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Keenan Knopke on Modern Day Old School Cemetery Management · On Deathcare

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome to On the Clock,
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: where we talk to funeral professionals about who they are,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: what they do, and why they do what they do.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: And this week, I'm speaking with Kenan Napke, who is a longtime funeral professional.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to start by getting your background before we talk about what you do now.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: How did you get into funeral service?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: And tell me about the journey that got you to where you are today.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: The journey started when I was five years old.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: My dad, my mother,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: and my grandmother had started a cemetery in Tampa, Florida back in the late 30s.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: During World War II, my dad went off to war, leaving mother and grandmother to run the cemetery.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Dad came back from war and went back to the cemetery,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: and I wanted to go with him to work on Saturdays.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: So he hired me as an employee.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I got paid 50 cents for a Saturday morning.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And back then, there were no artificial flowers.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: They were live flowers.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the tradition in Tampa was that every Saturday,
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: the cemetery crew would go through and take up all the dead,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: nasty flowers, throw them away.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I got to ride around in the back of the pickup truck and squash them down
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: so they could get more in.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's my introduction into funeral service.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: I love the image of you in a pickup truck bed full of dead and dying flowers,
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: just kind of jumping up and down.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: That would have made a great, like, Kodachrome moment,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it would have.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: But they stunk.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: There was messy.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: There was dirty water.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, put water...
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so how did
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: you decide to stay with it after you reached the age of consent?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I went to school.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Upon graduation from high school,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I felt I was a pretty good golfer and wanted to be a professional.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: My dad came to me shortly thereafter thinking that, and I'd been planning that forever.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I gave it a short amount of thought.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, can't be too bad working for dad.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: You get away with murder, so forth.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, I'm going to work for you.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he said, be there the next day.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: I got to the office.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was five minutes late.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: My supervisor informed me I was five minutes late.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then I addressed incorrectly.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I said, well, what do you mean?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be in the office.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: He said, no, you're not.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to start out on the grounds.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Come back tomorrow morning, jeans,
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: t-shirt,
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: bring water, whatever you want to do, and you'll work with the guys out there.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I did that and realized cemetery business is very difficult back then.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's difficult at any point.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: But back then, all graves were dug by hand.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I learned how to do that.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: I learned how to chop markers.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard that term?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Please.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Chopping markers usually applies more to a flat marker cemetery,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: whether it's bronze on granite or granite.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's where you go around and Chop the grass that's grown over top of it.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Take a shovel and a file and you head out and you do the entire cemetery.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And by then you start all over because the grass grows faster than you can chop it.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I learned that a lot of other things.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then one day I was told you can get dressed up and come to work tomorrow
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: and work and start working in the office.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so in doing so,
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: I learned about cemetery sales,
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: cemetery management, my dad's style versus anybody else's.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he informed me, or let me, I'll back up.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that he had purchased over the years was a Florida funeral home license.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was a charter.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And years ago, they were limited to the number in a state.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Each state set their numbers.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: He owned one, but he needed a funeral director to run it.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I got nominated to be a family funeral director at that moment.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: He had tried to buy a local firm.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't work out because the guy wanted to buy his business,
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: and so they became good friends, but be that as it may.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I went to work for him.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I worked at the cemetery in the daytime,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: did funeral homework at night and weekends, and stayed with it.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: In 1972,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: I became a licensed funeral director and bomber in Florida and continue
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: to carry those licenses to this day.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, was mortuary school required then?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Just making sure, where did you go?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Miami-Dade.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, all right.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a cold air person, and the further south I can get, I'm happy with that.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Miami was a great city then.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's still a great city today.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's very different.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: But no, I went down there for almost two years.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so eventually you got into the consolidation business.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: What was that transition like?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my dad at that point had divorced my mother.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: His mother, my grandmother, had died.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: He'd taken two of his brothers that were partners then.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he came into our office one day and said,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: look, my brother and I said, look, I'm 72 years old.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want to retire.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: you and your brother either buy it or find somebody to buy it.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: He said, but the first thing you need to do is go talk to our CPA for the company.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we headed off to see the CPA, talked to him, and he told us two things.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: He said, one, your dad's been very good to you.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: You make a lot of money.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: While you do a good job at work, you're financially unable to buy the business.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we said, well, what do you mean?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: He said, well, the IRS requires him to get a fair price and give fair terms.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: So
