Reimagining funeral care

In this thought-provoking episode, hosts Laura and Simon sit down with Poppy Mardall, founder of Poppy’s Funerals, a company redefining funeral care with empathy, individuality, and transparency.

Funeral care is an industry with some of the most deeply entrenched traditions, but Poppy’s Funerals is doing things differently. Poppy shares her approach to empowering grieving families, her dedication to offering personalized and respectful experiences, and the importance of breaking societal taboos around death.

Poppy is a truly inspiring entrepreneur, making a huge difference to people’s lives whilst disrupting one of society’s oldest professions.

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Transcript

Simon: Hi, I’m Simon Garnett.

Laura: And I’m Laura Halliday.

Simon: And this is the Persuasion Game, the Forge’s podcast all about the art of persuasion. Each episode we connect with marketers, business leaders and beyond to learn how they use persuasion to influence their consumers, convince their stakeholders and drive their business forward.

Simon: Hello Laura.

Laura: Hi Simon, how are you doing?

Simon: I’m very good thank you. Today we are going to be thinking about a very traditional category that has undergone some really interesting disruption. I can think of quite a few categories of sort of formal traditional codes that have had some really disruptive players — Monzo in the banking sector, or Lemonade in the insurance sector.

Laura: We do indeed. And you’re absolutely right that this whole concept of insurgence, disruption — it’s what anyone in private equity or venture capitalism wants to hear, right? They want to hear “come into a category, shake it up, give me something completely different.” Well if any of you live or travel around Southwest London you will have seen that there is a funeral directors who is looking to do something rather different.

Simon: On today’s episode we’re joined by Poppy Mardall, the founder of Poppy’s Funerals — a company that’s redefining the funeral industry with a fresh perspective. Poppy is challenging the established norms of the funeral business, focused on creating an experience that empowers people to feel autonomous and supported during one of life’s most difficult moments.

Laura: We’ll explore how Poppy has succeeded in creating a space where death can be discussed more openly, alongside the challenges of disruptive positioning in the face of deeply ingrained cultural behaviours. Welcome Poppy.

Poppy: Thanks so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here.

Laura: Thank you Poppy. I think it’s going to be really interesting talking to you today. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got into this line of work?

Poppy: Yes. So I didn’t — I think most people think I must have had a terrible experience with death, and I didn’t. For me it was much more — I was in my late twenties and found myself having a lot of fun working at Sotheby’s auction house. I had studied art, I was in the art world, and I just knew in my bones that this wasn’t where I was meant to be. I wanted to do something more purposeful. And I’d say I spent two years trying to figure that out from the inside, and got to the point of realising I’m just not going to figure this out while I’m here. So I quit my job with three months’ savings, had some ideas — none of them were as interesting as becoming an Undertaker.

And then I went to Ghana, I travelled for five weeks, and I got typhoid, and then I was ill for nine months. And I think that was very helpful in kind of — I think lots of people share those moments in life where you get stopped in your tracks and all the ideas you had go out the window because you can’t follow them.

What that gave me was a lot of time to think much more openly about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to have an impact. And what drew me to becoming a funeral director was sort of two things. One was I was really looking for something frontline, something really practical, something where I could have a really tangible impact. I had this real sense of like “I want to lie in bed at night and know what I did today.”

And I think the second thing was chance. There were three or four exposés on TV within about six months of each other showing really bad practice in the sector. And then on the other side I felt really unacceptable standards of care for the living as well — sort of treating the grieving person like a car salesman type thing, you know. “Gold package, silver package, bronze package — do you want one limousine or two or three?” Pushing people to buy things they didn’t want or need. And I felt like goodness, this is the most vulnerable moment in one’s life and it comes to all of us. How have we created this really conveyor-belt, salesy, bad-salesy experience, when I think what people need is to feel held?
People are coming because they need an experience, and the job of a funeral director should be to help them figure out what it is they need. So there was a bunch of reasons why that work called to me. And it did feel a bit mad, and a few people around me thought it was a bit mad. But I also like things that are a bit counter-cultural.

Laura: Brilliant, amazing story. Thank you Poppy. We said at the beginning that you’re really looking to change and challenge some of the established norms within the industry. Tell us a little bit about what is different about Poppy’s — what are you trying to change?

