May 30, 2022
Published by 
Dan Isard on May 30, 2022
Dan Isard on May 30, 2022The cemetery has been in operation forever. You have been on the board for a long time. But times are changing. Sales are impaired. Cash flow is tight. You need to reconfigure your master plan to be more cremation focused. Finding good management for day to day is worrisome. On top of that, there is going to need to be an infusion of capital and you can’t find a bank to loan to your cemetery. What do you do to resolve this seeming impasse? This conundrum is not limited to nonprofit cemeteries. It is a similar matter for public cemeteries owned by municipalities. It is also an ongoing issue for church cemeteries. As you attend ICCFA meetings and see old friends, a few of them have chosen to try and sell their cemeteries. You now understand why they chose that […]
May 29, 2022
Published by Dan Isard on May 29, 2022
Dan Isard on May 29, 2022I got my start in the financial services world by selling life insurance across the kitchen table to young families. Once, as I met with a 20-something couple, the husband told me it was ironic we were meeting because they had just found out the day before that his wife was pregnant. Sensing an opportunity, I immediately started to explain a family life insurance policy that offered coverage on the husband, the wife and any and all children once they were born. The premium was $25/month, however, which was a lot of money for a young couple in 1980. The husband said, “We will probably wait on this until the baby is born.” In hindsight, I now understand why my reply caused them to evict me from their home: “Why wait? Do you want to see if you like the […]
April 28, 2022
Published by Dan Isard on April 28, 2022
Dan Isard on April 28, 2022As I attempt to transfer the knowledge I’ve learned over five decades in funeral service, I find I must ask questions as often as I answer them. Q1: Why is it important to set prices accurately? That sounds like a childlike question, but the way this profession sets prices would be an insult to most fifth graders. In 1985, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) forced funeral homes to change from a “package pricing model” (the family buys the merchandise and everything else is thrown in) to an “itemized service fee and merchandise-pricing model.” This caused owners to start by guessing how to allocate their fees on the 16 Funeral Rule-required itemized goods and services to account for the loss in revenue caused by dropping the markup on merchandise from about five times to roughly two times. To make matters worse, […]
March 29, 2022
Published by Dan Isard on March 29, 2022
Dan Isard on March 29, 2022In last month’s column, I outlined the questions you must address for preneed to serve as a positive part of your business and planning. As noted at the end of that article, I intend to answer those many questions in this month’s article, so please, read on. Today, between 20% and 30% of the average funeral home’s annual calls originate from preneed. Now, if you thought that one person in your community would account for 20% to 30% of all your calls in a given year, would you be cavalier about the financial status of this person? Of course not. You would want to know their net worth, their ability to pay in the future, etc. The concept of preneed involves getting consumers to make advance directives, thereby informing their loved ones and the funeral home of the services and […]
February 24, 2022
Published by Dan Isard on February 24, 2022
Dan Isard on February 24, 2022Nothing is more confusing to an outsider to this business than the concept of “inventory” in the cemetery business. Inventory is defined by most financial dictionaries as “the entire stock of goods, materials and components, finished and unfinished, of a business.” Therein lies the problem. The definition does not apply to the unique nature of the cemetery business. I have performed almost 1,000 valuations of cemeteries in my career. Routinely, each and every balance sheet of a business will list items as inventory. Some such items of a cemetery will be identified on their balance sheet as inventory. However, not all items that are called inventory by an accountant are, in reality, inventory because the definition is flawed. Cost of Goods Not a Good Measure Inventory is used in accounting as a “Cost of Goods,” but not all “Goods” can […]
February 24, 2022
Published by Dan Isard on February 24, 2022
Dan Isard on February 24, 2022My Knowledge Transfer Plan Chapter 2: A Preneed Overview The first large-scale speech I gave at an NFDA convention was in Orlando in the 1980s. In the room next to me was an industry “expert” whose presentation denounced the use of funeral directors as salespeople and asserted that preneed was an inferior way of promoting funeral home services. From then until 2019, preneed sales rose in almost every category you can look at it. Overall number of contracts sold by the profession increased at least 300% during that 40-year period. The annual number of preneed contracts served increased almost 500%, and the backlog of preneed contracts as “inventory” for future service by any funeral home also increased by at least 100%. In other words, the presenter in the room next door had been wrong. Despite the onset of the pandemic, […]
