sales

I'm tired, very tired, and it's only Tuesday. Just finished printing out statements for the week. I send out the first one and if there's a balance, the accountant sends out monthly statements after that. Guess one good thing about so many first calls is that I have a lot of statements to send out. Of course, all but one of them is already paid in full, but we send them for 1) customer records and 2) keeping our name in front of the customer just little longer. If they did an obit, we'll laminate it in a bookmarker and send it to them a week after the statement. Just reminds them that we're awesome people, so they'll want to come back here again. There's quite a bit of sales and that's a little weird. I'm still not used to it. I try not to sound like a salesman, but sometimes it feels a little greasy anyway. We make the most money on the products we sell, so it only makes sense that we need to show them a bunch of choices. I've been surprised how many revenue earners there are. For cremated remains, there are urns, keepsake urns, biodegradable urns, necklaces, bracelets, keyrings, paperweights, paintings, diamonds, I don't' know what else. I don't like the keyrings and I'm not going to offer them, if they happen to see it, fine, but I'm not pointing them out. I think they're a little distasteful. Plus it looks just like a little vial you'd put cocaine in. Why would someone want ashes swinging around with their keys anyway? It's just disrespectful. And the paintings? What is that? You can take someone's ashes, have them mixed with paint, and get the deceased's portrait done. Not for me. The paperweight / art pieces are neat though. They take about three tablespoons of ash and then a glass blower somehow gets the ash into glass and makes them into different shapes. You can choose blues, greens, purples, ambers, or reds as the main color. I'm sure you've seen them, just without the human remains. They cost a lot, too much, I think, but they're still cheaper than having the remains pressed into a diamond. That's in the thousands of dollars and takes a long time.
Yesterday, someone asked at The Yard if they would mix her husband's ashes in with some tattoo ink, so she could get him tattooed on her shoulder. We said no, she'd have to do it herself. How would you even adjust the viscosity? It would be thick and gooey or else too diluted, I don't know how you'd get it the consistency right. Plus, that's just plain gross.