Poppy: I think the first thing is that this is an experience. We are selling a service that comes with products, and the products are beautiful and special — lots of them are handmade — but the most important thing is the way you feel during the experience. And I think the funeral industry has kind of become known for selling stuff. You know, you walk into a funeral directors and it’s often full of stuff — in the windows there might be stone masonry and urns, and you’ll be handed a laminated folder full of coffins and asked “which one do you want?” And for most people it’s like “well, I’ve never wanted to buy a coffin, I don’t really know —

Laura: it’s not an aspirational purchase.

Poppy: No, and that leaves you feeling more and more at sea. Whereas the experience we create at Poppy’s — we talk about a safe landing. So people often when they first speak to us — which is often on the phone, or sometimes they walk into our shop in East Sheen or our other space in Tooting — they talk about a sense of like “oh my goodness, you are basically normal people and I wasn’t expecting that. I was sort of expecting to be harassed and harangued to buy stuff, and you’ve made me a cup of coffee and you’ve asked me what it is I need and what it is I’m trying to do.” And that has changed their perspective on why I’m here today. They don’t have to be in a defensive crouch because they expected to be fleeced — they can open their mind and open their heart and think “okay, what is it that we’re trying to do?”

And recognising that for one group of people that would be very different to another. Lots of people are coming to us wanting and needing the very traditional funeral experience, and if that’s what you need that’s what you should get. There are other people coming who want to minimise impact on the environment. There are other people coming wanting to express all the wildness and florescence of their friend who only wore leopard print. So for us we don’t try and squeeze you into a sausage machine of our making — we are trying to make you feel safe and held and heard, and then we will go about organising the experience that you need and want.

Laura: You mentioned coming into your store — or your space rather — and it’s really interesting how strikingly different it looks and feels on the High Street compared to other funeral directors. Can you talk to us a little bit about that aesthetic and how that informs the philosophy?

Poppy: Yeah. So we have this stunning space in East Sheen which is kind of on a corner — we’ve got two walls of glass — and our branding is a kind of a Dalia peach colour. And when you come in, what you’ll find is smiley, smart, sometimes brightly dressed people who are warm and welcoming. And on the inside there are also lots of photos of things our clients have done — some of them are very traditional and some of them are less so.

So what we’re trying to do in that space is really break down that barrier that we feel exists around the space but also the conversation. Most people walk into a funeral directors only when they absolutely have to, and they do so often with trepidation — both that the space feels a bit weird and outdated and maybe even spooky. We want people to come in as soon as they feel ready. There are people that just drop in — they walk past and they see a sign that says “come in and chat to us” and they absolutely do. Sometimes that’s with a past experience in mind, sometimes with a future experience in mind, and sometimes it’s just to have a conversation.

Because it is weird that we don’t talk about death in a world where it’s one of the only two experiences — apart from birth — that unites us. We know from our work that the more you talk about this ahead of time, the more control and empowerment you’ll feel to have the experience that’s right for you when the time comes. So that’s what we’re trying to do — encourage people to have conversations whenever they’re ready.

Simon: Poppy, there’s a really interesting thing you’re talking about here — that when we go into these kinds of environments there’s a certain expectation of what we’re going to get, the experience we might have, and it feels like you’re really trying to challenge or change some of those expectations.

Poppy: Yes, definitely. Which is hard because people don’t like talking about this subject. So what we find — we talk about the fact that the norm with funerals is not normal. Like it might be the norm, but that doesn’t make it normal — it’s actually quite weird and strange when you stop to think about it for even two minutes.

And we’re trying to create a new normal where people feel able to ask for what they need and then get it. And in order to do that we need to sow a seed that better is possible. Clearly the most effective way to do that is by seeing it be done. So we have an interesting curve I guess with people — not just the clients who employ us, but everyone who then engages with our service, which might be hundreds of people. Their expectations at the beginning are often pretty limited. And what we see and hear again and again is a sense of very very positive surprise — “I just didn’t know this was possible, I didn’t know it was possible to feel like this.” Obviously as funeral directors we can’t change the outcome, but we can be by your side through the experience. And the best way to do that is just to show people how it can be done.

Simon: You mentioned that the norm is not normal, and I think we all have those visuals in our heads of Oliver Twist-style plumes and black horses. Can you talk to us a little bit about the history of funeral directors and what those normal codes actually are?

