By Thomas A. Parmalee
If you want to start a funeral home from scratch, you might want to take a look at the business Jason Murphy has built with his partner.
Murphy, 36, the co-founder and chief operating officer of Central Cremation Center in Forsyth, Illinois, launched the business with Tom Cantwell, who serves as the company’s CEO. It opened its doors Nov. 1, 2021.
In just two years, the firm has already served more than 700 families, and in 2023, it served several dozen families more than the previous year, even with the “pull forward” effect that COVID-19 has had on the death rate.
On average, the firm is serving about 30 to 40 families per month, with its busiest month being December 2022, when it served 62 families, Murphy said.
Pursuing a Dream
Murphy (pictured at top on the right) and Cantwell (pictured at top on the left) only knew each other for five months before deciding they’d go into business together.
To some, that may seem risky – and even Murphy admits it was a bit nuts.
With three boys and a girl at home – all in elementary school – Murphy knew full well he had to keep putting food on the table. But he also felt like it was time to step on the gas and travel out of his comfort zone.
Cantwell was in the exact same place.
“We are very like-minded individuals,” Murphy said. “A lot of people thought we were brothers for the longest time as we are both very driven and competitive. His background is in health care, and he served nursing homes and facilities like that around this area, and he is well-connected there. He got interested in this industry because he lost both of his parents in the last six years. He’s in his late 30s and has that marketing sort of brain, so we dubbed him the CEO. I am the COO because I have the industry experience.”
Part of the reason the partnership has worked out is that both men found themselves at similar stages of life at the same time – and they both wanted the same things.
“His boy is my youngest son’s age, and his daughter is my daughter’s age,” Murphy said. “We were both honestly tired of the corporate world.”
Striking out on their own – neither one of them had ever owned a business – was a risk, but a calculated risk, Murphy emphasized.
“We spent a lot of time on it, including late-night phone calls,” he said. “We got our ducks in a row before we took off. Also, if you really want to go into business with someone, you want to find out about their personal life a bit – their background, their family, their past career and things like that.”
Lessons from the Gridiron
Unlike many funeral home owners, Murphy was not born into the profession … he just happened to fall in love with a woman who was.
Like so many other things involving love, the rest, as they say … is history.
The woman in this case is Lindsey Murphy.
Like virtually all boy meets girl stories, the way they met is an interesting story.
“I played football and basketball at Illinois College, and she was part of the volleyball team,” he said. “The funny story is that we first met because her high school boyfriend also went to IC, and ironically, he was the one who was in charge of helping recruit/mentor me before my freshman year.”
The two met when Jason Murphy visited the college on a recruiting visit, and she happened to be with her boyfriend, who was showing the standout athlete around.
“Now, it took two years after that first meeting for us to start dating, but I knew I liked what I saw from that first interaction back in 2005,” he said.
After college, Lindsey Murphy went to work at one of her family’s funeral homes in Danville, Illinois. At first, Murphy chose a different direction.
“I graduated in 2009, and the job market was not the best at the time. I tried a couple of other jobs outside the industry, and then a job selling cemetery property earning commission only opened up at their company. So, I hopped on and grew to love it and had a passion for it.”
It was a path Murphy never foresaw, as he was dating Lindsey for about six months before she even told him her family owned and operated funeral homes. “I never had any involvement with funeral homes or the death-care industry growing up, so I was clueless,” he said. “Honestly, it wasn’t a big deal at all in college for us, and we never really talked about it much until we graduated and got involved in the business.”
After joining the family business, he worked his way into a sales manager role, hustling for about 12 years. His wife was a member of her family funeral home’s marketing staff from 2009 to 2020, rising to the position of director of marketing.
In 2020, the couple left the family business and never looked back.
“It was a situation where the next generation was coming up and some kids were getting involved, my wife being one of them,” Murphy said. “There were disputes as to where the company was going to go, and we parted ways.”
He ended up working at Graceland-Fairlawn Funeral Home, Cemeteries and Cremation in Decatur, Illinois, which is owned by NorthStar Memorial Group. That is where he and Cantwell met.
