GARY: Next on Start Up, we head to Mansfield, Texas to meet up with Christie Moore, the owner of Mansfield Funeral Home and Cremations, a business that's setting a new standard in the funeral industry.

All of this and more is next on Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: Colonial Penn offers guaranteed acceptance, a type of whole-life insurance that does not require answering health questions or taking a medical exam.

Learn more at colonialpenn.com or by calling 1-800-372-8383.

Colonial Penn is a proud supporter of Start Up.

SARAH: I never dreamed of being an entrepreneur.

My goal was to get any free first aid kit in America.

JONO: It's been an awesome journey for us.

ANNOUNCER: More than 60% of sales in Amazon's store come from independent sellers like Sarah and Jono at First Honey.

Amazon, a proud supporter of Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: Running a business isn't easy.

BambooHR supports your HR strategies by automating operational tasks, leaving you with more time to concentrate on what's most important to you and your business.

Learn more at BambooHR.com.

BambooHR, a proud supporter of Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: The future is not just going to happen, you have to make it and GoDaddy Airo can help you get your business online with an AI-generated name, logo and website.

GoDaddy Airo, learn more at godaddy.com/airo.

♪ GARY: My name is Gary Bredow.

I'm a documentary filmmaker and an entrepreneur.

As the country faces uncertainty, small business owners continue to persevere, pushing the economy forward with their unrelenting drive and determination.

We've set out for our 12th consecutive season, talking with a wide range of diverse business owners to better understand how they've learned to adapt, innovate, and even completely reinvent themselves.

♪ This is Start Up.

♪ Funeral homes are a multibillion-dollar industry in the US that provides services for end-of-life arrangements.

Funeral homes offer a range of services, including embalming, caskets, funeral planning, visitation services and burial and cremation arrangements.

Cremation has become increasingly popular in the US, with the cremation rate surpassing traditional burials in recent years.

Today, I'm heading to Mansfield, Texas to meet up with Christie Moore, the owner of Mansfield Funeral Home and Cremations.

From what I know, Christie was drawn to the funeral industry from a very young age, which is not something that we hear very often.

So, I'm definitely excited to meet Christie and learn more about her journey.

♪ When was the first time that you truly realized as a person that this was the industry that you wanted to go in?

CHRISTIE: Actually, as a child, I knew at nine years old.

GARY: At nine years old?

CHRISTIE: Absolutely, I knew at nine years old.

GARY: Wow, you gotta tell me that story.

How does a nine- year-old decide they wanna get into the funeral home business?

CHRISTIE: Well, I had the honor of being present when my great-grandmother transitioned.

The next day, my family had to make arrangements.

Well, as a mischievous nine-year-old, I decided to kinda wander through the funeral home and ended in the prep room where they were embalming her.

GARY: Oh, wow.

CHRISTIE: Yeah, and I stood there and I watched them embalm her.

I wasn't afraid.

I was very captivated by the science of everything.

I wasn't scared of the blood, because I knew that she wasn't suffering anymore.

And then a couple days later at the funeral, to see my family to be so uplifted by the words of the officiant, and then we had the flowers, and I just felt like this spirit just told me that that's what I was supposed to do.

GARY: That is the most interesting, like, fascinating story I think I've ever- CHRISTIE: Thank you.

GARY: Ever heard in 12 years of doing this show.

Were the people around you, particularly your family, really supportive of this path that you wanted to go on?

CHRISTIE: They were very supportive.

Everyone thought I was pretty weird.

GARY: I was gonna say, like... CHRISTIE: Yeah, I'm the first person in my family, friends, anyone that I know, growing up, that ever even spoke of wanting to do this.

I kind of grew up with, "Go ahead, do what you want to do.

She's kind of crazy."

But, you know, it worked out for me, and everyone's super proud of me now.

GARY: So, let's backtrack to the beginnings of what it takes to get into- is it called mortuary sciences?

CHRISTIE: Yes, so it's mortuary science.

My goal was to graduate from high school and go straight to mortuary school, which would have given me an Associates in embalming and funeral directing.

However, my family knew my passion for math and science, so they pretty much made me go to college.

And so, I went to Hampton University up in Virginia, and got my molecular biology degree, and then I went and got my Master's in endocrinology, came back to Dallas and got an Associates in mortuary science.

At that time, we would start our apprenticeship.

So, I had completed my apprenticeship, and then I was licensed thereafter.

