Latest / On Deathcare / Managing Multi-State Licensing with Michaelene Dowers

Transcript

Managing Multi-State Licensing with Michaelene Dowers · On Deathcare

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: I am Tony Russo from On Deathcare,
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: and this week we're speaking with Michaelene Dowers,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: a funeral director who has lived and worked in multiple states and is now living
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: in Scotland, pursuing her PhD.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not what we're here to talk about, although we do touch on it.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: What we're here to talk about is a solution that she has for multi-state funeral projects.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'll let her tell you about it.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: She's going to do a better job anyway.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: But before we get into it,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: I do want to take this opportunity to thank my paid subscribers for their support.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: And for making all of this possible,
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: if you would like to become a subscriber paid or not,
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: you can do that at ondeathcare.com.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Click the button that says subscribe,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: and then you'll have the opportunity to subscribe for anything from $0 a month
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: to more than $0 per month.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: All right, enough of that.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Here's my clean.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, welcome.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's always a pleasure to have you back.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Always a pleasure to talk to you.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: But today we want to talk to you about your actual business.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Usually we talk about the industry at large,
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: but you actually do stuff too, besides being a funeral director.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: And a couple of years ago you founded Pollen.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to me a little bit about Pollen and then I want to talk about your new project.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a couple years back, I started Pollen.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: It mutated over time.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: First, it started as my, I want to say book sales, but my curated grief literature for children.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: That took off a little bit, but I did leave the US.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And once I left the US, I had to leave it behind.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a colleague in Utah who's doing that.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Pollen mutated just quite a little bit.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So now one of the things I do is cremated remains scattering in Scotland and
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: the greater UK,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: since we have right to roam here,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: for US and Canadian, really anybody who sent cremated remains of their loved ones.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I have every month a plan to go to a very designated area in the UK to do
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: a scattering on video and send a certificate with GPS coordinates.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's the, I hate to say quick and dirty, but that's the quick and dirty explanation of that.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you,
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I know a couple of Scots over here and they are really interested in their homeland.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they are.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they are.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like it's not too weirdly specific because if you're in Scotland,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: if you're from Scotland, you definitely want to go back.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: But even people who go to Scotland have just absolutely fall.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: I have I have a friend who went once for a week in college
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: and she still can't stop talking about, you know, how how she has to come back.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's the kind of place that really well, apparently it grabbed you.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't been here in Scotland for, oh, before we moved here, about 25 years.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was 15 the last time I was here.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So 15, 25, 30 years?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: 25 years.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was here with my mother at 15 and had a lot of fun.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then the opportunity arose for me to do my PhD out here.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I looked at my husband.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: I said, do you want to move again?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, sure.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Where are we going?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, how does Scotland sound?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Right.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Outlander.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: People want to be where it's beautiful.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, it is phenomenal here.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: All I have to do is drive five minutes down the road.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's sheep.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Another five minutes, there's some horses.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Five more minutes, you're in the hills and there's a river.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody has the very cute accent.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: But you're also able to still... You're coming back for the NFDA conference to get...
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Since you're back,
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: you'll be getting your CLEs because you stay licensed,
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: but you also have this new project, Comely.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about that because I'd like to talk about that kind of at length
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: because I think it's brilliant.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, I am coming back for NFDA for this year.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have to, of course, as you said, get a ton of CEs for 13 states that I'm licensed in.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Of course,
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: we can do them remote,
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: but some states we know require you to be in person in some aspect,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: and some are very specific courses I would need to take.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm returning.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Comely specifically is an app where people will enter their license information
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: for every license they have.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And every time they take a continuing ed hour or hours,
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: they scan that right into it and it keeps track of it.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Keeps track of everything we do,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: which is wonderful because what happened to me and why I did this,
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I started Comely because I was annoyed.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I got audited in the state of Indiana.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they audited me from about two years before, maybe three years before.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I can't quite remember right now.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about how people store their continuing ed documents,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: it's a file on your computer that you shove away never to look at again
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: unless you're mandated to report looking at the state of Georgia.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: You have to submit it,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: but a lot of the states you don't have to report unless they come looking.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: In all my years, nobody has ever come looking.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I changed my address to an out-of-state address when I left Indiana,
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: and
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: that's what caused the audit trigger.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted to make sure I was still on my game.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: So even though I had taken all of my CEs, I couldn't find them.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I could not find them for the state of Indiana for the year I needed.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I know where they're at.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're in a laptop that isn't this laptop.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's in storage in Tennessee from five, six years ago.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I dug through everything.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I called all of the organizations because we know they all do CEs,
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: but they only keep track of their own.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you call NFDA.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're only keeping track of NFDA.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: You contact Wilbert EDU.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's only Wilbert EDU.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Same goes for everybody.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And they say it's the onus is on the licensee to keep track.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: But we need a good repository to keep them in.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that didn't exist.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to my board summons.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was, of course, online because it took them so long that I left the country.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I spoke to them and they said,
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I know, but you're asking me for something from four or five years ago.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, that's not our problem.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: You owe us $5,000.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, Tony, but I'm not
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: made of money, nor did I have it just laying around.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I had found some of them by contacting the different CE providers from that year,
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: and I found two.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where the other three went.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So...