Poppy: Yeah. And I think it’s interesting because there are sort of two threads — there’s the very traditional Victorian thread and then there’s the more recent capitalist thread. I’ll talk about both.
But the origins of funeral directing were carpenters. The Undertaker was the person who undertook the thing or the things that the family or community weren’t able to do. And about 150 years ago that was making the coffin. People would die at home, they’d be cared for at home, they’d be buried quite soon, and the thing you didn’t have was a coffin. So the carpenter would bring a coffin to the house where family and community would put the person in the coffin, and then you’d be carried to the burial place and buried.

And then since then — like many other trades and businesses — the Undertaker became a funeral director and kind of stretched into a much wider professional space. Which I think works for people now. Most people don’t expect to have a funeral in two days, and lots of people do want someone to help with much more.

But I think we have to be wary of any service that has sort of crept up and made us feel like we couldn’t do it without them. There’s a lot of power — not good power — when we sort of hand over things. My sense is funeral directors can and should take on the things the family want them to take on, but we are doing it on your behalf. We don’t have any potions out back that change anything — we are simply caring for the person who’s died and caring for you and delivering something that you need. And I think because we’re so scared of death we’ve handed over too much power to funeral directors. It’s sort of like “whatever they say, we’ll do.” But there are also challenges that come from being a challenger.

Simon: Can you speak a little bit about those?

Poppy: Yeah. I think the challenge that people expect — which I don’t think is there — is that by doing things in a more thoughtful, empathetic way it somehow causes issues within the sector. And that’s not been the case. I’m really proud of the fact that 12 years in, most other funeral directors would say good things about us. They’d say “they do a good job and their clients seem happy” — and some of them are imitating things, which is great.

I think the challenges really come around, as I said earlier, getting people to think about this before they need to. A quite common experience for me is for someone to meet me and say “oh, we really could have used you six months ago.” Or sometimes I meet someone and then see them a year later and they say “we needed you six months ago and I completely forgot you existed and just walked to the local High Street branch of whatever.”

So trying to get people to think about death is difficult. And I think that’s partly because of how the conversation has historically been presented. I wouldn’t necessarily want to walk into an old-fashioned funeral directors and talk to them about someone I love dying — but I would walk into somewhere like Poppy’s. So it doesn’t feel insurmountable at all. It’s about reality and patience and doing everything possible to meet people where they are at. You know, you can’t force someone to have that conversation.

Simon: Can you talk a little bit about empowerment? It sort of feels like agency has been removed, whereas listening to the way you’re talking and what you’re trying to do with Poppy’s sounds very much like actually it’s trying to bring a little bit of empowerment back to the individual and the people grieving.

Poppy: Yeah, definitely. And making the point too that empowerment doesn’t mean you have to have a big emotional transformational experience. Most of our clients are people who are buying something that on the outside looks very similar to what they would have bought from another funeral directors. Superficially it’s the same funeral. The difference is in the experience. So no one comes to Poppy’s and accidentally gets sold anything — people get what they want precisely. And from a grief point of view that’s really important, because this is one of the key moments that you will look back on for the rest of your life. And I don’t mean getting it right by some superficial judgmental standards — I mean getting it right for yourself. There are things normally that people feel they need to do.

Simon: What do you think have been some of the moments in the experience with Poppy’s that have been the light bulb moments — that have persuaded them that there was a different approach, a different outcome, was feasible? What do your clients say to you were key moments in that journey?

Poppy: They say to us all the things you’d expect them to say of any good service — they talk about us being deeply responsive, deeply efficient and fairly priced. And I don’t want to underplay those things — I think they should always be at the top of the pyramid. Because you might be trying to do magical other things, but if you can’t hit those notes then you’ve failed. Answering an email quickly, picking up the phone quickly and solving the problem fast — most people arriving with us are pretty flustered, most people haven’t really thought about this before.

And I think the thing we do first of all is give people space to actually take a breath. Some people are coming at a real gallop — all the cousins want to know when the funeral is going to be, there are all these expectations. And we get the chance to say “okay, we can do this in a few days if that’s what you need — but shall we just take a moment?”

And I think in that moment it turns from a process into an experience. So yes, we will tick all the boxes and you will get your invoice on time. But let’s just also make sure you are taking a moment to think about what you need. And even just that question is big for people. Because a huge number of people were organising the funeral like you might get a visa to travel to a certain country — it was like another thing they had to do. And in this moment we get to nudge them to think: this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for this person. In the process of making sure it comes in on budget and that Uncle Edward is happy — what do you specifically need?

