November 21, 2022
Published by 
Gabriel Ngo on November 21, 2022
Gabriel Ngo on November 21, 2022Pricing is always a hot topic. When it comes to vendors setting pricing for items such as caskets, do you have to accept their price structure, or can you make changes as you see fit? Gabe Ngo provides his insights on this important topic. Question: Do I have to accept the prices the casket vendor set? Gabe Ngo: The short answer is no, you do not have to accept the casket vendor’s pricing they set. There are so very many angles in answering this question, but I will keep it grounded and simple. Often times historically, owner-operators have not always made pricing changes to reflect the “October 1st” pricing changes that have typically come from Batesville or Matthews annually. However, over the past fifteen to eighteen months or so, funeral home owner-operators have seen a variety of “temporary surcharges” (which […]
July 24, 2022
Published by Gabriel Ngo on July 24, 2022
Gabriel Ngo on July 24, 2022EI, the biggest workplace performance predictor and strongest driver of leadership and personal excellence, begins with you. “Let us all be the leaders we wish we had.”– Simon Sinek, Author and Inspirational Speaker While there is no “I” in TEAM, the winning team you build (or currently have) must start somewhere, and that somewhere begins with you, Mr./Ms. Owner-Operator. By default, and regardless of whether you wanted to be a leader or not, your team looks to you to be captain of your ship. Throughout my career, I have worked for others and found myself wishing that this leader was more “this way” and that leader more “that way.” However, none of us is ever complete and perfect. I have always found myself learning what I should do under past managers and leaders, but just as importantly, I have learned […]
July 24, 2022
Published by Gabriel Ngo on July 24, 2022
Gabriel Ngo on July 24, 2022E-commerce Is What Families Are Expecting Serve future customers. Is that not what all businesses set out to do? Substitute “customers” with “families” and replace “stores” with “funeral homes” and the quote below from the CEO of Walmart could have easily come from Tom Ryan (SCI), Mel Payne (Carriage), Brad Green (Park Lawn), or any other CEO for companies in the funeral, cemetery, and cremation profession. Or replace “customers” with “patients” and “stores” with “hospitals” and this quote can easily apply to hospitals/healthcare as well (and make no mistake about it folks, hospitals are businesses, with the majority of them being for profit). However, the part of the quote that I would like to focus on is “e-commerce” (before tying it all back to the rest of the quote and what it all means to you). So, what is e-commerce? […]
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 […]