GARY: What happened once you graduated from school?

What was the next step?

CHRISTIE: I was able to work for other funeral homes in other states.

It allowed me to see different aspects of the industry.

I was asked to work for a major corporation, so I left the funeral industry for a little bit.

One day I was sitting at my office, working for the corporate America, and my manager came in and was berating me because I spent five minutes too long with someone who just lost her husband.

GARY: What?

CHRISTIE: And it caused me to be late for my next appointment that was scheduled for me.

And I looked at him and like, "Well, our goal is to serve families, right?"

And he was like, "Yeah, but we have a schedule that we must keep."

And I literally, that day, said, "I can no longer, in good conscience, serve families in this way."

GARY: Yes.

CHRISTIE: And I just wrote out a business plan.

I drew out, you know, exactly what I wanted my funeral home to look like, all the way down to the furniture and the colors.

I had all of my paperwork that I handwritten or how I wanted to speak to families.

I want families to hear my voice, even from the pages.

And so, I just went down the road, and here I am.

♪ GARY: Talk about acquiring a building like this.

CHRISTIE: I went through SBA.

The bank told me that I could either build from ground up or rehab a building or just acquire a building.

So, I just went on a website that had commercial property, looked for land, called the realtor.

Two weeks later, he emailed me, "Hey, the owners of Mansfield Funeral Home would like to sell."

I walked through the front door and just immediately started to cry.

This was the exact building I had drawn out years before.

GARY: Of course it was.

CHRISTIE: The exact furniture, the colors, the garden in the back.

Everything that I'd envisioned was literally in the building.

It was amazing.

GARY: Already, packaged.

CHRISTIE: Already.

I bought the building.

I received the keys, I believe, on a Thursday, and I literally started working that night.

So, I now have four- I have four funeral homes.

GARY: Wow.

CHRISTIE: Well, three funeral homes and one crematory.

GARY: So, this was the flagship.

CHRISTIE: Yes, this is my headquarters.

GARY: Did you already have a relationship with the bank?

Because we- a common thread of this series is the challenges with getting no after no after no.

Eventually, a yes.

CHRISTIE: I had seven nos.

GARY: Seven.

Okay, all right, here we go.

CHRISTIE: The 8th bank was my yes.

So, seven nos.

GARY: Got it.

What were some of the reasons why you were rejected?

CHRISTIE: One underwriter said, "You're an African American woman.

"You're really young.

"We don't think that you'll be as successful "as your business plan and financials are showing that you could be."

And then one bank told me that they weren't very sure that this business that I was acquiring, that wasn't doing very well, that I could turn it around.

So, those were some of the reasons.

GARY: I mean, I appreciate the transparency, but that's a gut punch to be like, oh, "You're a woman and you're African American.

So, that's why."

I mean, that takes some, I'll say, audacity... CHRISTIE: Absolutely.

GARY: For them to say that.

CHRISTIE: Absolutely, it did.

But it actually gave me the fuel that I needed to continue down the road.

I've always been, like, the only one in the room.

As a molecular biology major, I was one of the first African American persons to be in that field.

To be in endocrinology, I was one of the first to be in that field.

In the city of Mansfield, I'm the first woman and person of color to own a firm and crematory in the city, ever.

So, I understand, because of the climate of, you know, the world we live in today.

But it just gave me the fuel to keep going.

GARY: You had alluded to the power of positive thinking and manifestation.

CHRISTIE: Yes.

GARY: I talk about it a lot, you know, in interviews with entrepreneurs and small business owners, the reality, the tangibleness of the intangible, how our thoughts are actually things, and how we can create the world and the universe that we want.

And I truly believe that, it- just my own personal beliefs, that death is not an end.

It's really, truly the beginning.

We just don't know what that beginning is, necessarily.

Can you talk about your perspective, about the power of thought?

CHRISTIE: I believe that words have power.

I believe that our thoughts have power.

I'm living proof that once mindset is shifted and you truly believe it and you feel it, it's not about just saying what you want.

GARY: Feeling it.

CHRISTIE: You have to feel it, because that's where the vibration, and that's when you place things in your vortex.

I've learned to internalize and download the things that I want.

But if it feels forced, if it feels not natural, I won't do it.

Everything that I've tried to force has always...

I may have gotten it, but I've gotten down the road.

I'm like, "Uh oh, I shouldn't have done this."

