January 17-19, 2007
Treasure Island
Las Vegas, Nevada
Wednesday, January 17
6:00 - 7:30 p.m.
"Welcome Aboard" Reception
Sponsored by Matthews Bronze
Thursday, January 18
8:00 - 8:30 a.m.
Continental Breakfast and Networking
Sponsored by Forethought Financial Services
8:30 - 8:40 a.m.
Welcome
ICCFA Sales & Marketing Committee Chair Gwen Mooney, CFuE, and 2007 Conference Program Co-Chairs Keith Charles and Clift Dempsey
8:40 - 9:40 a.m.
All Aboard! The Power of Approachability
Scott Ginsberg
Sponsored by Service Corporation International
Approachability is not a personal characteristic; it's a way of life! It's a way of business, a way of conversation and a way of social interaction. What's more, approachability is essential to your success as an effective communicator and seller. Based on his book, "The Power of Approachability: How to Become an Effective, Engaging Communicator—One Conversation at a Time," Scott Ginsberg will show you:
- How to create comfort and break the ice
- How to effectively engage and build rapport with families and prospects
- The Seven Areas of Personal Approachability
- The Five Pillars of Personal Approachability
Bonus Booty! All attendees will receive a free copy of Ginsberg's newest book, "How to Be That Guy: 47 Ways to Create an Unforgettable Brand that Magnetizes More Business."
9:40 - 10:10 a.m.
The Magic Compass: Achieving What Matters to You
Gregg Williamson, CCE
The power to become what you want: It's all about personal accountability. When we become accountable for ourselves and our actions, develop our own plan and commit ourselves to actually working our plan, our goals become our reality. It is true in our personal lives, in business and in our relationships. During this presentation, we will discuss:
- Playing the victim
- Taking charge
- Self-examination
- Being a master learner
- Taking the right actions
Once you develop your plan and begin working your plan, you will Achieve What Matters to You.
10:10 - 10:30 a.m.
Break
10:30 - 12:00 noon
Breakout Tracks
10:30 - 11:00 a.m.
Manager Breakout
Beyond "Ahoy, Matey": Training to Serve Telephone Shoppers
Mike Uselton, CCFE
How confident are you that your staff is able or willing to take the time to capture the phone shopper? Do they have the skills, intuition, or patience to listen to the caller? Are they able to determine the caller's needs, and are they able to provide exceptional customer service over the phone?
This session will provide "how to" techniques for providing value over the phone and will force you as a manager to ask yourself, "Is my staff truly prepared?" After all, what does one more family per month, per week, per day mean to your bottom line? Whether you work in a funeral home or cemetery, at-need or preneed, providing superior customer service over the phone is a must.
Counselor Breakout
X Marks the Spot: Increase Your Sales
Brett Gaither
Where do you find the buried treasure chest? This session takes you straight to the spot:
--How to increase the number of presentations
--How to develop warm leads and referrals
--How to lower the average age of account holders
11:00 - 11:30 noon
Manager Breakout
All Hands on Deck! Running Smart Sales Meetings
Gwen Mooney, CCFE, & Kevin Gaffney
Are you giving enough value to your sales staff in return for the time you are asking them to attend meetings? In this session, Kevin Gaffney and Gwen Mooney will team up to show you how to maximize the effectiveness of your sales meetings. Whether you have a small group of sales associates or a large combination cemetery and funeral home sales force, you'll return to your location with concrete ideas for getting the most out of your staff through smart sales meeting!
Counselor Breakout
To the Brave Go the Spoils: Prospecting and Referrals
Tom Holland
When he first entered sales, Tom Holland's manager said to him, "Your future in sales depends on people you have not met yet!" A scary thought—unless you have an effective prospecting and referral system. Tom learned one quickly, and has never had a problem with selling since. In this session, you'll learn how to get referrals and how to develop prospecting systems to keep you busy.
11:30 - 12:00 noon
Manager Breakout
Management Best Practices Roundtable
Dean Lambert
How do you find good counselors? What interviewing techniques work best when evaluating their potential for sales? How do you train them and keep them motivated? What marketing tools work best for your market? Come prepared to share and learn in this interactive session.
Counselor Breakout Breakout
Drawing a Map for Your Client Families: Consultative Selling Skills
Mike Hays
Today's consumer wants information and expert advice as they make important decisions about how they want to be honored and remembered or how they wish to honor and remember their loved ones. Mike Hays will show you how to use the characteristics of the consultative selling process to enhance your presentation skills and better serve families.
12:00 noon - 1:30 p.m.
Networking Lunch
Sponsored by Homesteaders Life Company
1:30 - 2:10 p.m.
Walk the Plank! Motivating Your Sales Team
Patrick Downey, CCE
Truly great captains know how to manage and motivate their crews ... without the threat of the plank. In this fast-paced session, Pat Downey will send you home with a cargo load of ways to get the most out of your sales team, including:
- Establishing and discussing activity and performance expectations
- Sales meeting dos and don'ts
- Creating a "pro-sales" environment
- Motivators and de-motivators
- The role of measurement
- The quartiling concept
- Successful coaches vs. control freaks
- And many more!
2:10 - 2:40 p.m.
Retrieving Yer Most Valuable Treasure: Time Management Techniques
Rahsaan Brown
You've taken the time to recruit the right people, provide them with good training and create an inspiring vision. Why isn't your team producing promised results? Developing the discipline to get things done is founded in effective time management. Many times sales counselors, managers and even executives fail to consistently manage daily events and therefore fail to "work the plans" they've taken so much energy to develop.
