How to sell preneed
Becoming a Preneed Specialist and Preneed Basics at a Funeral Home
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[Music]
hi everyone
we are here at brown funeral home in
michigan i'm here with mandy rodriguez
and she
is a pre-needs specialist so she is
going to
educate us and give a little more
information on how to make some
pre-needs differences in pre-needs but
we're going to learn a little more also
about how to become
a pre-need specialist because i know i
get a lot of questions about that so
tell me how long have you been here at
this funeral home
at this specific funeral home since we
started in 2004
um i've been in the funeral cemetery
industry
uh for a little over two decades i will
give you the exact number but a little
over two decades
and um my start was in premium okay
initially i started with trust you don't
have to
have a license to write trust and so i
started that way
and then when we heard about being able
to write some insurance products for our
families
it was a natural transition i believe
pre-need is all about giving families a
choice
and so this was just an additional
choice that we gave
them to get licensed to do a trust you
have to
take a state test and then once you have
that
you find an insurance company that you
can write underneath you build a
relationship with them
so again for us it was just a natural
transition we want to make sure
that we always give families every
choice every option
available to them so yeah it's been a
great time
so what interested you in was it just
maybe there was a job opening you're
like okay let's try it or
how did you really segue what was that
like in your life at that moment yeah
absolutely so i
uh started in the funeral and cemetery
industry to put myself through college
okay my first degree is in teaching and
it wasn't that i didn't love the kids
but there was some politics that had
creeped into the school system
and i had been working at the funeral
home
different kind of positions that i was
feeling but i worked there just kind of
put myself through
and i really fell in love with the
industry as a whole
i loved what we provided for families i
loved
the options we provided it hadn't been
something i'd ever considered in high
school
but for me it was really an exciting
opportunity for me to be able to go
forward and take
take on and so i loved it pre-need was
something that felt right to me
again just being able to give families
choices and opportunities to plan things
like they want them was a
really good segue into my life and i
think i'm a little bit of a
control freak and so letting families
have that opportunity as well yeah i
think that's helpful
you're like take control right this is
your moment right absolutely
now i know one question i get is you
know is it all about
money part of it when people come in and
pre-need but talk a little about that
full spectrum
of what a preemie arrangement really
looks like
yeah i the one thing and i say it to
most of the families that i meet with
as i tell them it's not that the money's
not
important but it's not the most
important thing
so one of the points that i really try
to drive home with families
is i want to hear from you i want to
know what do you want
what's helpful in creating this healing
experience for your family at the time
because it's not the same
with every family so when i sit down
with a family
we have a conversation it's not just
about me filling out forms it's really
this conversation and i want to learn
not only about the folks that are
sitting at the table with me that day
but i want to learn about their families
who are not seated with us
what are their traditions what are
things that are important to them
what are things that are unique to their
family that we can
incorporate into that premium and a lot
of times
doing a pre-need gives you the
availability to do things that are very
unique
that if you don't have a pre-need we
don't have the time to plan for
so i really love being able to sit with
with families
and quite honestly just do some
brainstorming
into who they are what they represent
and what do they want their legacy to be
that's nice it's not just about the
money and planning out that part even
though i think that's a
it's a concern to a lot of people that
that's handled
but all that rest and really bringing it
to the forefront is really nice
yeah and i think families don't money is
important
and i think families only know to ask
about the money
yeah because they don't realize what are
the other important questions that they
should be asking
they've just been told they're
responsible for this they should take
care of it so their family or children
don't
not realizing there's also so many other
important decisions for them to make so
i think it's the one question that they
know to ask so they do
and the money is important yeah we don't
want to leave anybody
in a situation where they can't fulfill
wishes but it's not everything
so i know another main concern with this
job
anyway who might want to go into the job
is
commission and all these other things
within terms of your income i don't need
to dive too much in
sure but you've worked in a couple
different capacities
and it is a commission heavily based
sometimes
positions what recommendations or what
may be
easing of mind for someone wanting to
possibly go into
i think the biggest thing i can tell you
with pre-need is you get to make your
own schedule
you are in charge of your paycheck so
you can work as hard
or not as hard as you want that is the
advantage
to being purely pre-need i do
encourage those who are going into the
industry to make yourself available on
nights and weekends to get started
but if you do your job and do it well
families will refer you to other
families because they trust that what
they have
communicated to you gets then recorded
someplace and when they see that funeral
come to fruition
you then have become a respected
individual in your community because
what they communicated you're now making
happen
along with the other funeral directors
in your firm so do you
think that a funeral director doing
pre-need
specifically works or do you think there
should be two roles within the funeral
home
one for premade and one for at need i
think a big
part of it would depend on the call
count of that funeral home and the
responsibility of the funeral director
i think a funeral director is a great
fit but i don't think you have to be a
funeral director
i think the attributes of a pre-knee
counselor or a pre-need specialist and a
funeral doctor are the same
but i think as as long as somebody comes
into this
with a listening ear and i don't mean
listening to respond
i mean listening to hear what the family
is actually trying to convey to you
and if you can be a little creative um
there are some families who want a
cookie cutter funeral and that's okay
