May 29, 2023
Published by 
Dan Isard on May 29, 2023
Dan Isard on May 29, 2023Funeral home owners and staff, for the most part, are technophobic. Despite this, every reason exists for them to embrace and effectively use technology to improve both their business and their customer service. So, I beseech you to either embrace it or hire some 17-year-old kid to do it for you. Funeral service has always hated technology, however. The last technology this profession universally adopted was gravity! Cremation remained a limited service before we could automate a crematory. The first manually operated cremation in the 1880s actually took three days to complete. Even with the automation of the modern retort, a few fires still destroy the crematory, and sometimes the building, each year. Another technology – the telephone – helped save time but, most importantly, gave way to the answering service. Why? Because nothing costs funeral homes more money than […]
May 29, 2023
Published by 
Jarod Bernat on May 29, 2023
Jarod Bernat on May 29, 2023It’s well known that in our industry, there are slow and high-volume periods that vary with the seasons due to the ebbs and flows of mortality rates as the year progresses. The timing of these periods can vary from region to region, but generally, they are fairly predictable based on historical precedent – this is what we call “seasonality”. During the summer, the sun nourishes our bodies with more Vitamin D than the rest of the year improving our immune systems, we’re more active outdoors, and overall moods improve. These factors combine to lower mortality rates compared to the winter month when the cold and lack of sunlight negatively impacts our immunity and health. Based on The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, US death rates are about 25% higher in winter than in the summer. This means that […]
April 19, 2023
Published by 
Jared Tanke on April 19, 2023
Jared Tanke on April 19, 2023Have you considered selling your funeral business but didn’t know where to begin? We understand that the decision to sell can be overwhelming. We asked Jared Tanke to walk us through the process from start to finish. Question: What does it looks and feel like to sell my funeral home? Jared Tanke: You may have had conversations with your fellow funeral home owner friends, and I am sure the topic of selling has come up. Maybe one of your friends has recounted his or her experience in selling, and you may have heard several buzzwords, including a “multiple” which is very common language when talking about a business acquisition. But what do these people actually go through? What does the process of selling your funeral home look and feel like? It is such a big life event, and there are […]
April 19, 2023
Published by Dan Isard on April 19, 2023
Dan Isard on April 19, 2023In the disco age, the “Side Hustle” was a dance move. For me, growing up in Philadelphia, the side hustle was something altogether different. Today, that phrase has been resurrected by “gig workers” and others looking to make a little extra cash. Now, I’m not suggesting that funeral directors should try to generate extra money by dancing or otherwise. I’m just thinking about the future because the future for funeral service is vexing. I see costs for labor skyrocketing, assuming you can even find licensed people to hire. I see the number of price-focused consumers rising from the current 5% of at-need families to almost 20%. I see more pressure on the amount of revenue generated per call due to limitations on consumer spending, shortfalls on preneed crediting rates and the increasing preference for cremation. Unfortunately, any time businesses experience […]
April 18, 2023
Published by 
Curtis Rostad on April 18, 2023
Curtis Rostad on April 18, 2023If you grew up on a farm you probably learned that PTO stands for “power takeoff’ and that it is the connection point on a tractor for other implements and attachments. But today we will be talking about PTO as “Personal Time Off’ or “Paid Time Off’ as a system to replace the traditional vacation, sick leave, and personal leave policies that you may be presently using. Simply put, PTO combines vacation time, sick leave, and personal time into one “bank” of time-off available to your employees as the need or desire arises. Employees have more flexibility for a work-life balance while no longer having to be untruthful or deceitful when obtaining time-off. You don’t have to have a very large operation with very many employees before you will recognize that you have at least one “warrior” and one “wimp” […]