“We were both family service advisers, and we developed a connection,” he said. “We had years of experience seeing cremation growth, as well as the need and desire of people wanting more affordable options.”
The funeral homes Murphy had worked for in the past, he explained, did not have an affordable option and steered clear of using the words “direct cremation.”
“That was not even an option,” he said. “If the family said, ‘direct cremation,’ the funeral director would get upset and ask if they wanted a memorial service or something. It was taboo to focus on that.”
Murphy and Cantwell, however, envisioned something different that would allow them to focus on both.
“We developed our firm to be a low-cost, affordable option. Yes, we are probably the lowest priced in our area, but we can still provide the services of a full funeral home. The only thing we can’t do is have a large, public visitation at our facility. But everything else operates like a funeral home.”
Central Cremation Center offers families the most affordable prices “by far” in Central Illinois, according to Murphy.
“Our Heroes Package (veterans and first responders) is a cremation price at $795. Our Direct Cremation Package is a cremation price of $995. Our Immediate Burial Package is $1,495 with the casket, vault and cemetery charges not included in the package price. So, those would be added in. Usually, it ends up around $3,500-$4,500.” He added, “Other funeral homes have recently tried to mimic our pricing structure and marketing strategies, but typically the general public can see right through that.”
Price seekers are never discouraged from opting for a direct cremation or keeping it simple, Murphy said. “But if a family comes in and wants bells and whistles, we can do that, too. We think that makes us unique compared with other, low-end providers in our area who contract out and don’t put much money back into the business.”
Central Cremation Center prides itself on being “as close to a full traditional funeral home we can be without the price tag,” Murphy said. “We have taken market share away from other funeral homes, so we are not popular.”
With everything, the firm tries to simplify.
“With bigger firms, the arrangement process can be grueling for families,” Murphy said, noting even getting obituary information can be tedious – and for a family, it often results in them feeling pressured to spend and opt for more.
“We didn’t want to do that,” he insisted. “We wanted to be listeners first for these families and let them tell us what they need. We want to meet them where they are. We want a simple structure.”
The business has about 30 urns on display along with some keepsakes, and it also provides families with a simple catalog, Murphy said. There are also online catalogs for caskets and vaults, which are not on display, he said. “We have all the options you can think of, but we tried to make it simple for people, so they are not stressing over these decisions,” he said.
That idea of making everything easy has been key to the firm’s success, Murphy believes.
“Families can come in and be out the doors in 30 minutes to an hour and not feel as though they have been shorted anything,” Murphy said. “We give them 100% of our attention and all their options and let them guide us through the process.”
He added, “With funeral service, you hear a lot about ‘directing’ families – you ‘direct’ them to the casket, to the vault and to the service they need. Well, we don’t believe in that. We believe that we listen first, every family is different, and we meet them where they are at.”
Overcoming Challenges
Neither Cantwell nor Murphy is a licensed funeral director. Starting a funeral home from scratch was a huge leap of faith for both men, Murphy said.
“The risk and stress and uncertainty were enough to take you under,” he confided.
Cantwell knew of a building near his home that he felt would be perfect for a funeral home, and the duo started there.
“We were able to get it at an affordable price,” Murphy said. “We created an LLC and my wife helped create the logo. We wanted the name to be simple.”
The partners took a big hit from their savings and invested a lump sum of cash. They also took a loan from a bank.
“I went to college with the marketing manager, Jon Valuck, of Prairie State Bank in Springfield, Illinois, and we got a tremendous deal,” Murphy said. “We were approved really quick. They are amazing to work with!”
As for the building they bought, it used to be a large warehouse, and it’s broken into three sections, with the first part being an office area that includes a large conference room, bathrooms and a small arrangement lounge.
There is also a section they use for storage, and a third section where they house their retort and cooler.
“We do everything under one roof,” Murphy said. “We don’t contract out, and that was our goal from the start. We want families to have peace of mind. Once they are in our care, they don’t leave our care. We make all our own removals unless there are unavoidable circumstances, in which case we use a trade service, but we always maintain communication with the family, and those contracted removals are few and far between.”
