Seize the Brand (STB) is an educational platform designed to assist funeral professionals elevate the brand behind their business so they can stand out, grow and have a legacy that can be passed onto the next generation.
As long as this world is here death will always be a part of it. That means there will always be a need for funeral professionals. This causes us to have a false sense of security. If taken for granted long enough is going to lead to the closure of your funeral home. What do I mean?
Well you’ve seen it. Firms closing after 30, 40 or 50 years due to numerous reasons. Many of the reasons for closure can boil down to one thing, lack of a strong funeral brand.
At STB we believe a funeral business, when branded properly from the ground up will scale rapidly, stand out from competitors and build a legacy that will live on long after the initial founders have moved on. This means thinking, treating and acting as if your funeral home is a conglomerate. Funeral homes with multiple locations and thousands of service calls yearly have to think, act and behave in a completely different way. Basically, they have to think, act and behave as a multi-billion dollar brand. Seize the Brand is here to distill the principles and lessons of the big brands to those in the funeral profession. Why?
Simply because no one else is really doing it. I’ve been in this industry for over 10 years and see very clearly that it’s veiled and protective. We guard the secrets of our success because we fear others coming in and taking our market share. Yet, the reality is that we need to innovate or die. If we stay the same others will come in and disrupt our business. Disruption like that leads to closure. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you rented a video from Blockbuster? Do you still use a Kodak camera? How long has it been since you updated your MySpace page? Refuse to change and someone will change your business. This industry is no exception.
We’re in the information age. The brands that provide the most valuable information and experience win. They are the ones that serve families for generations. They are the ones commanding top dollar for their services regardless if it’s traditional or cremation.
Industry professionals gripe over families doing gofundme’s, not having enough to bury their loved one and them being so overwhelmed at the difficult process of laying loved ones to rest that you have to do way more than you anticipated to help them. While that’s our job, our passion there’s a better way. Combat those frustrations by providing valuable content to inform them. They’ll repay it by using your funeral home to care for their loved one. Join our community and we’ll show you how to do it in your funeral business.
My Mission
Funeral homes trying to get past 100, 200 service calls hit stopping points because of several issues
- You’re not marketing enough
- You’re not spending your marketing dollars in the right area
- You’re not monitoring your marketing effectively
- You have weak or non-existent branding
- You have no growth strategy
- Or you have internal issues that need systems to solve it and grow
These issues are crucial because the lack of a strong brand is actually costing money in lost opportunities. While you may have at-need and pre-need that keeps your doors open unbeknownst to you you’re losing out on growth opportunities because your brand doesn’t effectively differentiate you from your competitors. More importantly, your branding doesn’t show why you’re the preferred choice in your community. As a result, the pressure you experience is increased because you have expenses, payroll, family and other obligations that needs a growing income stream. When that happens you avidly search for ideas on how to keep your business going and growing.
Seize the Brand is about delivering value to you business owners by providing tips, knowledge, practices and more to transform your funeral business into a funeral brand. It’s by becoming a brand you gain the freedom to pursue other desires in life because brands deliver security. People see your brand, resonate with it and if your delivery system is good and consistent, your brand will continue to provide you with revenue no matter what stage of growth you’re in.
Building a brand is a journey and so is this platform. Feel free to comment, ask, advise and overall engage with me so together we can transform your business into an amazing brand.
Seize the Brand Voice
My mother is a huge movie buff. Oh my goodness she loves period movies. While that’s a hard pass for me (come on, I’m a guy, action genre!) I didn’t realize how much that influenced me until I saw my media library. It literally needs its own hard drive. So, in a way I’m a bit like Jim Carrey in Cable Guy finding similarities in pop culture and being able to extract principles from them that can be applied to branding and business. I do that a lot and felt it a natural voice for the Seize the Brand platform.
About Me
For the past 20 years my expertise has been branding and strategy. I’ve been doing it for 20 years. In short, my clients wanted to reach certain goals and couldn’t. I’d come in and help create the strategy to get them where they wanted to go along with a brand that positioned them for success.
As we start our businesses we realize quickly how much we didn’t know and need to know in order to grow. Therefore, I started this platform with the desire to give you the insight you need to build your business on the right foundation—the foundation of a strong brand. Branding is more than just your logo. Branding affects and is effected by every aspect of your business design-related or not.