And then quite quickly things start coming out. It doesn’t mean you need to take lots of time or do lots of soul searching — it’s just two or three crucial questions. We have this real gift for having difficult conversations in a really straightforward but kind way.

Simon: Thank you Poppy.

Laura: It feels like this idea of selling an experience rather than selling stuff is so key to your offer — and we hear about that a lot in other categories as well. But I suppose one thing that’s quite difficult to do is convey what that experience is going to be like. So bringing it back to how you promote that — what are some of the vehicles you use to actually convey what the experience is like?

Poppy: So that’s true. And at the same time if you are outstanding in your field, then you send people away almost unable to not spread the word. And that’s what we see — the vast majority of our clients have heard about us from someone else who’s been to a funeral or been cared for by us. And you’d think it’s a hard thing to say to someone “might you need a funeral director?” — possibly one of the hardest things. Much easier to say “have you been to that great new pizza place?”

But what I see and I’m thrilled to see is nurses, ministers, community members who are so horrified that their neighbours wouldn’t get the Poppy’s experience — they can’t help themselves.

We also produce a lot of really excellent, objective information and guidance — we have a really great blog and we’re pretty strong on social media. And I think there’s something about having really great information out there that also sets the tone — like “oh, these guys are different.”

And then I think the last piece is that when you offer outstanding experiences, those decisions are made from a much more emotional place. People definitely ask us when they call us about cost and about geography and the practical stuff. But I think they are captured by the possibility of the experience, and then the decision is emotional.

Laura: It’s so interesting what you mentioned about your colour ways as well. I live locally in Tooting and I saw the poster that you have outside the cemetery. It is literally like a little pop of sunshine in an area that’s otherwise quite dark. Is that something that you intentionally thought about with your out of home marketing — where you positioned yourself?

Poppy: Yeah, definitely. I mean that “pop of sunshine” is how a lot of our clients would describe us. They’ve maybe come from the register office, or they’ve been through the coroner, or they had to get involved with the police, or they’ve just picked up forms from the bereavement office in the hospital. And they get to us. We’re not smiling idiots — we love supporting people who’ve been through often something really tough. But that doesn’t mean being dour helps, do you know what I mean? Being warm and welcoming is everything.

So yeah — we’ve placed some of our adverts near other funeral directors too. We kind of love the idea of people going to pop into a competitor — knowing that that’s often done without much previous proactive thought — and that that might create a moment of diversion as well in their day.

Simon: Fantastic,you’ve talked very eloquently for those people who are in that moment of need and showing them that there’s a different way. Can you talk to me a little bit about the successes you’ve had trying to get people who maybe aren’t so close to that point of need, but just to engage with this conversation? Because as you rightly say — we are guaranteed to be born and we’re guaranteed to die; everything else in the middle is hopefully, but not guaranteed. What successes have you had of trying to persuade people to engage in a conversation that frankly is not necessarily one we’re prone to want to discuss?

Poppy: Yeah. We’ve tried loads of things, but the two things that I think have really stood the test of time have been — one — we do this thing called My Funeral Wishes. It’s a free 40-minute consultation that can be at a Poppy’s location, or at home, or most often done online. And it is a conversation where you get to explore your hopes, wishes, anxieties and fears about your funeral — but also anything else around that time. It’s not a funeral plan. The way that most funeral directors are trying to drag customers over the line is by selling them funeral plans. There is a place for a funeral plan — it’s basically a financial product where you decide now what you’d want and then you pay for it now, and the idea is that the money goes into a trust so you’re protected from inflation. The issue is I’m not sure the vast majority of people I speak to need a financial product. What they want and need is a warm, open conversation to transfer the cycling thoughts in their head about “what will happen when…” into something that can feel quite positive and practical.

So for us it’s about creating this opportunity to allay fears and transform anxieties into something quite day-to-day.

And then the second thing we do is we run Death Cafés. Death Café is a movement that was started in 2012 by an amazing man called John Underwood, with no agenda and no structure. It’s a kind of 90-minute conversation — it often happens in a café. The rules are you eat cake and drink tea and talk about death. And John’s thinking was that if you can create opportunities for people to think and reflect on death, you can help them make the most of their finite lives.

So we run quarterly Death Cafés in Tooting and East Sheen, and a very different type of person comes along — it’s often people from their 30s to their 80s, coming because they do want to talk about death and they find that nobody else around them thinks that’s normal. So you have these wonderful conversations. It’s not a bereavement café — grief is welcome but it’s not an active bereavement café. It’s a place to come and be really curious and to open up the conversation.