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: we ended up with the choice of either find a buyer or let the buyer find us.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sometime a few months before that,
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was in New Orleans as a guest of Frank Stewart,
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: who I'd gotten in that short period of time to know very well.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I called Frank and I said, Frank, we're going to sell the business.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: My brother and I need jobs.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Are you guys interested?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes or no?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: He told me, let me think, I'll get back to you.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it was within a couple of days,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: I had a call from, oh,
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: it could have been either Larry Berner,
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: who was his CPA at the time,
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: could have been Ron Patron,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: who was part of the senior man,
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: or Rick Baldwin,
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: who had sold his funeral businesses in Florida and gone to work for them.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we set up an appointment and they came, two or three of them came.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: We talked for months and finally struck a deal.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: That was in January of 84.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And closed the business and my brother and I both went to work for him.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so how did you end up where you are today?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was 19 years with Stuart moving from my home in
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: a little city called Temple Terrace,
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: which is just outside of Tampa, a place where I also live there today.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I moved, was transferred to Miami when Stuart expanded to Miami.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then in a reorganization, I was transferred to Orlando.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm from Orlando.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: My territory or my area ran from Jacksonville,
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Florida, across the state, down through Ocala to Tampa, St. Pete, down to Sarasota.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I moved in office to back home.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And one day I got a call from a friend of mine that was looking for a general manager.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: He was the president of Curlew at that moment.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I said, well, why are you looking?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're still there, aren't you?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, oh, yeah, but I'm going to retire.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've got heart issues and so forth.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the guy I want, they want, or I've suggested, I can't find him.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: I figured you would know.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: I said, yes, I know where he is.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know he's not interested, but I'll call him.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I called him.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: He was in his retirement community in Maggie Valley, North Carolina.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he chuckled and he says, No, I'm not interested.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you can tell him, hell no, I'm not interested.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm comfortable here.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I have no desire to go back to work.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: My work with Stuart, my office, main office was in Orlando.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And back in 2003, 2002, stock in the companies was very low.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a lot of fun coming to work.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because employees were unhappy.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: They were being let go.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Issues with the management of the company.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Delivery of products and services were not good.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying that industry-wide.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And my day consisted of worrying about 900 employees plus any lawsuits
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: or pending lawsuits in the state of Florida.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: The big part of the steward's business at that point was Orlando, Tampa, and Miami.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: I had worked in all of them.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I was a de facto lawyer in trying to settle issues.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And like I say, I took the phone call from a guy looking for it.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of that call, when I talked to him, I said, why?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he told me, I said, maybe I'd be interested in that.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, you would?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I said, it all depends upon the numbers.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to find a place where I'm going to go to work that I look forward
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: to going, not where I dread going.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I interviewed with the board of directors here,
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: and they told me that somebody would get back with me in a few days.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we struck up a deal pretty quickly,
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: and I left Stewart, like I say, after 19 years almost to the date.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they've been here for 23 years, thereabouts.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you have a really interesting structure there
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: because you said you would actually already tried to buy this.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me a little bit about the corporate structure there and how you guys run things.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here at Curlough, it's pretty unstructured.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I like to let people do what they do well, and that's serve families.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Critique and guide.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I know what I want out of everybody, but I let them make that decision on how they learn that.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not one that's strict.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't holler and scream or any of that stuff because it gets you nowhere
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: and it gets everybody scared to talk to you or even smile at you.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's run like a family, which is none of us are related.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the family doesn't,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: they want the business run,
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: but they don't need to be very hands-on or they're not even allowed to be hands-on,
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: you were saying.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's a written agreement between all the heirs.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's 20 of them at
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: the moment that represent the five different branches of the family.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: They all have, for the most part, successful careers.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Many of them, at least I would A majority of them are very well off.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: They've been very successful in their own careers.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: None of their careers ever landed them in the cemetery business.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Prior to being in the cemetery business,
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: they owned orange groves, grapefruit groves across the floor.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that was only started when the founder of the family,
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: a gentleman by the name of Pop Bill Gore,
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: A family nameless, Bill Gorth, was a fruit broker on the streets of New York.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And prices of oranges, grapefruit, tangerines kept going up.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: He figured he's going to go to Florida and find a way to get around the brokers in between.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he got down here and realized he needed to be in the land business.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he bought land and he bought groves.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the family moved down here.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: The rest of them stayed in New York and created careers.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: at the end,
