HATTIE: Hi. I'm Hattie Bryant. In the next 30 minutes you'll meet a man who has built a reputation and a business because of that reputation. If you want to understand how business works, this is the place to be. Every week you learn by studying the success strategies of men and women who are running their own businesses. We went to the great city of Chicago to see what we could learn from a man who has run his business and lived longer than anyone else we've had the privilege to meet.

Just around the corner from this "el" (elevated train) stop in a North Side Chicago neighborhood, Johnson Funeral Home does it every day, taking care of the dead and, more important, the living.

CHARLES BEAUMONT: . . .now that's what's used in the Episcopal church as a recessional. The choir stops at the entrance of the church. And then after that, the priest leads the procession out to the hearse and to the family cars. That's the way they used to do it, in the old way.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) The founder, Joseph Johnson, has been in the funeral business since 1936.

One of the reasons we're talking to you is that this business, the funeral business, has changed so much. Since the mid '90s, people like you have been swallowed up by big corporations, big companies.

JOSEPH JOHNSON: They don't have to be. It's usually personal. They offer them a lot of money — and I've had offers to buy — but I don't want to do that. I forget those who have brought me over if I do. The advantages that you receive are supposed to be passed on.

You see, money is significant in our society, but there's also a matter of character. There is a matter of involvement with others. You can inspire many people by your demeanor and sometimes that counts more than money.

HATTIE: I have another question to ask you . . .I'm calculating that you might be close to 85.

JOSEPH: Who, me?

HATTIE: How old are you?

JOSEPH: Oh, I'm in my 90s.

HATTIE: Ninety what?

JOSEPH: I'll be 95 on my next birthday.

HATTIE: And you're still coming to work every day.

JOSEPH: Oh, sure.

(Footage of Charles playing the organ)

CHARLES: And you repeat playing that until all the family has been seated, and then they go into another hymn.

HATTIE: Charles Beaumont, Mr. Johnson's right-hand man, has been at Johnson Funeral Home since 1957.

HATTIE: Mr. Beaumont . . . CHARLES: Yes? HATTIE: Do you mind sharing your age?

CHARLES: I'm 68 years of age. I was born May 22, 1930.

HATTIE: So have you been in the funeral business most of your adult life?

CHARLES: And my childhood, also.

HATTIE: Really?

CHARLES: I began to work in this field when I was nine years old because in m

younger days, I would bury all the kids' pets that got hit by automobiles and died from old age and what have you. But the kids at school, when they'd see me there in the funeral home in a little black suit with a bow tie, for some reason, they'd give me a wide berth.

JOSEPH: I was born in Mississippi, and my parents separated when I was possibly five years of age. Her folks had moved to Texas, and, from about six years on up, I called Texas home. We lived in Houston and, living in a city, I got a little unruly, and I. . . .

HATTIE: Not you. You look so calm now. You were unruly?

JOSEPH: At that particular time, the colleges taught both high school and college classes. I went to Wiley College, but I was in my second year in high school. The reason I went was that my mother wanted me to get away from the riff-raff, as she called it. And I went. I spent six years at Wiley College, two years in high school and four years in college.

HATTIE: Let me go back. What year was it that you said, `All right, I want to be in the funeral business'?

JOSEPH: Must've been in '37—1937.

HATTIE: So you went to "mortician school"? What's it called?

JOSEPH: Yeah, mortuary science. There's a college of mortuary science. It took about a year for me to get out of school, and then I got associated with a funeral home, where I was able to get some income, and of course that was minimal.

HATTIE: How many years did it take you to learn the business and get the feeling that `I want to do my own deal'?

JOSEPH: Well, I had gotten married, and then all of a sudden, we both decided that we're either going to be funeral directors or go on a job, so I chose funeral directing.

HATTIE: How did you get your first customer? Did you just put a shingle up, a sign up, that said, `We're now in business'?

JOSEPH: Well, I had worked in this neighborhood for another firm, and then I had made some acquaintances. And I was fortunate enough to marry a girl who was reared in this community, and she had all kinds of friends. She had two sisters and three brothers, and they had friends, and when we went into business, all of her friends came to us. I still serve her friends today. Eighty-five percent of our business is repeat business, in homes that we have been in before.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) You can understand why Johnson Funeral Home has endured when you meet customers like Beverly Bates, who grew up in the neighborhood and still works here.

And you know Mr. Johnson?

BEVERLY BATES: Yes, he did our family's funerals — even cousins, brothers, aunts.

HATTIE: How is it that he got all the business?

BEVERLY: Well, he's been doing our family for years, you know, and it's just that he does such a great job. And we'd just rather choose his funeral home than any other because he is the best. And he's been around such a long time and gets plenty of business.

