Emilie Barta – Trade Show Presentation Specialist / Professional Trade Show Presenter – creating a clear, concise and consistent message to attract, engage, and interact with your audience

I have been in the event industry for 12 years, yet never realized that having to plan a funeral would be the most important event in which I have participated. My grandpa passed away unexpectedly last week, and my grandma, parents, and I were blessed to work with a funeral director who really cared about ensuring that Papa (as I nicknamed him as a child) had a ceremony that reflected him and his life. I am usually in the planner role as opposed to the planee role, and I have to say it was a very interesting experience to be on the other side of the table. While there, several traits of Scott Humes at Bopp Chapel became the reason why I trusted him so much and put confidence in his ability.

HAVE COMPASSION AND PATIENCE Gang-Gang (what I named my grandma as a child), my parents, and I were at a very fragile state of mind while planning Papa’s funeral…we were in shock, we were heartbroken, we felt lost and confused, we were exhausted, and we felt like we were in a fog. Scott recognized our grief, and took the time to figure out how we needed him to “handle us” with all of the decisions we had to make during the funeral preparations. He knew when we were able to proceed with the next decision; he knew when he needed to give us space to discuss and come to a conclusion; and he knew when we just needed to take a moment to ourselves. He did not get exasperated if we took a longer than usual amount of time, nor did he act uncomfortable if we had tears in our eyes. He recognized our emotions and allowed us to feel them, and he never made us feel rushed or as if we were wasting his time.

READ THE PERSONALITY OF YOUR CLIENT Gang-Gang, my parents, and I all have different personalities and different experiences with death, but we were working as a unified group to plan Papa’s funeral. Because we were all in such shock, we all had different moments of strength and weakness and Scott recognized who was most appropriate in any given moment to be able to understand what he was saying. He instinctively knew how to address us individually and what he could or could not say to each of us. And because of this, we were able to make decisions very calmly and plan a day that would make Papa proud.

USE EASY-TO-UNDERSTAND WORDS Although all 4 of us are intelligent people, we were working in a medium that was brand new to us. Scott was working with something that he does every day. However, he recognized that we were unfamiliar with some terminology and consequently used words that were easy for us to understand. He took the time to explain anything that we did not understand, and he never once made us feel stupid for asking a question or for needing additional clarification.

EXPLAIN THE CONTRACT LINE BY LINE Little did I realize how many options one has while planning a funeral, and a contract was the last thing I expected to see. But it makes perfect sense as a funeral is an event with a contractor (the funeral parlor) and several sub-contractors (the church, coffin manufacturer, cemetery, organist, soloist, guest book manufacturer, prayer card printer, etc.). Bopp Chapel’s contract was a sort of check-list, and Scott took us through it line by line. He explained each and every one of our options, and never pressured us into something that we did not want or need. If we did not have a decision right away about a particular line item, he helped us weigh the pros and cons to come to the best decision. And he always told us the price of a line item before we agreed to it. When we got to the bottom line, he made sure that we understood what we had “ordered” and the total price we would be billed. We never felt taken advantage of and we confident that Papa would be so proud of the decisions we made for him.

OFFER TO BE THERE FOR QUESTIONS / CONCERNS Scott recognized how overwhelmed we were and that this was a new experience for each of us. He made sure that we felt comfortable calling him at any time with any questions or concerns, no matter how trivial they seemed. When we did call, he did not become exasperated with us no matter how ridiculous our question sounded to him, nor did he mock us if we asked for clarification on something multiple times. Our #1 priority was planning an event that would pay tribute to Papa and be representative of him…Scott had never met Papa, yet his priority was the same as ours and he made sure that all of our requests were satisfied. In turn, we counted on his expertise to guide us through decisions that were unfamiliar to us.

ANTICIPATE YOUR CLIENT’S REQUESTS There were many times that I thought of something “after the fact,” approached Scott, and was so happy to hear that he had already taken care of it. This took pressure off of me and allowed me to concentrate my efforts on my family and on the celebration of Papa’s life. Scott got to know each of us very quickly in a condensed amount of time and found things he could do for us that were representative of our personalities and our wishes for Papa’s funeral. And the best thing was that he did them before we even thought about them, or he did them for us with the knowledge that we would never have thought of them in the first place since this was such an unfamiliar situation for us.

TAKE CARE OF DETAILS WITHOUT BEING ASKED My #1 priority on the day of Papa’s funeral was taking care of Gang-Gang and my mom, so the last thing I wanted to do was worry about the details of the day. Scott “ran the show” and allowed me to focus my time and attention on my family…not worrying about the details put my mind at ease and gave me confidence in his ability to do what we wanted and needed to be done. 

Even though many of these traits seem like common sense, I was surprised at how much of an impression they made on me, especially during such a difficult time. We put together Papa’s funeral in 2 days yet a trade show, meeting, or event takes months to plan. If it made such an impression on me that Scott was able to do all of this for us in such a condensed amount of time, imagine the impression we can make on our clients while working together for months, if not years!!

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