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: the reason for getting out of the cemetery or out of the grove business was,
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: one, imported fruit.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Imported fruit was as good as domestically grown, but a lot cheaper.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, started messing in the grove business.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to know something about that, I'll be happy to tell you.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Please.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, please.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: It makes the whole picture come together.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: They sold everything, except for they had a track of land, 30 acres.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: The leader of the family in Florida,
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: that's calling the leader,
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: was chairman of the Pinellas County,
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: which is where I'm sitting right now, which is east of Tampa.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: He was chairman of the Democrat Party in this area.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: He had grown the party,
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: but there weren't many Democrats at that time in St.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Petersburg, Clearwater, Palm Harbor, Nellis County.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: But the controller back then...
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: He issued bank charters for state chartered banks.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: He went to the controller and said, look, I got 30 acres of land.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I got a lot of money in the bank.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: We want a state chartered bank.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: The controller, after thinking it over, said, I'm not going to give you one.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: He said, well, what do you mean?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: He said, but I've got a better offer for you.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you a cemetery license.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they were insulted and left the meeting.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometime after that,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: probably pretty quick,
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: he went back and said, why would you insult us with a cemetery?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know anything about dead people, nor do we want to know about them, or a cemetery.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, it's simple.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: You were very successful in the orange grove business, weren't you?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, grapefruit too.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we got all this money.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: He said, okay.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: What you did is you figured out how to manage land.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: The cemetery business is no different than a grove business.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you manage your land correctly, you'll do well.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't, you won't.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: So he talked about it and they said, we can make this work.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: I met that man the first time when he came to Tampa to our cemetery,
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: our family cemetery, when we still owned it.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: His name was Howard Lawrence.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he told us what he was going to do and said, hey, can you help me?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: He said, of course we can help you.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: What do you need to know?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Everything.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he said,
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: what my plan is,
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: is I'm going to travel around the U.S.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: for six months or a year,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: get good ideas and bad mistakes,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: and try to make success of good ideas and try not to fall into mistakes.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was about a year after, around 1980, that they opened the cemetery.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: They had developed a lawn crib section,
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: a mausoleum building, a columbarium, and a single ground burial section.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: They had built a small office, and they were debt-free and had money in the bank.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: The unique thing is this company to this day still has money in the bank and debt-free.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's insane.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I got to tie the story together to bring it around to it.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: How did things change when you came on board?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Did you make any improvements?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Was it already, you know, running like a top?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: What were some of the changes that you made?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: I bought computers.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: There was only one computer here.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: I love those stories.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely love those stories.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: We were doing things on pencils and papers and file cards and stuff like that.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: There was one computer here that the guy I replaced claimed he didn't know how
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: to work it, but every time you'd go into his office, there was porn on it.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, not every time, but more times than not.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, we got people, we trained people to use computers.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Most people even back then had an idea and wanted to learn, which was perfect.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking the turn of the century.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't a thousand years ago.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is 2002, 2005 or whatever, right?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: 2003, thereabouts.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: I cut staff because we were grossly overstaffed with both funeral directors
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: and cemetery salespeople.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'd had something that I'd always wanted to do with Stuart because there,
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: in my nine years in Miami, I had 300 salespeople in the city of Miami.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: I had another 300 when I was in Orlando.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And all you did is you chased salespeople.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: We made a lot of money.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: We sold a lot of stuff.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, you're just churning people.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd always wanted to do something very different.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that was to find salespeople that didn't need to make a sale today to get paid tomorrow.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I came up with a program here simply that on one Christmas,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: I wished everybody a Merry Christmas.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: When they came back after the new year, I fired them.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: 15 or 16 sales counselors, some were very good, some were not very good.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: If they were short of killing people,
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: they would pressure them enough to make a sale, only to get a paycheck.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: My theory was,
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: and it's worked well to this day,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: I created a profile for a successful sales counselor,
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: and I created how I wanted them to present to customers.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: I hear about it even to this day.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: People, they want your name,
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: your address,
