WOW! Where do I even begin... Forest Lawn was no question overwhelming at first. They have hands down, the most amazing cemetery/memorial parks I have ever seen. Their name and reputation in the area is unmatched and we as Precoa should be proud to have them as partners.
This trip had a different itinerary than the previous two weeks simply because Forest Lawn is so massive and there were plenty of people to meet. I went on after care and direct mail appointments, sat through trainings with new counselors in various offices, met with countless employees and managers and really feel like I have learned a lot and am excited to bring that knowledge back to each of you (through this blog first).
WARNING: This post might be photo/visual OVERLOAD but I think it will all be worth it :) Wish you could all see it first hand, and if you are ever in the LA area for a vacation I strongly recommend you pay the Glendale location in particular a visit. It is fascinating.
Tuesday, November 1
I flew into Orange County and headed directly to the Cypress Hills offices. It is actually located across the street from the "Cypress Hills Memorial Park". This was a very different experience than I have had in the past. Usually I meet the funeral director, and the counselor. That is not the way Forest Lawn is run. Forest Lawns Cypress office has approximately 25 planners (counselors), Marco is the Field Manager, and Amaury Rozario is the Regional Manager. They all office out of the same office and help serve all of the pre planning as well as grave site sales. Can you believe that? A whole different world I tell ya...
They will either do appointments in the home or in the Mortuary/Funeral Home (which is large, spacious and beautiful by the way). After my quick tour of the office I headed out with one of their "Platinum Club" Advanced Planner Reynaldo (Rey) Salazar. Rey has been in the industry for 7 years and is originally from the Philippines. He clearly loves his job.
We met at the Ms. Bollingers home. She lives alone and had a cute little dog named Pepe. She had recently buried her mother (who died at the age of 94) at the Cypress Hills location and she came from a direct mail survey where the appointment was set by the planning center. (GO TEAM!). She graciously let us in and we sat around her kitchen table (all of the counselors prefer this to sitting on the couch by the way. It is more effective with their presentation to have space to fill out paperwork and show pictures of coffins and urns etc).
Ms.Bollinger has two daughters one that lives in state and one that lives out of state. Her mother had prepurchased her burial plot but didn't do any pre planning in regards to the funeral (as all of you know this is a common scenario). It turned into a headache for Ms. Bollinger and was very burdensome. Because of this she has been thinking about preparing her final wishes. She wanted to use this opportunity as more of discovery and so Rey was not able to write up a policy during that appointment but she understands the value and wants to set everything up as soon as she can. He went through her payment options and will be following up with her next week. This can be frustrating for a counselor when he makes it through on his first appointment with someone that seems quite prime for what Precoa has to offer, but she does understand the value, wants to use the service and wants to be buried at Forest Lawn. I believe Rey should be able to close this deal next week.
After that appointment I headed back to the office and met up with Chris Johnson. Chris started out as a counselor for Precoa/Forest Lawn and saw great success doing it. He now acts as a trainer for all of the Forest Lawn accounts and has built a great reputation with Forest Lawn and is a valuable asset to us at Precoa.
Quick background on Chris. Chris is from the beautiful Laguna Hills area in Southern California. He played collegiate baseball and is now married with two kids (Eliza (Ellie) and Cash). He and his family currently reside in Mission Viejo California. In Chris's former life he worked at Nordstroms and he very well may win the award for BEST DRESSED at Precoa :) Those that know him well call him... "Mr. Nordstroms" He will hate that I put that on the blog... but hey. I had to :)
Doesn't he have a beautiful family??!?!
Chris acted as my tour guide and showed me around the beautiful Cypress Hills Location. Take a look at some of these photos... INCREDIBLY beautiful.
Wednesday 11/2
We woke up bright and early to get to Cypress Hills office for a training with a few of the counselors. Chris did some training on the presentation and then we were off to go and see the Glendale and Hollywood Hills location. We only had a couple of hours to go and see these and really... you could get lost in these parks. They are massive and absolutely breath takingly beautiful.
We even found Walt Disneys Grave while we were there!
By way of FYI information... this is the cemetary where SEVERAL celebrities are burried which includes but is not limited to: Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and of course the founder of Forest Lawn Dr. Eaton.
After the tour of the Glendale location we headed over to Hollywood Hills. A little FYI about the Hollywood Hills location. Walt Disney actually wanted to purchase this property to build Disneyland. He was outbid by Dr. Eaton and so it became a cemetery/memorial garden. It is literally located on the other side of the Hollywood sign. While not as grandeous as Glendale it is certainly beautiful.
We came back to the Cypress location where I had the opportunity to sit in on an aftercare appointment with Julie, a planner with Forest Lawn. We met this mother and her daughter at the funeral home. They were Chinese and the mother spoke no english. The daughter spoke broken english but it made it difficult to communicate with them. It was clear by the look on their faces that the death was very recent. In fact the daughter had lost her husband also in 2007. Additionally the daughter recently had her roof cave in on her home and she and her daughter were living out of a hotel. The mother is living in a senior care center. Julie did an excellent job with extending her deepest sympathies and asked how the family was doing. They did not hold any funeral services of any kind. They also did not preplan the fathers death. He was extremely healthy and it came as a shock that he died so suddenly.
Needless to say it was very brief and because of the language barrier, the cultural differences etc it was difficult for Julie to progress very far in her presentation. She was able to connect with the daughters fiancee over the phone. He spoke fantastic english as well as Chinese and agreed to meet with Julie and his fiancee when he comes back in town from a business trip. This was a huge break through and a big success for Julie that she was able to problem solve in a difficult situation and help get this family one step closer.
Thursday 11/3 -Friday 11/4
I spent the majority of the last day and a half in trainings at various locations. Met with several counselors at the Cypress and Covina location. Precoa recently hired a new counselor named Vaughn Wood who will work with Chris Johnson out of the Covina location. He used to work for Forest Lawn in the Cypress location and has several years experience. He will do an excellent job and is very excited to get to work.
These last photos are of the last training group. We had Megan from the home office and Julian present on the new web portal as well as National Gaurdian Life (NGL). It was a great way to end the week.
And this last one is where Chris and I helped the team prepare for a big event they were hosting at Cypress that night. Literally stuffed thousands of goodie bags. Gotta love the field :)
At the end of the day my takeaway is that Precoa is in great hands with Chris Johnson. He is doing the right things and is a big asset to Forest Lawn organization. I was thoroughly impressed with Forest Lawn and the parks that they have built. It is unlike anything I have ever seen and can see a great future with them.
Have a fantastic week!
NEXT STOP.... KANSAS CITY!
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