The building, which used to be home to a billboard company that relocated, is about three blocks from where Cantwell lives. Murphy commutes from about 45 minutes away.
“The facility had to be a certain distance away from where my former employer had locations, and it worked out perfectly,” Murphy said. “It satisfied my requirement. There are already quite a few funeral homes in the area, but at the time we launched the firm, there were no affordable cremation options.” He added, “We wanted to be the first to strike, because this is the way the industry is going.”
Since neither Cantwell nor Murphy is a licensed funeral director, they teamed up with a trade service to serve their first dozen or so families while keeping their heads down and searching for the right people to hire, Murphy said.
“Within two or three weeks, we had a couple interviews lined up,” Murphy said. One person joined the firm and stayed on for only a short time, although they knew she planned to move when they hired her.
“But then two great ones fell into our lap – one was referred to us and the other found us online.”
Keith Epperson has been with Central Cremation Center almost two years, and Ali Davidson has been with the company seven months. Both are licensed funeral directors/embalmers and licensed crematory operators in Illinois.
Competing to Win
As the two have grown the business, Murphy has leaned on the lessons he learned as a standout football player.
“I was a middle child and grew up in a competitive and athletic sports family,” he said. “Football was my top sport through high school and into college. I played four years at as smaller school, Illinois College in Jacksonville.”
In high school, Murphy played wide receiver and cornerback on defense. In college, he played three years at cornerback and during his senior year, he moved to free safety. He made the All-Midwest Conference all four years while at Illinois College.
If football is not the most physically draining and emotionally demanding sport, it’s right up there, Murphy said.
“Like funeral service, it’s a grind,” he said. “All the hours of evening and early morning work. You have to get up and do it every day.”
But the way a football team is organized sheds some lessons on how to run a good funeral home, Murphy believes.
“On the football field, you have very skilled positions – not every guy can do everything. It’s not like basketball, where everyone needs to be able to dribble and shoot. In football, you are not going to ask a lineman to play quarterback. Everyone has a special role, and when they do that well, the team is successful.”
It’s similar in funeral service, Murphy said.
“Even if you are a licensed funeral director and paid the same salary and have the same title as someone else, you don’t have to do the same things to help your company,” he explained.
For instance, one of Central Cremation Center’s funeral directors meets with more families. That funeral director is better at developing relationships and has higher average contracts, but the other one is great “in the back,” embalming, doing paperwork and such. Both can do what the other does if needed … but they prefer specializing in a certain area, just like specialists on a football field.
“The way we have structured our company is we cater to their individual skillsets,” Murphy said. “While they are both great embalmers, one is better than the other – and one likes to do it. The other not so much. Whatever one may lack, the other excels in. We don’t want to force either of them into situations they are not comfortable with.”
Delivering Services and Value
Given the name – Central Cremation Center – it should come as no surprise that 85% of the families the business serves opt for cremation.
“We’ve had about 50 burials in the last couple of years, and of those, about 75% have been embalmed and the others have been direct burials,” Murphy said.
Catering to families that may not have the highest income and who want an affordable option was quite intentional, Murphy said.
“Out of the gates, that was our focus,” he said. “We want to cater to lower-income people who do not want full-fledged funerals.”
With that said, Murphy has been somewhat surprised that the firm is doing business with a number of families in a higher income tax bracket. “They just don’t see a ton of value in having a viewing or burial,” he said. “So, we’ve been able to appeal to a large amount of the population and wide demographics.”
Even though the firm focuses on simple, it still has a “good amount” of people who have a memorial service after the cremation. “We have an area at the facility where a family can have a private viewing, although it really can only accommodate 20 to 30 people,” he said.
If a family wants a few hours to say goodbye before the cremation, Murphy and his team allow that as well.
There are also a few churches in the area that have opened their doors, so the cremation center can offer families a chapel. “And there is an event center in town about 15 minutes away, and we have used that as well” he said. “Families understand that – our building is not a chapel and is not a traditional funeral home so to speak, so they don’t expect to have a full visitation at our place. We communicate that to them: We don’t accommodate that, but we can help you find a location.”