In this session, you'll embark on a journey to find that most elusive treasure of all ... more time. Through practical and easy-to- use techniques, you'll discover how to take control of your daily sales activities and increase your productivity and effectiveness. You'll turn the uncharted and dangerous waters of constant demand into calm seas and smooth sailing.
Bonus Booty! All attendees will receive free downloadable tools to aid in designing their custom planning system, writing a Personal Mission Statement and setting goals, as well as a 30-day trial version of PlanPlus for Microsoft Outlook software!
2:40 - 3:00 p.m.
Break
3:00 - 4:00 p.m.
From Ocean to Ocean: Managing and Marketing for Diversity
Christine Toson Hentges, CCE; G. Anthony Ramirez; and Bruce Young
With every passing day, the makeup of our communities become more and more diverse. How can you reach out to people of different cultures, religions, sexes and ages? Join us for this panel discussion on how some of the most successful companies in our profession are effectively embracing diversity and meeting the needs of both employees and clients of varying backgrounds.
4:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Cash Bar Networking Session
Friday, January 19
8:00 - 8:30 a.m.
Continental Breakfast and Networking
Sponsored by Forethought Financial Services
8:30 - 9:40 a.m.
Aye, Aye, Cap'n! Getting to "Yes"
Scott Love
Sponsored by Dempsey Funeral Services
Effective sales and effective management are all about mastering the arts of persuasion and influence. How do we get others to follow our lead and thank us in the process?
In this session, sales counselors will learn:
- how to effortlessly move prospects through the sales process
- how to sell in a way that draws prospects closer to them
- how to get others to say "yes" more easily
- how to sell in a way that removes all pressure the prospects feel in going forward
Sales managers will learn:
- how to lead a team that willingly follows
- how to manage in a way that makes for a better working environment
- how to increase compliance among employees
- how to increase staff retention and performance
9:40 - 10:00 a.m.
Break
10:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Finding Safe Harbor: Lead Generation
Clift Dempsey
Preneed sales slumping? No one for your salespeople to see? Don't miss this session on getting your counselors away from their desks and in front of people. Simple yet effective ways to create opportunities to make sales. There is no buried treasure ... the treasure lies within you and how you uncover those daily missed opportunities through easy-to-run sales programs.
10:30 - 11:00 a.m.
The Hunt for Heritage: Family Service
John Bolton, CCE
A strong family service program is vital for developing ongoing contact with your families. The services you have already provided and the relationships you have already built offer a treasure trove of possibilities for the future. In this session, you'll learn how to make the most of those possibilities from a manager and trainer whose company is so dedicated to building family heritage, it's in the name!
11:00 - 11:40 a.m.
Unlocking the Chest: Cremation Sales and Marketing
Michael H. Burke and Rick Rico
It's the million-dollar question: How do we best serve the cremation consumer? In this session, Mike Burke and Rick Rico will unlock the secrets they've learned in their high-cremation market for promoting services and memorialization for cremation.
11:40 - 12:00 noon
10 Ideas in 20 Minutes
Always a favorite, this year's session will provide you with 10 gold nuggets to take back to your location and put to use immediately.
12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Networking Luncheon
Top Performing Counselors: Lunch with Gary O'Sullivan
1:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Navigating Tumultuous Seas: Improving Preneed/At-need Relationships
Rob Meredith
The problem of tumultuous preneed/at-need relationships plagues many a firm. Treacherous internal climates are bad for the entire crew and can lead to tragic mutiny, or worse yet, a sinking ship. Rob Meredith's five tried-and-proven secrets will help you squelch turmoil and set sail for smoother waters before your sales take the big plunge. You will:
- Uncover the root cause of preneed/at-need relationship issues.
- Learn how internal turmoil causes preneed and at-need sales to plummet.
- Discover five secrets for navigating the storm
- Get creative ideas for boosting morale and referral business.
2:00 - 2:30 p.m.
Polishing Your Jewels: Training for Top Performance
Kathi Wells
Training counselors for top performance isn't just about making sure they have the knowledge they need to complete a contract ... it's about building rapport and comfort, it's about goal-setting and establishing expectations, and it's about ongoing performance management and coaching. Through large-group discussion and interactive small-group work, you'll identify the key elements of the three components of training: orientation, training and management, you'll establish best practices for implementation.
2:30 - 3:30
The Siren's Call: Lessons from the Wedding Industry
Doug Gober
What can cemeteries and funeral homes learn from the wedding industry? Modern weddings have evolved from a family ritual to a multibillion-dollar event business where the national average wedding costs $27,000!
In this interactive, multi-media presentation, Doug Gober will examine the evolution of the wedding business, including locations, service contents, relationship to religion and the clergy and more. The changes point to real opportunities for our profession. Specifically, you will:
- Understand how weddings have changed in the last generation
- Learn how modern wedding practice has expanded the scope of the wedding
- Recognize how wedding practitioners and families have reduced their dependence on clergy for the quality of the overall event
- Learn practical ways to transfer these trends to sales in our business!
Treasure Hunt!
Sponsored by United Memorial Products
Througout the conference, you'll receive clues to a treasure chest hidden somewhere in Treasure Island. Be the first to uncover the booty and win cash prizes!
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