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: That $5,000 ended up turning into $3,000.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful for that.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I just finally got to paying that when they sent me
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: the actual bill like two months ago, maybe three months ago.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: But in response, I said, there's got to be a better way to do this.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see what I can do.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Started screwing around on the computer,
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: came up with an idea, brainstorming, and calmly happened.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: one of the things that has never been clearer to me than it has been
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: since I started doing this job is how much this industry was not set up for
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: the 20th century, let alone the 21st century.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is not an industry built for people moving from state to state to state.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And when I write about education,
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: it is really, really frustrating because I don't know who goes where.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not even that's just a basic education.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's not that's not even the annual continuing education.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And for someone like you, because I know your job isn't.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say it's not unique,
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: but you're not the only person who runs funeral homes in several states.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a common thing.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the northeastern U.S.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: One of my colleagues,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: he's getting licensed in three other states because he moved to Massachusetts.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're all very close.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm originally from California,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: which means I don't you know, I didn't have to move, but we move.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: People move.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why would I not keep up on those?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And of course,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: it does a better service to me to prove that I can remain licensed somewhere for
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: an extended period of time.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I still have my very first license out of California.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's no reason not to as long as you pay your yearlies,
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: which gets quite pricey when you have 13 of them, just so you know.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I was about to say.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then because you also have to pay for the continuing education part.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the companies, they do, you know, free ones.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Wilbert does free ones.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: But how to keep track of them with Wilbert is not ideal,
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: especially when you have multiple state associations that you have to,
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: you know, apprise of what you're doing.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: You just get the printout sheet and hopefully you don't have too many licenses
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: that fill up the bottom like I do.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: And now, so with Comely, is it something like, do you take a picture?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do you enter it manually?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: How do you, like, if you had had it, what would you have sent to Indiana?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: If I have had it,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I would have been sending off a PDF document with
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: a cover sheet stating what I've taken,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: when I took it,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: what it's applicable to,
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: where I currently work,
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: my name and address on file, and a PDF, one document with every single document.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And how does that work?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mean literally, but how does it get entered?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Do you enter them one at a time?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: So on October 2nd,
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: if I download the app,
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: can I just punch in the ones I've already done or do I have to upload them somehow?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you could pop in the ones you've already done.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: You should be uploading the certificate right away because then it's right on in there.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's no reason that you have to upload the certificate,
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: but it would do you a favor if you did.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you can.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if somebody asks for it,
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: it's a lot easier to send them the certificate than your memory of the certificate.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you just hit a button that says audit and you'll pull down menu what state audited you.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's for me, it was Indiana.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't any of my others.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you pull down menu Indiana.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: You put the years that they're auditing.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I put in 2022 audit and it spits out all the certificates in that cover sheet
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: and tells you exactly what they're applicable to as well.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't seem like this is easy to put together.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to get my daughter to just go through and find out,
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: like, what were the email addresses, you know, of people in each of the states.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really it's so fractured in every state.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Some states are electronic.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Some states are not electronic.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell me about the process of putting?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Did you really have to call each state and get get a list?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: How did that work?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: How did you get that done?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I did have to call a couple states because their laws, rules,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: and regulations weren't necessarily self-explanatory,
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: especially in states that I'm not licensed in.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what South Carolina does.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Not to say I don't care, but I don't.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have others to worry about.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I did have to call some states,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: but just about every state has their licensing requirements on their board.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or at their Funeral Director Association building.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Also, there is the one that is put out.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, what is it?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is it from NFDA or ABFSC?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: The chart that tells you all the licensing requirements per state.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: I did a lot of cross-referencing.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I could tell you that.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because if you lived in the one state, you could figure it out.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: But you're also asking people to trust you.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to make sure that you're on the nose for everything.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is serious stuff.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing all 50 states, D.C. and all Canadian provinces.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's so it is international.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's Comely International.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just Comely.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I guess you could call it international.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I even looked into other states to see or not other states,