So those two things have been great. And as I say, it’s about meeting people where they’re at. We can’t force people to have these conversations.

Simon: Just one observation — I think it’s really interesting the way that you’ve embraced that word “death” rather than trying to avoid it or come up with a euphemism. Instead, it’s redefining how we see it and our comfort levels with it.

Poppy: Yeah. And my sense is that a lot of what’s gone wrong in the sector has been born of a kind of well-meaning, paternalistic desire to protect people from something that’s actually already just happened. If we can’t talk about it — you know, imagine you’re grieving and grief can be so lonely — and as a society we’re not very good at supporting each other because we’re so scared. It’s like if your funeral director can’t even say the word, then you really are on your own.

So we have to be explicit. We will always reflect back the language a client uses — so if someone calls and says “my father’s passed” then we’ll use that language too. But we would never lead with that, because we need to be able to show them that we can handle it.

Laura: We see this idea of not having conversations about things you can’t change being challenged in all sorts of categories — things like menopause, or long-term illness. It feels like culturally we’re much more confident in having those conversations. What’s your aspiration about where your category can actually go with conversations around death?

Poppy: I think if every group of friends, or every family, or every community was able to bring up death and grief without anyone in the room looking like someone’s dirty washing had just been hung out — I think you’re right, it’s very much like things like the menopause. It’s happening, it’s always happened, none of this is new. And to know that you’re not alone, to know this is actually one of the unifying realities of being human — that’s what I’d like.

I’d like people to be able to say “my dad just died” or “I want to think ahead because I want to protect my children, support my children to know that they can do what they need when I die” — and for everyone in the room to say “what a brilliant thing, good on you, how responsible.” And then for those people to be met by funeral directors — and perhaps other people in the sector who could emerge — who could help facilitate those conversations. That would be my dream.

Simon: Fabulous. Poppy, you started by telling us about the sense of purpose and mission that led you to found Poppy’s. When you project forward to the future, what keeps you going?

Poppy: I sort of can’t bear the idea that people are having experiences that are so unnecessary. And it’s so easy, it’s so simple to get it right — but my sector has got a bit distracted and lost along the way. And so I think that’s what drives me. This sense of the care that I feel personally so able to give to the people I love — I want that to be available to everyone. How powerful it can be to do those two or three things you need to do in this moment that you’ll never get to live again. And I’m endlessly meeting people who didn’t get to do those things, who 50 years later are still stuck in that moment. And yeah — it definitely will happen, because everybody needs this. And Poppy’s won’t be the one to provide it to everyone, but I think there’s no going back now.

Laura: Thank you so much Poppy, this was a really enriching conversation.

Simon: Fabulous. Thank you Poppy,

Poppy: thanks for having me.

Simon: So Laura, lot to think about on that one. What resonated with you?

Laura: I really enjoyed the conversation. It did make me think about the role of experts and how we’ve seen in a lot of analogous categories this idea of being talked down to and subjected to a one-size-fits-all approach.

I think the other thing that was really telling to me was the respectful and human-centric way that she was disrupting. So it wasn’t about being an evangelist going “there’s another way of doing it, everyone wears colours, let’s all be super happy about death.” It was very much about taking time to understand your individual audience, mirroring their needs and their language, and taking them on as comfortable a journey as they were comfortable going. She can still do all of the traditional cues and ceremonies if that’s what’s needed. So yeah — individuality and meeting people on their level were the two big takeouts for me.

Simon: Great. For me I think one of the things that really stood out — because frankly I see this in so many categories in marketing that we work in — is this sense of being on an unconscious conveyor belt through this experience, through this purchasing journey. You come into it going “well, I know how this category operates, I know the rules” and therefore you’re just a bit closed off to it.

But what she talked about was a pause — just having a moment. And it was this idea of jolting someone on that journey and just getting them to realise “actually, am I engaging with this consciously? Have I really thought about what I want to do? Is there another way, is there an alternative?” And I think that’s so important across all sorts of categories — whether they’re really complex and infrequent purchases, or whether they’re kind of everyday and we’re just so used to them that we get bored with them. This idea of finding a moment just to pause someone in their journey and get them to reflect and reframe.

Laura: To challenge the unnormal norm.

Simon: Exactly. Great, well I look forward to seeing you next time.

Laura: See you next time.

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