June 26, 2022
Published by 
Gabriel Ngo on June 26, 2022
Gabriel Ngo on June 26, 2022Scenario: Rico Funeral Home & Cremations has been successfully growing market share since it first started serving the community in southern Ohio over six years ago. Owner/operator Bernardo (“Bernie”) Rico had primarily focused on serving at-need calls because of his operational growth strategy and because of its immediate impact on cash flow. However, Bernie’s families had been inquiring more and more about preplanning and preneed, so Bernie partnered with a third-party preneed insurance provider a little less than two years ago. Bernie’s strategy was to actively sell preneed to areas of town or zip codes where his business was not already drawing at-need business and more passively to parts of the community where the at-need business was already coming from. Results have been pretty good, with Rico Funeral Home & Cremations building up a solid backlog of its preneed book […]
December 21, 2021
Published by Gabriel Ngo on December 21, 2021
Gabriel Ngo on December 21, 2021Scenario: Ibanez Family Funerals & Cremations has been a successful family-owned funeral home business in Texas for the past 17 years. Due to the continued rising cremation rates in his market, Richard Ibanez decided to build out and expand his prep room space along with having a cremation area and retort installed about three years ago. Along with being licensed funeral directors, Richard’s two sons, Bill and Ricky, are also responsible for managing the prep room and the crematory, respectively. The Ibanez family has continued to serve their community extremely well with both their funeral and cremation service offerings. Unfortunately, Ibanez Family Funerals & Cremations has been dealing with two very angry families who might threaten to bring lawsuits against them. Both families have the last name of Smith. Adam Smith was a 28-year-old male who died in the line […]
July 21, 2021
Published by Gabriel Ngo on July 21, 2021
Gabriel Ngo on July 21, 2021“Windows of opportunity open then close. By staying in the present, handling what’s in front of us, and riding the wave of opportunity when it comes, we follow the natural order of things.” – Dan Millman (American author and lecturer in personal development) Would you rather pay a 20% tax or be taxed almost double that at 39.6%? This is by no means a trick question as most of us would very quickly choose to pay a 20% tax as opposed to a 39.6% tax. However, the rhetorical question posed above is one that many funeral, cemetery, and crematory owners will have to practically answer or have this question answered for them when selling their business…because the window of time for those wanting to “ride the wave of opportunity” and not have to pay the higher tax is closing. And […]
July 20, 2021
Published by Gabriel Ngo on July 20, 2021
Gabriel Ngo on July 20, 2021Strategy for building a winning one for your firm. “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” – MICHAEL JORDAN As this quote suggests, talent alone does not guarantee that you will win in the long term. Still, you might wonder why I chose a sports quote to relate to funeral service. Both sports and funeral service are zero-sum games when it comes to competition. Someone wins, another loses. In funeral service, we have no control over the death rate in our community in any given year – we can only control how many calls we can secure and serve. One death call for you means one less death call for me as your competitor. Zero sum. The same can be said about competing for and retaining human resources in the funeral service profession. While the pandemic forced all […]
June 23, 2021
Published by Gabriel Ngo on June 23, 2021
Gabriel Ngo on June 23, 2021Scenario: Kramer Funeral Home is an established firm that has been serving its community for over 35 years in the Northeast. The original owner, Gary, recently retired after a few years of gradually stepping back and grooming his successor, Dennis, who now owns and operates Kramer Funeral Home. While Dennis has less than 10 years of experience in the profession, he had proved to Gary that he is a very good lead funeral director and business-minded. Plus, the younger, less-experienced funeral staff, who brought many great ideas to serving cremation families, connect with and look up to Dennis. While the cremation rate had been increasing, Kramer Funeral Home is able to still serve a good number of burial families a year. Under Dennis, Kramer Funeral Home is poised to continue serving its community with a superb reputation and excellent service. […]