January 27, 2022
Published by Dan Isard on January 27, 2022
Dan Isard on January 27, 2022After almost 40 years in the profession, I never questioned the concept of the “size of a cemetery.” I have seen them 40 acres, 200 acres, and even family and church cemeteries that are only 1 or 2 acres. But those were cemeteries initiated 50 years to 200 years ago. As we exist today in 2022, how big will the cemetery of the future be? Cemeteries in the Past The creation of a cemetery was in many ways a requirement for a “town” to become a “city.” As the town wished to be elevated in sovereignty to a city, it needed to have a cemetery. Usually, that cemetery was built at the edge of the town. People would walk, ride their horses and buggies, and (for the past five generations) drive their cars to the edge of town for burial […]
January 26, 2022
Published by Dan Isard on January 26, 2022
Dan Isard on January 26, 2022My Knowledge Transfer Plan Chapter 1: The future is cremation Two issues ago, I turned 68 years old. I mention this because I feel I bear a responsibility to this profession, one that has allowed me to build a company and serve more than 3,000 of its members during my career. While I have written more than 500 articles and four books covering many topics, I now want to systematically share all I have learned for the benefit of the next generation of business owners. I call this my Knowledge Transfer Plan (KTP). We human beings know we are not immortal, and I do not want to take any more knowledge with me to the grave than reasonable. (Yes, I will be buried.) With that said, please note that this column is now called “Finance 301.” This is the graduate-level […]
December 20, 2021
Published by Dan Isard on December 20, 2021
Dan Isard on December 20, 2021How can someone make a cemetery a place that people will be happy to come to? The lore and fiction of our society have us avoid cemeteries. We even believed that whistling while passing a cemetery protected us. In the south, the Gullah Geechees believed in holding their breath to keep the “haints” away (“haints” is Geechee for haunts). Many people have their own personal experience of being in a cemetery typically involving saying goodbye to a loved one. So how can someone make a cemetery a fun place to visit? Well, I have seen it done well. It takes a reset of your mindset. Think about who your consumers are? If you think your consumers are the deceased who are interred in your property, I would ask that you rethink that answer. I think you have two groups of […]
December 20, 2021
Published by Dan Isard on December 20, 2021
Dan Isard on December 20, 2021Competition is good, but theft by deceit and unfair business practices is anti-competitive. Sadly, the words “preneed” and “theft” can go hand in hand. I’ve seen people steal preneed deposits, falsify insurance claims and fail to make deposits into various trusts. These people, of course, are crooks. The thing is, they themselves would tell you they are crooks and knew they were breaking the law. There are others, however, who could be stealing preneed funds, but these individuals don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. They even commit their misdeed in the open, and if caught, will not be prosecuted. Who commits these nefarious acts, you ask? Some employees, when they leave a place of employment, choose to co-opt confidential business property and goodwill, then use it to try to convince consumers to move their established preneed arrangements to another funeral […]
November 22, 2021
Published by Dan Isard on November 22, 2021
Dan Isard on November 22, 2021Estimating case count during/after a pandemic. Creating and implementing a strategic plan starts with estimating your revenue. While calculating revenue involves a simple formula, estimating it during a pandemic is very difficult. More on that later in the article. So, as I said, revenue involves a simple formula, R = C x $, in which revenue equals calls multiplied by $ or average dollars/call. For example, if you expect to serve 100 families annually and your average dollars/call is $6,000, then your revenue will be $600,000. Now, during normal, non-pandemic times, you would need to make two basic assumptions to calculate your revenue: Normal Assumption 1: Upon how many calls should I build my budget? Most people use a three-year average, while others look for trends up or down and make a pro forma estimate based on those trends. I […]
October 27, 2021
Published by Dan Isard on October 27, 2021
Dan Isard on October 27, 2021Why be influenced by someone you don’t respect? A confident owner/manager who knows that his staff and firm deliver exceptional service has no competitors. Since I first set foot in a funeral home in 1984, one best new thing has come along and evolved. No, you can’t buy it. No, you can’t steal it. And no, you can’t copy it from your competitor. This new thing, however, will help you increase your profit and the value of your business by thousands. Will it bring a smile to your face? Absolutely! Is it advertised in the pages of this magazine? No. In fact, if you add it to your repertoire, you will be the only one to have it. You should be warned that it is as infectious as any virus, though, so it will infect your staff and those […]