HATTIE: Why do you think he's the best? What do people talk about?

BEVERLY: Just everything about the whole funeral — the service of coming to pick us up, bringing us to the funeral home and escorting us out to the sites to lay our families to rest. He does such a good job of it.

HATTIE: So it's service.

BEVERLY: Yes, the service is very good.

CHARLES: You see, now, that's where it's at, service. You can have a very ornate place of business, but if your service is bad, and the work doesn't hold up-- I'm talking about.the work that's done in the back room -- forget it. There's so much fear. . . .

HATTIE: So are you saying that customers talk about bad work as much, or more, than they talk about good work?

(Charles answers by mimicking a customer's comment)

CHARLES: `No, child, you don't want to go to that place 'cause . . . Lord, they had her (Aunt Bessie) mouth looking like a goat.'

JOSEPH: Well, I adopted a philosophy in the early going, and this is my philosophy: sympathetic, courteous and efficient service. I give it and I don't cut no corners on it. And that has been my philosophy.

HATTIE: Sympathetic, courteous and efficient.

JOSEPH: Yes.

HATTIE: When you go in to see the family, what do you say?

JOSEPH: Well, the best way is not to say much. You don't go in and say, `You have my sympathy' because you're lying. You're glad they're dead because you get a chance to make some money.

CHARLES: Well, the first step is I get the name of the deceased, where the body is, and I go to the home to get the order. This is an order form.

HATTIE: The family member has to give you authority.

CHARLES: Yes, they have to. They have to give us a written signature right here where it says `Sign.'

HATTIE: All right. Now this morning you were trying to get a doctor. What was that about?

CHARLES: Well, I was getting a hold of the doctor so he could sign the death certificate and put on the death certificate . . .

HATTIE: The cause of death? CHARLES: Yes.

HATTIE: So after you've taken the first phone call, then you try to go in person as soon as possible.

CHARLES: If you don't have this (motioning to a certificate), no cemetery will let you in. In this business — and you almost have to be born into it — because you have to have a certain attitude, a certain reputation and a certain character to make this business succeed.

JOSEPH: Everything that I do, I don't take a pencil to it. There are areas in which I couldn't get $1, but I give those services anyway?

HATTIE: For example?

JOSEPH: Well, for instance, I have a number of people who pre-fund their family's funerals. Now, I don't take any money. I tell them two things, `Don't give your money to me. Put it in the bank payable on death to the Johnson's Funeral Home.' And then I say, `I put the cost of the grave as it is today. When you use our services, if it's more, you or another family member will have to pay me the difference.'

HATTIE: You want your clients to have that money in the bank earning interest for their benefit.

JOSEPH: Yes, I 've had some go and draw the interest down.

HATTIE: So is there a prestige attached to the type of casket that someone's buried in?

CHARLES: It's all what the family chooses, 'cause they have them in wood, such as maple, walnut, pecan, oak. . . .

HATTIE: This is a church truck, right? (a unit that transport the casket)

CHARLES: And it opens up like this. HATTIE: Pretty simple.

CHARLES: These shoes are what our embalmer wears when he's preparing the remains. He prefers not to have anything drop on his expensive Florsheims that cost $150.00. a pair.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) There is a younger generation at work here. Joe Fairly is a funeral director and the embalmer.

Joe, tell me what initially attracted you to this business.

JOE FAIRLY: At the age of seven, I attended my first funeral, and right then and there I was hooked. I remember being at church, and I was sitting in one of the church members' lap. I asked her, `Well, sister, what will we be doing after the service?' She said, `We will be burying the deceased.' So as I grew older, I remember when my sister first got her baby dolls, I would take her dolls and place them in a suitcase, and I would have my sisters and my brothers standing around like they were family members and carrying on and all of that. But after that, as I grew older and matured, I finally realized what the value of a funeral was really about.

HATTIE: So what do you think it's about?

JOE: Servicing — well, doing something for mankind, helping mankind. You know, by helping — what I do is I help the survivors to get over the loss of their loved one by presenting a memory picture, to help them get over their burden in the loss of their loved ones.

HATTIE: Now the problem with a lot of small-business owners is, how do they get people to work in their organization to think like you think? How did you get them to think like you think?

JOSEPH: Well, you have to trust them. And I trust them. It's not a one-way thing, because you can't do it by yourself.

HATTIE: So it's give and take?

JOSEPH: Yeah, give and take. You're miserable if you don't respect people.

HATTIE: But the word `respect,' where do you think that comes from? Why do you respect people?

JOSEPH: This is something that I learned. And I've had exposures, and this builds confidence in your clientele. Now, when I send Mr. Beaumont out to get an order, they know he's here for Johnson's Funeral Home because he's been here so long. I don't worry about it, because I know that they will do their job. Now you've got to build confidence in them and they have it in you.

