My staff became somewhat upset when I instituted a "personal guarantee" to every family we served. That’s right...100% personal guarantee that arrangements will be to your satisfaction or your money back. No questions asked.

How can you do this? Do you know how hard this will be? Are you certain that people will not complain just for the sake of getting some money back? Do you know how difficult this makes our job? And on and on and on.

For more than 10 years, less than a handful of people ever took advantage of the guarantee...yes, we were diligent and I like to think, on top of our game, too. Those who did bring up the guarantee were well within their rights to do so...there was a mistake, goof-up or shortcoming on our part. The guarantee actually helped to make friends and also helped to build my business. No other funeral-cremation provider offered anything similar. When I talked about our guarantee standing in front of nurses during continuing education classes or to groups of senior citizens or church groups, this statement got their attention. The guarantee was one more way the funeral home was different from all the others.

I instructed my staff that they had to mean what they would say...one way to fall short of real satisfaction is to have no intention of doing what you say you’ll do or going where you say you are going. I did not want my staff performing any part of their duties with crossed fingers.

Words like, "I’ll try," or "sometimes," or "We’ll see" are words without a backbone. No one enjoys hearing these words, especially when it comes to dealing with a loss.

The bottom line is this: If you want to sell yourself, you also want to be pinned down. You want people to know that your word stands for something...hopefully excellence and greatness. If you don’t mean it, then don’t say it all.