GARY: Yeah, but I need to scale back my powers a little bit.

CHRISTIE: Right, absolutely.

Or it wasn't time.

You know, it was for me to have, because whatever- I believe, whatever I want, I can have it.

But it's a process.

And if I had received this magnitude that I have now of my companies 10 years ago, I would not have been prepared for it, because my mindset wasn't where it should be.

♪ ♪ ♪ GARY: Tell me about one of the most memorable early on families that you were able to serve.

CHRISTIE: I would say it was my best friend's daughter, seven-year-old daughter.

GARY: Oh, no.

CHRISTIE: Yes.

So, she had a brain cancer.

It was called DIPG.

And I remember kind of going to the house and seeing her decline.

But then to walk into the room, and by then, I'd been a mortician for 22 years.

To walk into the room, to see her- GARY: Took your breath away?

CHRISTIE: And to have to do the removal, and my staff took care of the embalming and everything.

And that little casket.

And I know the family.

That really, really changed my thought process about how to approach families, because when you're approaching your own family and it's dealing with a child, you really have to change your mindset.

GARY: You're an integral part of that acceptance and healing process, and this experience can sort of be make or break emotionally as a turning point.

CHRISTIE: It all starts with the first phone call.

I believe in your tone of your voice.

I believe in being patient with my families.

Some families have to speak, and they have to pause.

There are some families that kind of get to a certain point of the conversation, and they just break down and cry.

You have to allow them to get through it, because from the point of realizing that your loved one has passed to the final disposition, there's hundreds of decisions.

There are so many emotions that you go through, and the way to get to the other side so that your grief is as healthy as possible is your interactions with the mortician, with the funeral home.

GARY: Yes.

CHRISTIE: If that becomes a process that's too arduous and it's too stressful, it could exacerbate the grief once final disposition ends.

GARY: Or contentious and about money.

The last thing you want to be worried about is haggling with somebody, high pressure sales situation.

CHRISTIE: That's right.

GARY: When you just lost someone.

CHRISTIE: That's right.

We have people who lose loved ones based on suicides, homicides.

We've seen probably everything that could be seen in this industry, and it's white glove service, concierge service, from beginning to end for everyone.

We even handle some indigent cases.

There are some families that can't afford to take care of the disposition of their loved ones, and we make sure we take care of them as well, as best as we can.

♪ ♪ ♪ GARY: Tell me about your relationship to this business.

TANIKA: Okay, well, Christie and I, so our friendship goes back to 1996, but in 2017, my daughter Sarai was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

And so, she battled a brain tumor for seven months.

And Christie had Mansfield Funeral Home, and she's the only person that I would trust with my child.

GARY: What was the experience like working with Christie here?

TANIKA: She was very, like, supportive.

The night we found out, the night my daughter passed away, she came to our home and was there with us for all the paperwork and everything.

When it was time for the celebration of life, she made sure we had nothing to worry about.

Like, I didn't have to call her for anything.

She just took care of us.

She took care of my family, the services.

She was protective of me, you know, making sure that I wasn't overwhelmed.

And she just really was there for us.

Her whole staff in the funeral home at the time, yeah.

GARY: I would assume that's your daughter on your shirt.

TANIKA: Oh, yes, right here.

Yes, right here.

GARY: Could you tell me a little bit about her?

TANIKA: Oh, of course.

Her name is Sarai.

She was seven years old.

She loved to dance.

She's in gymnastics.

She loved to help me cook in the kitchen.

She was all out, you know, friendly person.

My life has been blessed because I had her in my life.

So, I'm at a different point in my life now that she's not in our lives physically.

But I wouldn't be who I am today had this not happened to our family.

And I'm just glad that I had, like, Christie and Mansfield Funeral Home there with us at that time to get us through that moment.

♪ GARY: Controlling your emotions within this industry, it must take a lot of emotional strength and fortitude to be able to keep yourself on pace, on track.

CHRISTIE: What helps me is that I've known most of my life that this is what I've wanted to do.

And my mother's a therapist.

I've learned the importance of compassion.

GARY: Yeah.

CHRISTIE: So, compassion is being able to serve a family, to be there for them.

But I don't wear, I don't put on those emotions so that when I go home to my family, I am not then putting those emotions on them.

GARY: Got it.

CHRISTIE: I'll find myself sitting at my desk, I'll put my head down, or I'll go to a chapel.

