April 23, 2025
Published by 
Jared Tanke on April 23, 2025
Jared Tanke on April 23, 2025I’ve always been fascinated by how much business success comes down to the things you can’t immediately see in a spreadsheet. Sure, numbers are important—revenue, profit margins, and market share all matter—but what separates a truly valuable funeral home from the rest often lies beyond those metrics. It’s the things you invest in today, the ones that don’t show up as line items, that can make all the difference when it’s time to transition your business. Here are some of the key areas operators should focus on to build not just a profitable funeral home, but one that stands out to potential buyers when it’s time to sell. Build a Strong Team and Foster the Right Culture Think about your team. Are they just employees, or are they the heart and soul of your funeral home? When we at Foresight […]
December 23, 2024
Published by Jared Tanke on December 23, 2024
Jared Tanke on December 23, 2024A study performed in 2021 by Clutch, a leading B2B research firm, found that just 54% of small business owners had a documented budget that year. While I am optimistic that our profession skews higher than that, I’m sure those numbers may in fact ring true. That means there are a lot of funeral homes and cemeteries out there that have no real way of measuring their performance versus a benchmark, and that means it would be challenging to put forth any sort of financial goal. Since it is already challenging running a successful funeral home, we want to make at least one thing easier. I want to touch on just a few benefits of having a well-documented budget. Accountability – If you have ever gotten into a fitness routine and followed a training schedule, you know how important accountability […]
August 28, 2024
Published by Jared Tanke on August 28, 2024
Jared Tanke on August 28, 2024Staffing and employee retention has been an issue for various sectors in recent years. In particular, the funeral and cemetery profession has experienced the effects of this business pain point. We asked Jared Tanke to share his insights as to what owners and operators can implement into their business models now to retain good employees. Question: How do I retain good employees? Jared Tanke: I recently attended the NFDA Leadership Conference in Ponte Vedra, FL. As a first-time attendee at this event, I was excited about networking with so many different funeral home owners, state association executives, and others. Throughout my time I was involved in many conversations around the biggest challenges facing the funeral profession. A question that kept coming up was “how do we retain talent?” This falls right in line with our 2024 Funeral & Cemetery Consumer […]
June 27, 2024
Published by Jared Tanke on June 27, 2024
Jared Tanke on June 27, 2024Start your succession game plan today by addressing these five critical items in your current business operations. I have recently finished watching the hit TV show “Succession,” and I can’t recall how many times I thought to myself, wow, this is stressful just watching. If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s based on the Roy family, which owns a large media business and whose father, the CEO, is reaching the age of retirement and looking to identify his successor. Multiple sons and daughters, along with some trusted advisors, all fight for pole position to be named the ultimate successor. While this show has clearly been over-dramatized, there are many things we can take from its premise, the first one being that it pays to plan for the future. From the 2023 NFDA Member Succession Planning Study, it was found […]
April 28, 2024
Published by Jared Tanke on April 28, 2024
Jared Tanke on April 28, 2024If you are like me, you are probably thinking how in the world are we already four months into the year? While relatively early still, it is always a good idea to take a minute to review what has gone well, what has not gone well, and figure out how to adjust with the remainder of the year. Just like SCI, Park Lawn, and Carriage do every quarter for their investors, every business owner no matter the size should have a quarterly report. Let’s dive into some of the key things to look at: Number of services – When looking at number of services in the quarter, we should not just fixate on the total, but really break it down into the number of traditional burials, traditional cremations, direct cremations, trade cases, donor calls, etc., so that we can better […]