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Greetings!
There was a building on a roundabout that one funeral director wanted more than any other. He'd researched it down to how many cars drove past it every year.
It wasn't for sale. Someone else's business was already in it.
So he knocked on the door, handed over his card and said, "If you ever want to come out of this building, please let me know."
Nearly a year later, the owners realised their business wasn't working. The building was his. He's done the same thing three times now and it's worked every time.
That funeral director is Jason Threadgold. He and his wife Nichola have grown their funeral business from one home to five in 12 years, with a team of 30 and a customer service award along the way. Jason has spent more than 30 years in the industry. Nichola came from customer service and corporate roles and runs the operational side.
Their big idea is simple and hard to live by. Growth doesn't come from selling. It comes from solving people's problems and doing exactly what you said you'd do. In an industry where nobody wants to be a customer, that's how trust gets built.
They're honest about how they learned this. Jason, a self-confessed "off the scale D", once spoke to Nichola in the wrong tone early on and upset her. It taught him that the empathy he'd always shown grieving families had to reach his own team too.
And COVID, which you might assume would be straightforward for a funeral business, hit their cashflow harder than anyone outside the industry would expect.
In this conversation you'll hear about communication, and why most of it is listening rather than talking. About being impeccable with your word, and what happens to people when you leave them hanging. About building a reputation in an area where nobody knows you yet, and how to research a new location properly before you commit to it. You'll hear how a husband-and-wife team learned to work as equals, and why Jason cross-trains his team so thoroughly that an administrator can step in as a hearse driver. And you'll hear what COVID did to their cashflow, why it caught them off guard and what it taught them about knowing your numbers. Plus why Nichola finds running a business lonely, and what actually helped.
This conversation is for you if you're telling people your service is what sets you apart and wondering why it isn't landing. Or if you're running a business with your partner. Or if you're great with customers but suspect your team doesn't always get the same patience. Or if you're the cautious one, or the one who wants to charge headfirst at everything.
Jason and Nichola are two people who care deeply about the families they serve and who've done the careful, unglamorous work to build something that lasts.
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