We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Trevor Charbonneau a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Trevor, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.
The funeral industry is very slow and resistant to change. Even though cremation has been around for thousands of years, it is not until recently that funeral businesses have embraced this form of disposition. There is a similar situation occurring currently within the funeral industry, and this time it is Aquamation. We are at the forefront of the industry by not only offering Aquamation to our client families but to investing in the technology and performing the process on site at our facilities. Many within the industry either speak ill of Aquamation, or ignore it completely when talking to their client families. We have been offering this process for the past 7 years and 90% of the resistance we receive is from within the industry, not from consumers. In fact, consumers are actively seeking this process out and will travel out of their way to find it for their loved one.
Trevor, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I entered the funeral industry for a few reasons. The first was because of the variety the job offered. I am not the kind of person who can sit behind a desk all day, I admire people that have the discipline and attention span to do this, but that’s not me. Within the funeral industry there is a lot of variety in what takes place each day. Some days you are out of the building on a burial or at a church, and other days you are in meetings with client families making arrangements for a loved one who has passed away. Another reason I chose this profession was that I could do something that not only provided a job for me, but had a purpose. Being able to help people in one of the worst times in their lives and make things just a little easier is very rewarding and why I think most people enter this profession.
After working at a few different funeral homes in Toronto I came to the point in my career where I wanted to own my own. When an opportunity came up to purchase a funeral home just outside of Toronto I jumped at it. 2 years after purchasing the funeral home, a neighbouring funeral home came up for sale and I purchased that one as well. To try to differentiate from our competitors I started researching a new form of disposition called Alkaline Hydrolysis, or Aquamation. Aquamation yields the same end result as cremation, meaning you get remains back at the end of the process, it just happens in a much different way. It uses water and alkalinity to reduce a body instead of fire. There are many environmental benefits to the process as well. It uses up to 90% less energy than cremation and there are no emissions. Since my businesses deal with a lot of cremation families each year I thought this would be a great fit and something that would set us apart from other funeral homes.
The thing I am most proud of is that when the resistance from within the industry presented itself, I did not back down from my commitment to offer Aquamation. There was tremendous opposition from flame based crematoriums. They were able to convince the government to put a pause on us offering Aquamation and I was in a position where I either had to walk away, or pursue in court by appealing, which I did. It took 3 or 4 years and a lot of time and money, but I was determined to see it through and ultimately was successful. We legally won the right to offer this process and pave the way for other funeral homes in Ontario to do the same.
Let’s talk M&A – we’d love to hear your about your experience with buying businesses.
I have purchased two separate funeral homes. Being a funeral director, I knew of the businesses I was purchasing and their level of success and reputation. I purchased the first funeral home when I had reached a point in my career where I didn’t want to work for somebody else. The process was actually very easy as the sellers had been looking for a buyer for about 2 years and had all the information for the due diligence prepared. They were highly motivated but very concerned that they sell the funeral home to the right person as this was a business they had started from scratch. Once they had a comfort level that I would be the right person to continue on what they had created, everything fell in place fairly quickly. It took about 4 months to finalize everything. One month before the sale closed I resigned my position at the time and worked for the sellers. After the deal closed, they worked for me for a month. This was very useful for a transition period, especially in a community based business like a funeral home.
The second funeral home I purchased was a little different experience. It was in the next town and only about 10 minutes away. This funeral home had been in the same family for over 150 years, so it was very intimidating to be the first non family member to own such an old, established business. It was two years after purchasing the first funeral home so I was not completely ready from a financial perspective to purchase another business. The owner wanted to sell, but was not prepared like the first owners were so it took a little longer, probably more like 8 months. I also had to bring in a partner as I did not have enough financial resources to purchase it on my own. I brought in a friend who was not from the industry in the understanding that I would buy him out when I was able to. It was risky, as this type of thing can damage a friendship, but fortunately we made it work and I was able to buy him out after about 6 years.
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
The funeral industry presents unique challenges when it comes to marketing. We need to be here for people, but not in their faces. They need to know we exist, but usually don’t want to deal with us. We also have a lot of regulation when it comes to marketing, we can’t be visiting hospitals and nursing homes looking for potential customers.
To catch peoples attention I decided to run an ad in the local paper. It had a picture of a tomb stone with a price on it and the caption read “Prices to die for”. Even when I ran the ad I knew it was going to have mixed reactions, but that is what I was looking for, something to stand out and catch peoples attention.
I received many phone calls from that advertisement. Some from other funeral homes who thought it was in bad taste and some from consumers who either got a laugh from it or were offended. The one that sticks out in my memory the most was a letter I received from what I assume was an elderly lady. She mailed me a copy of the ad along with a hand written note. All that the note said was….. For shame. I automatically thought of my 3rd grade teacher scolding me when I had done something wrong. I am hoping what they say is true, that even bad publicity is better than no publicity.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.aquamations.ca