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: your phone number, almost your car keys before they'll give you any information.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: We operate on the premise that anything you want to know, we'll tell you.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: How much does it cost?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: What does it do?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to pressure you into making a decision today or tomorrow.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: We'll follow up with you if you ask us to.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what we did.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: I kept three people that I had.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I kept two and brought one back that I'd let go prior to that.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: These are the last three people,
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: or they were then,
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: and even today,
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: the last three people that you would ever expect to be a high-pressure salesman,
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: because they're not.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: We won't knock our competitors.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: We know who they are.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: They know what their issues are.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: We know some of them are public, and they've got The orderly results they've got to create.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I had my friend share that in Miami and Orlando prior.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have those quotas.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: We want to sell stuff every day, but we want to sell it for what's right for the family.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: As an example,
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: today for a husband and wife to get a burial,
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: traditional burial with mediocre casket,
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: regular funeral services, Concrete vault, you're looking at $30,000, $35,000.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Back in 2003, it may have been $15,000.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is then I would say you,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: I know I would, I would have a sale that big or expenditure that big.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'd want to think about it and go maybe do some shopping.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we encourage people to do.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the information.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Take it with you.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Call us if you've got any questions.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you're talking to somebody else,
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: if you've got questions that you don't understand what they're doing, call us.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: We want you to get to the right place.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: We want you to make the right decision for your family, not for Curlew or not for XYZ.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's somewhere else,
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: we're good you're making the right decision because that helps everybody
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: in our industry.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've run it that way since then.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: We scan all our records.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: We don't keep any records on site.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: All of our funeral arrangements are made online,
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: meaning we just show caskets on TV screens in an office.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have a casket on site.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: We do have a couple of urns.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: With Pisari,
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: now we've been toying with online funeral arrangements,
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: and we've made probably 10 or 15 of them.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Customer likes doing it.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to come to a funeral home anyhow.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I see it's going to a more streamlined arrangement process where they make all
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: the arrangements.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: We follow it, you know, and provide it.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the first time we'll meet the family is the day they come in for the visitation.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Not beforehand.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's just no need.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so what do you see going on?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: So what size is your staff now?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Is your sales staff now?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Four and three?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Still three.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Still three.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Tony, that I figured back then and I check it every once in a while.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know how many calls our funeral home has.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's a little over 600, 650.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: I know there I need a hundred for every 125 families we have coming through.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: I need one funeral director.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I figured out a formula, and I honestly don't remember what the formula was.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was probably based upon activity in the cemetery,
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: not so much sales,
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: but the number of burials and knowing that was going to grow over time.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And came up with the magic number three.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I've thought about adding more, but you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've got three very happy people.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: I pay them an hourly wage along with commissions.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is a manager and she gets an override.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I want them not to feel pressured to make a sale.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they're going to do reasonably well on their own.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just taking care of customers.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can tell you tales about salespeople and avoiding families because they know,
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: oh gosh, that's somebody coming in to complain, but they're the next one up.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: They'll run and hide in the bathroom.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the next person down gets taken advantage of.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need that.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: We don't hang around the front office like we're at the car lot where you pull up
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: and the sharks start swimming out to you.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right, yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're not that kind of business.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody wants that kind, there's plenty of them out there.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so what do you see for the future?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you have any,
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've been at this, I mean, like full-time since 85, did you say, 82?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: No, I graduated from high school in 69, 68.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I've done it a long time.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm convinced that it's just, everything goes around in a circle.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: What goes around comes around.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: So this business was started in, like I said, 1980.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: That was when National Cremation Society started in Clearwater.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost free back then.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not almost free today, but cremation rate here has been 70% since then until now.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: So what that says is cemeteries can operate and do well if they adapt to cremation
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: and provide what families want with cremation.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it may be out of their normal vault marker, flat bronze marker, or upright monument.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: You may have to do all kinds of different things.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: We've been able to adapt based upon our customers' needs.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a big believer of a big company knowing what their entire region or division
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: or whatever can do or should sell.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: They can create what they want them to sell.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: But that may not be what the customer wants to buy.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so what do you see for the future?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: What do you have planned for the next five years, let's say?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to continue to expand.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've got under construction right now and I'm converting a...
