Judi Evans Selling Cemetery Plots

1 Emmy award winning actress Judi Evans has made a career in soap operas--a talented actress with a great sense of humor, who has the uncanny ability to cry on demand. But work is drying up. CNBC'S Jane Wells works with Judi's husband, who told her that the soaps business is dying off, and Judi has picked up extra work in the "dying" business. Literally. She is selling cemetery plots to bring in extra income and keep herself busy in between auditions. She loves it. Wells asked Judi to write a guest blog on how--and why--she's gone from acting to working for Rose Hills Memorial Park. Only in Hollywood, kids. Here's the blog from Judi: "Being an actress can be a waiting game. For most, it's waiting tables. For all, it's waiting for the phone to ring. I have been lucky, better yet, blessed enough, to have worked on soap operas for over 20 years. With that being said, it has made me somewhat of a workaholic. I thrive when I'm busy, and make myself and my family crazy when I'm not busy. Waiting around for my manager or my agent to call is not my forte. When works slows, I want--no, I need--some kind of job to take on, and fast, before I make everybody crazy. In college at 16, I landed my first contract role at 18 on "The Guiding Light". That left me without a degree. We all know that in this day and age it is truly difficult to find a good paying job without a college degree. I consider myself to be an intelligent and hard working individual creating high expectations for myself. Yet I could not come up with a career path besides acting, no matter how much I wracked my brain. With work slowing down over the summer, I spent a day at the beach with my good friend Carrie. While we watched our sons play, I brought up my dilemma to her. She mentioned that she had had a friend who had worked at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier and just loved it. It was a great job with benefits and better yet, you had the opportunity to help people. Having always shied away from any talk about death, I was for a brief moment hesitant. But then, the thought of helping people through a difficult time truly appealed to me. Well, the seed was firmly planted. I went home, looked up Rose Hills on the computer, and as it happened, they were looking for Pre-Need Counselors, so I applied online right then and there. During the first interview, Jason, the recruiter, mentioned how being an actress could work to my advantage. As an actress you must be in touch with your feelings and the feelings of those around you. As a pre-need counselor the same rule applies. Also, in sales, it's important to believe in what you are selling. Again, in acting, the same rule applies. In order to make the moment believable, you have to believe in that moment. When I began working there I found there were so many concepts to advance planning that had never even crossed my mind. First off, property and funeral are two separate transactions. Having never had to be a part of the funeral planning process I had no idea. Property is property, and like any other property it is subject to inflation. The upside is, with cemetery property, you are not subject to property taxes. The difference is, no matter what the economy, people will always need to be buried. You know the old adage; nothing is for sure except death and taxes. The advantage to pre-planning is to lock in at today's prices because by the time you may need property or funeral, the price will probably be double, or even triple what it is today. And, not to be prejudiced, but Rose Hills is the most picturesque memorial park I have ever seen. It is also the largest, in not only the United Stated, but in the world. To top it off, of all the property Rose Hills owns in the close to 100 years of operation, it has only used about half. In essence, I now have the opportunity to get people thinking about the future, and the future of their families, and help them find a sound financial way to plan and fund their funerals and procure cemetery property. As much as I love acting, and I do, it brings me a great deal of pleasure to interact directly with people and also help them along life's journey. Still new to this business, I often wonder what my reaction will be when I eventually walk into someone's house, and they gasp and call out one of my character names and ask me what I'm doing there. So do I say, "Yes I was such and such character on that show, but now I'm here to help you plan you funeral", or do I offer them an autograph if they buy cemetery property? I haven't quite worked that one out. Seriously though, I've always felt blessed, and now I can pass those blessings along as well."