I'll lay down on one of the couches.

So that, when I wake back up, I'm able to still serve, but not wear those emotions.

GARY: Talk about the decision and the pluses and minuses between a traditional burial and cremation.

CHRISTIE: So, traditional burial is basically that- we embalm the person, if the family chooses to have them embalmed, we'll dress, we'll casket, we'll cosmetize.

After all the ceremonies are over, then we head to the cemetery.

When we talk about cremation, you can still have the traditional services, but instead of traveling to the cemetery, we then take their loved one to our crematory, and we perform the cremation services on site.

♪ ♪ ♪ GARY: What is involved in the process of cremation?

KEVIN: The process of cremation is pretty simple.

Once we make the removal and bring the loved one into our care, we stay in communication with the family, letting them know the steps and procedures and everything that we're taking.

And once everything is done, we give them a call and they come and pick up their loved ones.

GARY: What do you think is the most important aspect for a funeral to function at a high level with integrity and ethics?

What's most important?

KEVIN: Most important is making sure everyone knows what's going on and that communication is key.

♪ GARY: Tell me about the cemetery that we're going to right now.

CHRISTIE: So, the cemetery we're going to is a staple in the city, and it's a beautiful way to celebrate someone's life.

GARY: What are the things that you love most about being a funeral director?

It's not all somber all the time.

You gotta have some fun.

CHRISTIE: I love, you know, meeting families that I've served, you know, later.

And they say, "That was the best experience ever."

GARY: Yeah.

CHRISTIE: I love the success stories.

So, those are the fun stories for me.

♪ ♪ ♪ GARY: As consumers ourselves, transparency is everything.

Nobody wants to feel like they're being swindled or, you know, conned, especially in a moment of such vulnerability.

CHRISTIE: And what usually happens, once everyone goes back home after the ceremony... GARY: Yeah.

CHRISTIE: And the bills start to come back, and they look at their bank account and they think, "I really didn't need $2,000 worth of flowers."

And who do you think they blame for spending all the money?

The funeral home.

I never want to be on anyone's list to be blamed for overspending.

GARY: What are all the ways that you make sure you're not on that list?

CHRISTIE: I am very transparent with everything that we do.

We complete the contracts right there in front of them.

We offer to take them line by line of the contract.

We tell them exactly what they're purchasing.

We give them the comparisons.

If they ask for a horse-drawn carriage and I know that that horse-drawn carriage is only going to allow them to really benefit for a quarter of a mile, but they want it for three miles, I'll tell them, "It's not going to be what you think that you see on the movies, but if you want it, you can have it."

And so I tell them, "You can have whatever you want, "but I'm always gonna tell you what I've seen work and what doesn't work."

And they love that.

GARY: They probably really appreciate that.

CHRISTIE: They do.

♪ GARY: Tell me about your relationship to Mansfield Funeral Home.

CHRISTINA: My 17-year-old daughter passed away and... GARY: I am so sorry.

CHRISTINA: Yes.

And so, we had to reach out to Christie.

GARY: Tell me a bit about the experience.

CHRISTINA: So, she went over that with us.

So, she didn't pressure us into, like, buying anything or overshopping, you know, or overselling.

She walked us through step by step that very night.

Like, we had a plan that night.

And she was very patient.

And she worked with us through the whole process to get us exactly what we wanted.

GARY: Pretty nurturing throughout the process.

CHRISTINA: The entire process, the entire process.

I'll never, I'll never forget that later on, I found out that she had other services that day, and she makes you feel like you're the only family she's dealing with.

♪ GARY: People have to know you exist in order to choose you.

CHRISTIE: Yes.

GARY: And with your approach, do you do any marketing at all?

CHRISTIE: I do.

So, I started marketing on Facebook.

And the quick story behind that horror story that kind of scarred me was it was Valentine's Day.

And so, I decided that I wanted to do one post for everyone that was enjoying their Valentine's.

And then the second post would be for those who lost their Valentine.

I posted the first one about, "It's Valentine's Day.

Have a great day to all those who are in love."

As I was posting the second one, a woman that we served called crying and screaming.

"How dare you post something when you know I lost my husband."

GARY: Oh, no.

CHRISTIE: "You shouldn't have done that."

You know, and I had to tell her, "I'm literally pressing send for the second post."

So, the first lesson was, I should have posted the first one first since I am a funeral home.