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: You'd call it a garden chapel, an open-air chapel.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm closing it in and putting glass front niches in it,
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm putting also glass back niches in it so you can see straight in from
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: the outside or out from the inside.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've not seen it done yet, but I'm sure it has.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Over the last 10 years, we've created a great relationship with our Greek community north of us.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're 10 miles away.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: But they're very traditional.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we've adapted,
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: we've taken a flat marker cemetery and we've got two and a half acres
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: of granite upright monuments out there now and doing right well and we'll continue
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: to grow that.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: One of the big things in Florida is Whether it's accepted or not
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: a different thing, is composting.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not natural barrel, but composting.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: There was an attempt in the Florida legislature last session to allow that.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't go very far, but I don't think it's gone away, so...
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: We'll look at it.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'll look at it and see if it's something that comes, will work well for us.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it will,
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: but hey,
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: we'll continue to look for things that people want and things that we can make money
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: on.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're a for-profit company and we want to make money.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: And do you have any final thoughts as we're coming up toward the end?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is there something I should have asked you when I didn't
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: or something you thought you'd get the opportunity to say, but I didn't provide it?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, I hope I've
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: given the idea of keeping your mind open.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: What you personally like as a manager or owner, disregard it.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because that may not and probably is not what your customer wants.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Be open to those kind of things.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let them be creative.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can always keep them in boundaries at the end of the presentation
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: or whatever they want and say, no, we don't offer that.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something that fits our plan.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just not be old-fashioned, I guess, simply said.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm of that age where I should rightfully be old-fashioned.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I come to work every day because I love what I do.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited about coming because you never know what's going to walk in the door next.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll close it unless you want me to close it sooner.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Never judge people.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we hear that.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was told that years ago by my dad and I made a mistake for years of doing it.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: But in a...
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Previous lives working for Stewart in Miami, we had a family come in.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: They drove up in a pickup truck.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the husband and wife got out, walked in.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted to see the manager.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was the closest thing to a manager in the building.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I went down and talked to them.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they said their son had died and they were looking for a place to put him.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: I said, all right, let me get somebody that can show you around.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Got somebody,
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: drove them around the cemetery two times,
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: and they finally stopped at a red-brilled building.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a six-grit private walk-in mausoleum.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And they asked, what is that building?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so the counselor fortunately told them what it was and explained it to them.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm, how much was that?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, Back then, it was probably a quarter of a million dollars.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: They said, all right, well, let us go home and think about it.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Counselor said, fine, thank you.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: They had released the son's remains to us, so we knew we were going to handle a funeral.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: We just didn't know where.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Two days later, they returned.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: They walked in with a briefcase.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: With a quarter of a million dollars.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, holy.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Anyhow,
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: my point of all of that rambling is keep your mind open to every family that walks
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: in your door and care for them like you want to be cared for.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your story.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it was something you can use or do with or whatever.