HATTIE: Are you the figurehead?

JOSEPH: Yeah. Mr. Beaumont's been with me 35 years, Mr. Agat about 25, and Mr. McCoy about 10 or 12, so I can go anyplace that I want to. They know how I think, and they know what I would and wouldn't do. And I don't need to be here to carry that out. They'll carry it out.

HATTIE: Joseph Johnson is a servant to his customers and he considers that an honor. For example, Johnson's Funeral Home makes house calls; they go to their customers. How insensitive to ask grieving family members to come to the funeral home to make arrangements. These house calls are expensive, and, for that reason, Mr. Johnson has no competitors. If you want the best service, you call Johnson's Funeral Home. And keep in mind service is delivered by people, and the people we met here speak about being called to this work.

My father was a minister and he spoke of being called by God to preach. My brother-in-law is the winningest high school football coach in America, and he feels called to coach young people. Research shows that business owners are more religious than the population as a whole.

Michael Novak, the winner of the 1994 Templeton Prize for Progress and Religion, wrote a book "Business as a Calling." His publisher, the Free Press, says, `This book explains an important part of our lives in a new way. Business is a profession worthy of a person's highest ideals and aspirations fraught with moral possibilities, both of great good and great evil. Our work connects us with one another. It also makes possible the universal advance out of poverty and it is an essential prerequisite of democracy in the institutions of civil society.'

We here at SMALL BUSINESS 2000 couldn't agree more. Find your calling as have Joseph Johnson, Charlie and Joe.

While you are here on the website, be sure to check out all the other information. It is all free. nd it is all about starting, running and growing a business. Click on Business Types and choose your business, and look through those stories.

(Footage of Charles playing the organ)
CHARLES: I often use that when the family is making their last review. And now the day is over and that gives a cue that the minister is getting ready to lead the people out.

JOSEPH: I think when one comes into the world, his life has already been outlined for him by God. Now the only thing that shortens life is the way you treat your body. Just like an automobile, if you treat it well, it'll last a long time. So if you take good care of yourself and don't damage it — no excesses, don't overeat and don't go into any bad environments.

HATTIE: All right, Mr. Johnson, what else do we need to be doing differently?

JOSEPH: When you have been fortunate enough to get an education, the education is not only for you, it's for others also. It means that your knowledge needs to be passed on to others. And then, whenever I have speaking engagements —I have a lot of those— I tell them that. I also tell them how to save money and how not to spend it. And it helps. I save enough to get along, all right, but I give to my church, to my school, scholarships and things of that sort.

HATTIE: Why do you give money away?

JOSEPH: Oh, that's what it's supposed to be. Money's supposed to be passed on, For instance, I built a business here that's reasonably commendable, but what I do in business is not as important as what I do for others. The others are the key to one's living. One misses a whole life if they don't care about anybody else. So I care, I love, and I wish for everyone the very best of everything.

P.S.

HATTIE: Marketing adviser John Wargo explains how very small business owners can use new technology to reach customers.

A few months ago we met a woman named Lee Kaplan, and she has a digital imaging printer. Now the reason I think this is so interesting is big companies do incredible things with the mail. I got this from American Airlines, and it says, `Hattie, enjoy a birthday.' Now, when we met Lee, she basically said a small-business person can do this.

JOHN WARGO: Right.

HATTIE: Now what is she talking about?

JOHN: Well, what she's saying is that with technology, what you can do is you can go into the body of the copy and you can begin to put personalized messages so that you essentially are mass-customizing a mailing piece.

What people are capable of doing now with the new technology is being able to take the body of the copy and make it relevant to each of the participants. So you can set up a couple of different variations, and then you can drop them in according to the individual profile that you're going to be talking to. At one point, big businesses used this as a competitive advantage, but technology has moved so much today that small businesses ought to take advantage of it because it works.

HATTIE: OK. So stop sending everybody the same thing, maybe.

JOHN: Well, I think there are certain instances where the same message is relevant. There are other incidents, such as your birthday, whether or not you are single, or whether or not you have a family of four. That makes all the difference in the world. If you're sending me information, and if it's tailored to my particular needs, it's more relevant. It has more impact, it has more meaning, it engages me more, and technology allows you to do that.

HATTIE: So I can afford this.

JOHN: You can afford this. This is very, very cost-effective. And not only can you afford it, you'll get higher response rates. So you ought to think about it and not just what does it cost you do to, but what is your return on investment? And what you're going to find is that it will increase your ROI in mailing at phenomenal numbers.

Last season, we said that good work is the fountain of youth. Well, Mr. Johnson has found the fountain of youth, and he's taught us that serving others is the best kind of good work we can do, and he sees his business as his calling.