But I had to kind of let her know I'm not being insensitive, but there are still people here that are enjoying their loved ones, so I wanna honor them as well.

GARY: How did she take that?

CHRISTIE: She was fine because she was able to look and see that I literally was posting the next one.

GARY: And your intentions were well thought out.

CHRISTIE: Absolutely.

But it did scare me a little bit.

GARY: Give you pause.

CHRISTIE: Right, because at that time, there were very few funeral homes that was doing anything on social media because of the sensitive nature of it.

GARY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CHRISTIE: So now I have a full PR team.

GARY: Amazing.

CHRISTIE: I have a brand manager, and we have Google pages.

We have over 200 five- star reviews now on all of our Google platforms.

So, it's going really well now.

GARY: What can people do to prepare, so that the rug just doesn't get pulled out from underneath them at the time that they lose someone?

CHRISTIE: Plan ahead.

We plan ahead for everything else.

GARY: Yeah.

CHRISTIE: We know what we're going to eat each day.

Most of us know what we're going to wear from day to day.

And for whatever reason, when it comes to death and taxes, people don't plan ahead.

GARY: Yeah.

CHRISTIE: So, the great thing is to have the conversation about what do you want when you pass.

I'm not expecting it to be easy, but the best thing to do is do it while everyone is in their right mind, while you know what type of finances you do or don't have and come up with a plan.

GARY: What's the future hold for you and for this business?

How much further do you want to scale?

How big do you want to take it?

What are you going to do?

CHRISTIE: You know, the future holds the ability to serve the communities nationwide.

That is my preference.

My goal is to take this business model and to serve families in all the communities that we possibly can.

GARY: I have to admit that going into this, I was a bit apprehensive about spending the day discussing funerals and cremations.

But I started to ask myself why the subject of death and dying is so taboo.

Especially when it's something that happens to all of us and everyone we know.

Maybe it's our fear of the unknown or the loss of everything familiar to us.

Maybe it's because it's a reminder of the impermanence of life and the fragility of our existence.

Wherever you stand on the subject, the fact remains that death is something that we will all have to confront at some point in our lifetime.

Whether it's the loss of a loved one or facing the end yourself, I'm grateful for people out there like Christie who can make the entire process a little easier to bear.

And there's something very special about Christie.

She's sincere and kind, strong yet empathetic.

And she understands the fine balance between business and emotion when people are facing their most vulnerable moments.

And she threads that needle effortlessly.

It's no surprise that Christie always knew that this was her calling.

You can feel that when you talk to her, that this is exactly what she was meant to do.

And I hope she inspires a whole new generation of funeral home owners.

For more information, visit our website and search episodes for Mansfield Funeral Home and Cremations.

Next time on Start Up, we head to Dallas, Texas to meet up with Femi Oyenikin, the founder of Simpleaf, a line of personal and home-cleaning products with a commitment to global social impact.

Be sure to join us next time on Start Up.

Would you like to learn more about the show?

or maybe nominate a business?

Visit our website at startup-usa.com, and connect with us on social media.

♪ ♪ We've got a long road ahead of us ♪ ♪ A long road ahead of us ♪ Got a long road ahead of us ♪ ♪ Before we pay our dues ♪ We've got a long road ahead of us ♪ ♪ A long road MAN: That's good, there you go.

GARY: Oh!

That was not easy!

♪ ANNOUNCER: The future is not just going to happen, you have to make it and GoDaddy Airo can help you get your business online with an AI-generated name, logo and website.

GoDaddy Airo, learn more at godaddy.com/airo.

ANNOUNCER: Running a business isn't easy.

BambooHR supports your HR strategies by automating operational tasks, leaving you with more time to concentrate on what's most important to you and your business.

Learn more at BambooHR.com.

BambooHR, a proud supporter of Start Up.

JARRED: We have a mission, and we call it sweat and do good.

BRANDON: The more we're able to grow our business, the more we're able to give back to our community.

ANNOUNCER: More than 60% of sales in Amazon's store come from independent sellers like Brandon and Jarred at NOOMA.

Amazon, a proud supporter of Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: Colonial Penn offers guaranteed acceptance, a type of whole-life insurance that does not require answering health questions or taking a medical exam.

Learn more at colonialpenn.com or by calling 1-800-372-8383.

Colonial Penn is a proud supporter of Start Up.