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: other countries to see if they did any other kind of licensing like we do.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: However,
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: now that I'm in the UK,
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: because of the whole incident we had with all of those bodies in the UK
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: that got mistreated in a funeral home here,
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: much like we had the incident in Colorado and Chicago and Tri-Cities and I mean,
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: you name it.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: All of those.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now the UK is starting to do their own licensing requirements.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're building that structure right now.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: My hope is that once they've started to get something in place,
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Comley can help there as well in the UK.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I know Australia is also looking into their own type of licensing
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: because they also don't have anything but establishment licenses
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: from what I understand.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll be talking to them too.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I actually did a story on a funeral homeowner in Australia.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, she said that it's just practice.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it was interesting because there was a young girl who was in
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: a really bad accident and the funeral home didn't do a great job.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one of the things that she put me onto.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: But there was a funeral director in town who'd been educated in Canada.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so he came in and he was able to get everything right where other people
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: who had just been practicing but not taught,
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: because there is a difference between,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's easy and popular to give the education system a difficult time,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: but you need to, if you have a baseline, you can always refer to it.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't, you can't.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And no amount of practice is going to make up for a lack of a baseline, I thought.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even here in the UK, they do have school.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to discredit that.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's ran by the NAFD, which is the UK equivalent of the NFDA.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: But all of the teaching is done.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: You get a diploma.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're not getting a degree.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can get a certificate, but it's all...
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I guess voluntary is probably the right word I'm looking for here.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do it.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: You could just open up shop.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was at a convention here in the UK,
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was told all you need is a top hat, a cane and a sign on the door.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Crazy.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And not everybody feels this way,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: but I personally feel that there needs to be something more to help.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to get rid of all bad actors.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's never going to happen anywhere.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: But to help curtail the bad actors,
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: we need to be a little bit more stringent and have something that would be
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I am licensed in Colorado.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I feel like it's like the eyes.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know how they say if you put eyes in your store, you'll have fewer shoplifters.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's like if you have a conscience, then it'll work.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't have a conscience, then it didn't matter one way or the other.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of,
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I hate to say it,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: but there's plenty of bad actor funeral directors out there who went to school
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: who not only got an associate's degree,
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: but maybe they got a bachelor's out of Minnesota or Oklahoma or wherever else
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: who probably have master's degrees in business who still steal money.
• 16:42
  Yeah.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's just harder to catch.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not to do a blanket statement,
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: because obviously as a funeral director,
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want to promote my fellow funeral directors and make sure
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: that what they're doing is And
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: I actually feel that what I'm doing
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: with Comely is going to help, in a way, weed out some of those bad actors.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: It'll help the boards not necessarily keep on top of because the board is not there to punish.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: They're not.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're there to make sure you're following the rules.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And whether you like the rules or not, the rules are the rules.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to follow them to be compliant.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now that you bring this up, it just came to me.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: You had mentioned your Indiana experience.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder if states would be more likely to audit if they knew it wasn't such a pain
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: in the neck to gather up.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody wants that phone call.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: No,
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: there are.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: They absolutely are willing.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know this.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: I had meetings with other states and quarter one,
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: quarter two of 2027,
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be adding in the option for continuing ed providers
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: to have their own login so that they can feed it directly into Comely so
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: that we can just skip the licensee.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the licensee has to sign up for it.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: If the licensee has to worry about it less, then why wouldn't we take that off of their plate?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're already working with families.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're already dealing with so much, waking up, doing removals, doing all these things.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then on top of the CE providers loading into...
