David Speaks Email & Phone Number

David serves as a Senior Trainer for Graystone Associates. Graystone Associates is a leading and well-known consultant firm that helps firms in a variety of ways. David's role with Graystone is to train funeral professionals at all levels, to increase their success with client satisfaction, arrangement room strategies, customer service as a whole, and many other aspects. David assists funeral professionals in better serving the client families, who they are honored to serve.

United States

Kansas City Metropolitan Area

My professional “growing up” happened in an environment where customer satisfaction was always the top priority and where a little bit of fun was critical to help everyone get through the day.I quickly took on the role of funeral director, serving families and picking up the ins-and-outs of the business to navigate creative solutions for those who couldn’t afford the services they needed and provide meaningful events for all customers to process their grief.➨ I created Holiday Services of Remembrance for families’ first holidays without their loved one and implemented 100s of Teddy Bear Ceremonies to engage children who are often left out of the proceedings.Along the way, I trained and grew teams, creating schedules and managing operations while teaching them the balance of customer service and sales that made the business successful.➨ My teams consistently ranked top in the company for customer satisfaction scores and surpassed other business metrics.I also took pride in engaging with the industry at large to grow my leadership skills. ➨ I was selected for and completed a 2-year Leadership Academy with a rigorous curriculum, culminating in a capstone project and presentation. ➨ My efforts in producing the veteran’s events led to earning a “Keeping It Personal Award” in 2014 from the ICCFA.➨ I earned the Next-Gen Professional of the Year Award in 2016 from amongst more than 510 member Selected Independent Funeral Home Association.

Kansas City, Missouri, United States

When our CEO asked me to launch a community relations function for the business, I didn’t hesitate – interacting with customers had always been the best part of my job. While continuing to manage operations and meet with customers, I decided one of the first ways to engage with the broader community would be launching a conference for local caregivers.➨ The event launched with 65 attendees the 1st year – a testament to the strong relationships we had in the community – and through mainly word of mouth grew to 200+ attendees joining 2 events each year.Throughout my years at the funeral home, I had the opportunity to work with the families of veterans and saw the opportunity to do more to recognize them. We launched an annual veteran’s event with a “Lest they be Forgotten” theme.➨ What started as a modest event on one of our locations grew to fill the American Legion hall and then the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library with 250 attendees.➨ One of my favorite stories is securing the Huey helicopter for veterans to sit in and 2 Congressional Medal of Honor winners and the “Lest They Be Forgotten” filmmaker as speakers.The veteran’s events also opened doors for me to represent Speaks on local TV and radio broadcasts.➨ I was interviewed on a 4-minute segment on KSHB-41 and 2 joint features with “Lest They Be Forgotten” filmmaker on Fox News 4.Engaging the community meant pitching in where needed, so when the local blood donation center reached out and said they needed help getting donations, I stepped up to make it happen.➨ We surpassed the goals the center set for multiple drives … at the funeral home!I drew the community in to participate by soliciting $10,000+ for each event in prizes and created a prize wheel so anyone who attempted to donate walked away with a prize (like a $1500 diamond necklace).I built a list of community partners who we supported – caregivers and customers – and a list of strategic partners who made these events successful.