Ever since my first job when I was 14 I realized working for other people was not for me. From that moment I understood that to excel I needed to be amazing, knowledgeable and above all forthright and professional. I knew my worth even when others didn’t want to pay it. I have a knowledge and skill set that I’ve used to help my clients literally make millions while for many years I stayed in the same place. In my journey toward self-improvement I realized I needed to begin taking steps to achieve the pinnacles I was getting others to. I know I’m not the only one who feels that way and all I want to do is provide the skills and knowledge I’ve gained over a 20 year career to spare you from the mistakes I made, and realistically, continue to make.
Brief Background
From a young age I was always drawn to art and challenges. I started both at a young age when I was in METCO (holla back METCO kids). For non-Massachusetts residents METCO is a program where they take inner city kids and bus them to suburban schools in throughout Massachusetts. I taught myself how to draw comics even creating my own comic book universe full of characters and teams. While in METCO I also had a challenge I needed to solve which became, what I realize now was, the fundaments of my entrepreneurial spirit. Our school had cool gadgets, accessories and desserts but I didn’t have enough money to get them. What do you do? Solve a problem for a large enough audience that will continue to buy. Every kid wants candy, but there were no corner stores anywhere near my school. However, I walked past several every morning on my way to my bus stop. Problem solved. I bought $2-$3 worth of Now and Later candy and Jolly Rancher Sticks (watermelon is the best). I got them for 10¢ each and sold them for 25¢. Students began seeking me out before homeroom. It peaked when I was able to auction off a 10¢ Jolly Rancher stick for $1.25. How’s that for profit margin? Delicious desserts and gadgets here I come!
By high school, while I still loved comics, I outgrew the desire to run my own comic book company and fell in love with logo design. From then on I knew I wanted to run my own design studio. After college I went to city hall and registered, Notionworks Design, my freelance design studio and began my side hustle with the goal of making it my sole venture. I went solo with Notionworks in 2006 and it failed around 2008-2009. From that failure I learned a great deal. I got back on the saddle and focused my efforts on my second business, Cherished Keepsakes, a company that provides amazing quality funeral and memorial keepsakes to funeral homes and families.
I built that as a brand from the start based on what I learned from my previous failure. As design work began to grow again I rebranded Notionworks to GP3 Design because it no longer fit the direction I was heading with in the business. Later, as my skillset and knowledge grew I then founded GP3 Creative as branding & strategy creative agency with its own in-house brands. The brands initially served as a continual case study of the power of branding and design when it’s an integral part of business strategy.
And here we are now, filled with two decades to knowledge, skills and tactics from self-improvement and client work in numerous industries. I came up with the idea for Seize the Brand way back in 2014, but a combination of building Cherished Keepsakes and analysis by paralysis put it on the back burner. No more of that and Seize the Brand is here now with the goal of helping all of you funeral industry professionals grow your business right, by making it a brand. Doing so will allow the business to become what it’s supposed to be, the tool that gives you the freedom to achieve your goals and desires.
Career Highlights
Awards
2018 Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) American Design Awards, Multi-Category winner
2017 NFDA International Expo Best Booth Award Winner
Speaking
Bunker Hill Community College (BCC)
Business Networking International (BNI)
Minority Enterprise Development Week (MED Week)
Exhibits
Rowan Cabarrus Community College
Bunker Hill Community College
Two Brands One Goal
Seize the Brand isn’t the only brand I’ve founded that serves the funeral industry. As I mentioned there’s also Cherished Keepsakes.
Cherished Keepsakes is the only keepsake company that honors the legacies of both families and funeral homes. We do this in part by providing memorial products to families in a caring environment with a classy touch. We help families feel relieved and emotionally moved by how beautifully we honor your loved one. Firms feel relieved and differentiated against other funeral homes in their area. We do this by providing personalizable, award-winning designs with a fast turnaround that gets our amazing designs to you on time for your memorial service.
CK provides funeral and memorial keepsakes for families when they’ve lost a loved one in death. In doing so we create amazing designs applicable to our product list
- Funeral Programs
- Prayer Cards
- Bookmarks
- Acknowledgements Cards
- Buttons/Pins
- Portraits
- Register book and more…
We’ve created an innovative production system that allows CK to turn orders around in a day or less no matter where they are in the country. CK is proof of STB beliefs; when branding and design are an integral part of business growth it will grow faster and sell on its own. Currently, our products are featured in funeral homes across the country.
Both Cherished Keepsakes and Seize the Brand offers value very few can compete with. The knowledge, tools, tips and products that will make your funeral home, correction, funeral brand stand out, be sustainable and grow. Thanks for joining us on this journey of collective self-improvement.