there are some families that want
anything but a cookie cutter you know
and so i think being able to listen and
hear what they're saying
be able to offer suggestions about how
to meet those needs
i think that's what makes a good
pre-need specialist
helping them to understand options
absolutely
absolutely not be an order taker which i
say that a lot about funeral directors
like you don't be an order taker you
need to help
you're the director yes and i think you
get to have a little more
fun with that and pre-need you do
because
there's not that time crunch and you can
really
yeah like look into ideas sometimes with
a little more
you can time there you get a chance to
explore so they can give you something
as a funeral director
we have a few days to make something
happen for for a family
as a pre-need specialist um oftentimes
you have years but you know when i'm
meeting with a family i have
a week or so to search out what i can do
to accommodate that family in the future
and then make sure all of that
information
is in a file so yeah absolutely a
premium specialist has
the time on their on their side when
they're not forced to make all these
quick
and sometimes rash decisions i feel like
families do
so we have a lot more variants so when a
family is calling
wanting to maybe look into prenate as
we were saying there's they know the one
question like hey i want to
meet and look at numbers what is a
couple questions maybe they could ask
while they're making their pre-need that
maybe people aren't thinking about
that you've seen from yourself yeah
absolutely so
one of the questions that i ask families
and they are surprised by the question
is oftentimes
have you thought about where you want
the celebration to be or where you want
your service to be
and in most families mind they think it
is only
at the funeral home or at the church and
so that kind of creates the springboard
to them
we can have them at campgrounds golf
clubs
we have something called the apple fest
grounds which is a very big thing here
in niles
we've had services out there so i think
if you could give the leading questions
to the families it opens up so many
other avenues for them
i think with our families as well not
only do i want them to ask about
choices and possibilities but i want
them to understand the preening that
we're writing so i think a family should
ask
the funeral director what is actually
included
in my funeral services should be lined
item
what's guaranteed and what's not
guaranteed so
even though it might say it on the
contract i think it behooves us as
pre-need specialists to say to them
these are fees that i as a funeral home
can guarantee
these fees are called cash advances
these are fees that i'm going to put
money away for
but i can't guarantee these costs
because i don't run those businesses i
don't control those finances so
these might be more or less than at the
time i think it's great to make your
families understand that so that they
understand
while they have taken care of everything
there might be some additional fees i
think it gives funeral homes a bad rap
very much when they've been told
everything's taken care of
and there might be some additional fees
at the time so i think that's a good
thing
to ask where is my money going to go
once i give it to you
the understanding most families have is
they think it stays at our funeral home
they're often surprised when they say
okay within 30 days
you are going to get a statement from
either the trust company or the funeral
specific policy insurance policy
that's going to let you know that i've
done with your money what i'm
legally supposed to do right they don't
understand it's not cut by us
for some families it's a huge relief
because they've heard
um so it's a huge relief to know that we
don't hold their money in our accounts a
third party does and it's released
when we submit a death certificate and
we can show that we're the funeral home
doing that i think that's important for
families to know where their money is
i think it's important on a trust to
tell them you're going to get a 10.99
yeah every year
steal your money you're right yeah
absolutely and just to explain to them
that i am taking your information and
i'm going to place it on file but even
if something
tragic happened and the funeral home no
longer existed
you still have choices yeah and i think
a pre-needs
uh it's all about choices and i always
let families know if you plan something
with me today
and you think in your mind today all i
want is a memorial service
with cremation but in ten years you have
this very large family and grandchildren
and great grandchildren have been added
and you realize you really want a
traditional service
you're not locked in we can always make
changes just planning your funeral ahead
of time doesn't mean
you're stuck right i always encourage
families to let their families know that
that's an option
and i asked them also is this something
you want to give your family the
availability to change if they would
like
do you want to give them choices at a
time do you want me to make notes that
here are some things that you want to
make sure don't get changed and
hear options for them as well it is
about a conversation
it's about again i think i'm a little
bit of a control freak so it is about
giving control to the families
and me not mandating what they have but
them
them telling me what they would like
when you brought up
saying oh in 10 years things could
change thinking about our industry right
now
changing so much i mean in 10 years we
could have
alkaline hydrolysis and composting and
all these other options that were never
options before so families can come in
and say you know we really want this new
option
and the funds are there to use towards
it there's just not been locked in
pricing and i've never i've never really
thought about
how much that's going to affect i think
the product that's decided because
it is changing so um it's evolving so
much right now
it is uh again we kind of give our
families it used to be you can
just be buried which cemetery do you
want to be buried at
how many days of visitation one two okay
absolutely but
you know it's kind of a wide open in
terms of the options available
yeah cremation or traditional green
burial is something that
we're finding we have lots of families
asking us about lately
and so to be able to tell them even
though they have their pre-need we can
change it we can
accommodate them with a green burial and
give them different choices
even cemeteries they can go visit it is
i think just a way to empower our
families and make them
feel confident in their trust with us
and know that we are
always going to make sure that they have
a choice in the matter that's awesome
well thank you for having a basic intro
to pre-need specialist
position here watch for more videos
coming
with mandy on preemie topics thank you
[Music]
welcome
