Thursday, Sept. 19th
5:00 p.m. – Cocktail Reception:
After checking in to the hotel, unwind from your flight or drive by joining other forward thinkers for our cocktail reception, where you can enjoy a glass of wine, a cold beer or just an ice-cold water as you exchange ideas and make new friends – or reconnect with old ones. And of course, there will be appetizers and snacks! If you don’t have dinner plans, make plans with colleagues who share your passion for expanding their Funeral IQ.
Friday, Sept. 20
8:00 a.m. to 8:30: a.m. – Registration, Light Breakfast, Meet and Greet
Connect with your hosts, get the lay of the land, pick up your conference materials and enjoy a piping-hot mug of coffee, cold juice, a toasted bagel, a Danish and other assorted goodies as you gear up for a full day of learning – one that will be filled with making valuable business contacts and new friends.
8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. - Step 1: Bridging Hospice and End of Life
Dr. Amy Schiffman, Chief Medical Officer and Host of Mastering Medicare
Dr. Amy Schiffman is the co-host of the podcast Mastering Medicare and is a subject matter expert in aging in place. She currently serves as a Chief Medical Officer for a human services agency and oversees their hospice agency and private duty agency. She brings a new and fresh perspective of how those in end-of-life care can better partner with hospice care agencies and caregivers.
Learn how to:
- Identify upstream stakeholders!
- Bridge the healthcare and death care continuum.
- Understand the role of home based care providers and best ways to partner.
- Engage with and serve families in partnership with hospice organizations.
9:30 to 10:30 a.m. - Step 2: Boost Your Preneed to At-Need Ratio in 12 Months
Shane Pudenz, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Carriage Services
Shane Pudenz, vice president of sales and marketing at Carriage Services, will draw upon his more than 14 years of experience in death care to provide Funeral IQ attendees with a blueprint for boosting your preneed to at-need ratio in 12 months – or less!
The seasoned executive, who served in several roles at Service Corporation International from 2012 to 2020 before joining Carriage, has led multimarket sales organizations in sales director and other executive roles. Learn how to:
- Educate families about the benefits of prearranging.
- Build a preneed program that adds stability to your funeral home.
- Boost the value of your business by making your preneed program more robust.
- Offer value-added services to cremation families who want to prearrange while also locking in more traditional services before the cremation rate ticks up even further.
Pudenz will also explore how to pick the right person or group of people to lead your preneed sales strategy, how to confront challengers head-on to boost market share and how to engage in community outreach in ways that resonate with your community.
Other topics will include how to manage and measure expectations, when to pivot (and how), where to look for referrals and how to effectively solicit feedback from families.
10:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. - Break
10:45 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. - Sponsor Presentation
Kevin McKay, Manager of Cremation Recycling
11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. - Step 3: Turning Challenges into Opportunities: Digital Marketing Amid Low Death Rates
Welton Hong, Founder and CEO of Ring Ring Marketing
With the “pull-forward effect” of COVID-19 in full swing, it’s been a challenging year for funeral homes and cemeteries. Suddenly, the death rate has gone down.
Fortunately, Welton Hong, a secret seven-figure weapon relied on by top funeral homes and combination operations, has a full arsenal of digital marketing tools to connect with families in a challenging business environment. In this session, he’ll walk you through how to:
- Navigate demographic shifts, including those specific to your market.
- Drive growth even when the death rate is declining.
- Prepare for the coming surge of baby boomer deaths.
- Implement tools and processes to safeguard your position and seize local opportunities.
- Spend marketing dollars wisely to gain a competitive edge.
The future of the funeral profession may be unpredictable, but with the right digital marketing strategies, you can beat the odds and capture a greater market share. The time to act is now.
12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. - Lunch
1:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. - Sponsor Presentation
Wes Johnson, CEO of FundaFamily.com
1:15 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. - Step 4: Consumer Snapshot: Attitudes and Behaviors that Define Your Future
Chris Cruger - CEO of The Foresight Companies
The Foresight Companies has been surveying consumers for several years, gathering insights on attitudes and behaviors involving funeral homes and cemeteries. The goal has been to deliver meaningful data to educate the profession on meaningful trends.
For the first time in 2023, death-care professionals also shared what they perceive consumer attitudes about the profession to be -- as well as what their views on the public’s awareness about certain products and services. The results Foresight uncovered are astounding.
In this session, Chris Cruger, who marched his way up the ranks at Service Corporation International before becoming the majority owner and CEO of Foresight, highlights how the profession has failed to respond to – and sometimes actively avoided – changing consumer attitudes and behaviors. Learn how to:
- Develop a long-term strategic plan on how to serve evolving and less traditional consumers.
- Position your firm for success given compelling changes among the families you serve.
- Identify gaps between what funeral home operators think consumers want and what they really want.
- Educate your community about the value of funeral service.
When it comes to boosting market share and providing more value to families, don’t rely on guesswork. Foresight has the data to help you bridge a disconnect that is eroding profits and undermining faith and confidence in the profession.
2:15 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. - Break
2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. - Step 5 - Meeting People Where They Are: Using the Right Resources at the Right Time
Michael Schimmel - Founder and CEO of Sympathy Brands
Sympathy Brands Company has directly engaged with millions of customers through its consumer brands, Cemetery.com, shiva.com and eCondolence, providing learning resources, planning tools and memorialization options to families.
Through the years, Sympathy Brands has gained valuable insights on shifting consumer behaviors, enabling it to develop best-in-class workflow solutions and industry appropriate technology to help death-care professionals thrive.
In this session, Michael Schimmel will share consumer behavior insights and highlight the importance of meeting people where they are by providing the right resources at the right time.
Learn how to:
- Recognize the opportunity to serve families through technology.
- Leverage a variety of tools to reduce manual effort and deliver more value to families.
- Equip your firm with the appropriate technology for your region and family expectations.
- Identify and evaluate technology options to meet your needs.
3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. - Group Activity
4:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. - Concluding Remarks/Wrap Up