About 25% of the families the firm serves opt for some sort of service or viewing, Murphy said. It charges $200 for a private viewing, or it can help facilitate a memorial service for $450. The churches it has worked with as well as the event center have provided their venues free of charge, but if that ever changes, the firm will simply pass on the charge to families, he said.
So far, the business has served a larger geographic area than Murphy anticipated.
“As of now, we’ve served 41 counties in central or southern Illinois,” he said. “Our reach has been outstanding.”
The firm has done numerous commercials, particularly with a local station, WAND, out of Decatur, which reaches a wide swath of the state.
“Our bread and butter has always been our TV commercials,” Murphy said. “We rotate out messages. Our first message focused on price, and how we wanted to be transparent and offer a low cost. A couple months later, we put out a commercial on preplanning. Then we touched on preneed transfers. A lot of people may have planned years ago with XYZ, but you can get the same service with us for a lower price, so come to us, and we can help you with your preneed transfer process. I am very well versed in that and know how to get it done. A large portion of our preneed program has been preneed transfers.”
The company has also experimented with billboard advertising, but it seemed expensive, and so it has backed off that. “We’ve also done a little radio – not a ton,” Murphy said. “We also do community seminars at our location, or we find a restaurant where we can do a lunch and learn.”
The COVID-19 pandemic may have paved the way for the firm to serve a larger area, since more people are now comfortable making virtual arrangements or seeking information online.
“People started using things like DocuSign, since they are COVID conscious and do not want the interaction,” he said. “They are still using those tools, especially if their family member was two or three hours away. They do not want to come back and make arrangements in person, and sometimes they do not want a service.”
He added, “We can ship cremated remains to the family. We can do everything through email, DocuSign and a phone call. We don’t actually have to meet in person to make arrangements.”
Staying Involved
On top of providing an essential service to the community at an affordable price, Central Cremation Center made getting involved in the community a priority from day one, Murphy said.
“We introduced our Central Cremation Give Back Program,” which entails giving a small percentage of the company’s profits to a community organization each month. “We donated to the Salvation Army one month. Another month, it was the American Legion hall. We are very involved, and anytime there is a community event that we are allowed to be at and makes sense for us, we are going to be there.”
Monthly donations through the Give Back Program have been in the $500 to $2,000 range, he said. “They are always appreciated,” he said.
“We’ve done better than we thought we would do out of the gate,” Murphy said. “But we always knew – especially in this area – that there was a need for something like this. But we did not anticipate the amount of growth or the massive area and territory that we’d be able to serve. That has created logistical challenges, but with the use of technology and fancy scheduling, we’ve been able to please the families we serve.”
Drawing on his expertise as a preneed salesperson, Murph, who was previously a preneed and cemetery sales manager, has also made sure the firm focuses on helping families preplan. “I have always known preneed is important,” he said.
In short order, Central Cremation Center has almost achieved a one-to-one preneed to at-need ratio of families served, Murphy said.
“This is in large part due to the efforts of our director of public relations, Brett Zerfowski,” Murphy said. “He’s very well known in our area. Whether it’s from his days working as a postman, or his time as a PA announcer for Macon Speedway, Millikin University games or radio advertising, people love the guy. He’s a very genuine person, and out of all my years working with preplanning advisers, he’s at the top of the list! He truly cares about what’s best for the families he meets with — and that goes a very long way!”
In only two years, the company already has 600 preneed contracts on the books, he said.
Looking ahead, Murphy sees the greatest challenge as growing but at a responsible pace.
“We are kicking around what is our next step,” he said. “Our model has proved successful, and we are serving a large area. We know if we can get the right resources in place, we can grow this. But whether that means opening another center somewhere else or franchising this, we are not sure. If we were to do that, we’d need the capital and staff … and possibly investors.”
All Murphy knows is he needs to figure it out – and quickly.
“We want to grow this for the future,” he said. “We know that if we don’t, someone else will do it – and we don’t want to be late to the party.”
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