February 15, 2017
Published by 
Catherine Belliveau on February 15, 2017
Catherine Belliveau on February 15, 2017We’re already more than a month into 2017, so it’s too late to do any tax planning before filing 2016 returns, right? Not so. Now is the time to sit down with your accountant and consider depreciation and your 2016 tax bill. New Year’s Day has come and gone. We are rolling along in 2017 and coming upon tax season. Most businesses work to complete tax planning before year-end, when you can make deci¬sions about bonuses and expenditures that need to take place before December 31. For most business owners, tax planning ends there, but there are still decisions to be made now that can have a huge effect on your tax bill. Depreciation is a vague, nebulous concept to many. You know that it shows up as an expense on the profit and loss statement and that it will […]
February 14, 2017
Published by 
Dan Isard on February 14, 2017
Dan Isard on February 14, 2017Dear Dan, Come on, man, be honest with us! You’ve said price shoppers are not a big segment of the market, yet every day or so I get a call asking, “How much is a cremation?” How is it that I am getting these calls and you keep saying, “It’s no big deal”? Signed, Be Honest Dear Be Honest, You are sitting in the front row of the Shamu splash zone and I’m in the arena telling you that only 10 percent of the attendees are getting wet. Which of us is right? Allow me to address this analytically, historically and with an eye to the present and future. In order to do your question justice, let us establish that there are three levels of price consumers: Price sensitive. Price sensitive means someone is aware of price and uses it […]
January 17, 2017
Published by Dan Isard on January 17, 2017
Dan Isard on January 17, 2017Your funeral home having an informative, customer-focused, strong online presence is no longer a choice. It’s a matter of survival. For those of us old enough to remember, The Jetsons, a 1960s cartoon we watched on Saturday mornings before going out to play, was about a family living in a futuristic utopia. Robots, holograms and other wild inventions provided a whimsical glimpse of life in the future. Fast-forward to 2017 and some of those contraptions have been made manifest in our daily living. Now, there are still those funeral professionals who scoff at the insertion of technology into our business. However, as more and more of the families we serve rely on technology for gathering information than ever before and are outpacing our adoption of “newfangled ideas,” we might just be positioning our business toward extinction. How can the funeral […]
January 15, 2017
Published by 
Stephanie Ramsey on January 15, 2017
Stephanie Ramsey on January 15, 2017Determining if or when to give an employee a raise is a question funeral business owners/managers frequently struggle to answer. This year funeral business owners/managers are challenged to address this issue in a very direct and specific manner as a result of the impending new overtime rules. Currently, due to a Texas Judge issuing an injunction, the implementation of this rule is on hold and may or may not ever be put into effect. This leaves owners and managers uncertain about how they should or if they should address raises for their employees. Given the complexity of the overtime rules and the current focus on retaining quality employees in the funeral industry it is wise to consider the four following components when addressing raises: Company Budget/Profitability Market Rate of Position Employee’s Job Performance Future Expectations of Employee and the Business […]
January 15, 2017
Published by Dan Isard on January 15, 2017
Dan Isard on January 15, 2017What can a third-generation funeral director in his 60s do about having his dementia-stricken father sign over the business to him? Dear Dan, I am a big fan, but I never thought I’d write to you. Many of the questions you field are humorous, but this is not. I am 60 years old and the third-generation operator of our family business. Dad and Mom are in their late 80s. Dad has dementia and maybe Alzheimer’s. Mom has no idea of any business issues, denies Dad’s illness and won’t make any family or business decisions. On good days, Dad is in the funeral home but often causes fiascoes. He ordered a truckload of caskets from some phone seller and we wound up paying $30,000 for damaged and inferior products. I found out he fired the accountant a year ago and no […]