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at how I'm going to have a way for the state boards
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: to not necessarily see everybody's personal information,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: but say,
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: hey, I need a printout of whoever did not complete their continuing ed for 2026.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Where is it?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I can provide that.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: But again,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: those are things that that hasn't been worked out yet simply because of cost
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: of building because I am building this with a company that Myself,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have any funders or backers.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Something I asked you a long time ago,
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: and I wanted to bring it up, you're also not vibe coding this on AI.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is professional people doing professional work.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have real app developers.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have real people who are working on this,
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: who are making sure that everything's done legally in a way
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: that your information is not going to be stolen by anybody.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, but I don't think I'm capable of vibe coding or coding anything.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just put it out there.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: I literally drew it on a piece of paper and said, this is what I want.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Let me walk you through it.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do the computer stuff, but I can tell you exactly what's in my mind's eye.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's fantastic.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that is really kind of all I have for you, but we've got time.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything you have for me?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is there something I should have asked?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is there something else you wanted to talk about?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Did I miss an aspect of this?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think we addressed everything.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: I launched October 1st, which is what, a week away from today?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: As we record,
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: but I'll probably release this into October closer to NFDA
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: because you're coming back.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Are you going to have a booth?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Are you going to be wandering?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: How can people find you?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be wandering because I have to go take my own.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, your CL.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: I forgot.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: For all of them.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll be out and about wandering.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll obviously have my business card.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see me in my bee-themed clothing no matter what.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what it is, it's got bees or hives or honey on it.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't miss me.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot miss me, but launch is October 1st.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be at NFDA.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'll show anybody who wants to see if anybody wants to help me fund this.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm interested.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: If any state boards or state organizations want to have a look at it,
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm absolutely fine buying them coffee.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Drinks if they want,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: whatever,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: just to make sure that what I'm doing is getting out there because, again,
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: this is something that I find so important,
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: more important than anything I have done to this point simply because it's for
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: the protection of not just my licenses but the licenses of everybody.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to ease a burden and it's going to protect families so
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: that they're not going to providers who might not be as honest.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, because that's a there's a there's this great story about you've heard
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: the Brown M&M story from the from Van Halen.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know that story?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: So Van Halen used to allegedly the last thing on their rider was they needed a.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: All the brown M&Ms removed from a bowl of M&Ms in their dressing room.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it was, you know, they were being obnoxious about it was the rumor.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then later on it came out because they needed so much equipment hung
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: so specifically, it was a test to see.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: If people actually read The Rider or not.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: So if they got in and there were no brown,
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: and there were brown M&Ms in the M&M Bowl,
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: they knew they had to go check the joists and check the other stuff
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: a little bit more carefully because people didn't read the thing.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how this feels like to me.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if you're not doing your CLEs, what else aren't you doing?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good...
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what gets the states knocking on your door,
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: sending you a notice by mail going, knock, knock.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Prove to us that you're doing what you're supposed to do.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or that you were doing what you were supposed to do two years ago.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Or you were doing it because,
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: I can almost guarantee you I was doing what I was supposed to do,
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: but I didn't have a proper way to record it.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And Excel spreadsheets and an obscure file that just says Continuing Ed on my laptop is not...
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you have one state, okay.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any more than four, any more than three, it's got to be a little hairy.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it did.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: It started getting very taxing for me once I hit, I think, three or five states.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because, I mean, obviously not all of them require CEs, but the ones that do...
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: I have to be on it.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's, does that mean they're all going to come looking for me?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, but one did.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: $3,000.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's all it takes.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: You just got to get mad enough to not want to spend $3,000.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the key to success, right?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm never doing that again.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's been a pleasure.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait for you to come to,
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: uh, back to America and we'll see you in another couple of weeks.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: You will.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be there again.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see me.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm around.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, folks, I think we forgot to mention the website.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: It is combly.care,
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: that is C-O-M-B-L-Y dot care,
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: where you can take a look at what the app is and sign up for it if you'd like.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'll have a link in the show notes as well, but I figured I'd say it out loud.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Once again,
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to thank my paid subscribers for sponsoring my work and invite you
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: to visit ondeathcare.com,
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: where I do writing,
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: I do more podcasts,
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: I do lots of fun stuff over there,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: and I hope to be doing even more in the new year,
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: but we'll talk about that at another time.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, this has been an On Deathcare production.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was written and edited, all the things, by me, Tony Russo.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for joining me.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a pleasure to have you.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for hanging out to the end.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we will check in with you next time.