Hey, did you know, there’s help available if you need it? You know, there’s Goodwill there, there’s no direct benefit of course, but there’s good. Well, there so these are tough times. And I think if you come back, I would say, come back to the fundamentals. You’re about service. You’re about value. You have the expertise, all of that’s true, still, you know that about yourself. So keep those as your touchstones and keep those in mind when you serve every family, you’re not going to get every call that way. Some people are going to go online and that’s okay, but you’re going to find the families who do want that value that you provide.
Heather:
And two things on that, first of all, as soon as we get the details, I’ve been following that story about the FEMA and funeral benefits, we will have somebody on from one of the national organizations, you, or whoever, to talk about how funeral directors can connect their families with that. There’s just not any, there’s no information yet. I keep emailing people and asking, so we’ll have a TTT on that specific topic.
Barbara:
It, and there won’t be me. I’ll tell you that right now, I’m happy. I’m happy to amplify the message, but CANA doesn’t have a robust, we’re too small to have a robust lobbying program. So yeah, you’ll find the right people, but I’ll be listening.
Heather:
And I think also on that value conversation, something that we’ve seen with our clients that, that conversation is best started well before an at-need case. Well, before a death. So when they’re working that into their marketing materials their social media feeds their newsletters and educating people ahead of time. It makes that conversation at the time of loss, much easier. And people come in a little more important. So I would really encourage people to be thinking about getting that message out there ahead of time.
Barbara:
Yeah, that’s how you build people’s trust, right? That’s how, and I’ll say we did some research in 2019, along with ho homesteaders about the cremation experience. And there were several insights that came out of that, but one was fascinating. And that was that all the women in the focus group, the focus groups that we did in Phoenix, Nashville, they, half of them, it shows in cremation for the first time for half of them, it was their family tradition. All of them said they wish they knew more about their options. They wish they knew more about cremation. They have chosen cremation and still wanted to know more. And yeah, they turned to the internet and everything, but I really think there’s a role for funeral professionals to become educated in those options and brainstorm with families about what they can do. It takes more time, it’s a longer arrangement, but it has a bigger impact. You’re creating traditions in this family that can go on for generations. So it’s worth the investment with them and they want to hear from you, they want an expert guiding them.
Alex:
Yeah, I definitely agree. I think you know, one of my biggest things I realized when I moved into this profession was that cremation is a disposition, not a service. And I think that is something that a lot of community members just aren’t aware of that is just part of it, not all of it. And so I’m curious, I mean, obviously, that was one of the big lessons I learned, but you know, in, in your time in this profession, I know you’re not a trained funeral director, but do you, what is your biggest lesson you’ve taken away from this profession?
Barbara:
Gosh, I have to pick one. You gave me this question in advance and I still don’t have one. I think I’m still learning. I think it’s still evolving. I think my biggest lesson is that what we fund what we do fundamentally as in, and I count myself now as a funeral professional, even though I’m not on the front lines, I’m in the support network of funeral professionals, but I think it’s such incredible impact and how this is ever-evolving. And consumers are driving this 100%. I mean, consumers are driving the premium rates. Consumers are driving alkaline, hydrolysis, green burials. Some of these, these kinds of fringe things are emerging. Things that we’re just hearing about. Why are they a thing it’s not because funeral professionals are embracing it or promoting it for the most part? It’s consumers. We’re constantly trying to meet their needs. And how exciting is that? Because their needs change, their desires, change the education they want changes. So it’s never a dull moment. I mean, the last year has been a little bit too much change. I’m not going to lie. It could slow down. I’d be happy if it slowed down, but every day is something new every day or new questions, new people to serve. That’s, that’s exciting. That’s what gets me up in the morning.
Alex:
Great. Well, yeah, I hear you on you know, the difficulty in trying to pick one, but we really appreciate your time today, Barbara. Again, everyone, this is Barbara Kemmis with CANA, and we appreciate your time and your participation here. Everyone, please go check out their website for a lot of the conversations and webinars that Barbara brought up and there’s a lot of information and we appreciate everyone joining. If you’d like to see any more of our other TTT interviews, feel free to go to our YouTube channel and subscribe there, or look at any of the other videos. It’s youtube.com/FuneralInnovations. Stick with us and we’ll have another TTT in the coming weeks. We appreciate everyone’s time and attention.
Heather:
Yep. Thank you so much.
Barbara:
Thank you.
