July 25, 2025
Published by 
Nicole Vullo on July 25, 2025
Nicole Vullo on July 25, 2025How to Stop Fighting the Algorithm and Start Winning the Modern Funeral Consumer Let me paint a picture. It’s 2007. You’ve got your first smartphone, your ringtone is probably “Low” by Flo Rida, and your marketing strategy? A yellow pages ad, maybe a billboard, and—if you were really ahead of the curve—a website that looked like it was designed by your nephew in high school. Fast forward to today. AI is writing love poems, algorithms decide who sees what before they’ve even thought about needing it, and TikTok influencers are selling everything from shampoo to caskets (seriously). So, let me ask you this: has your marketing plan kept up with the times… or is it still buffering? If your strategy could use a reboot, don’t worry. It’s not too late to Ctrl + Alt + Del your old plan and […]
July 25, 2025
Published by 
Chris Cruger on July 25, 2025
Chris Cruger on July 25, 2025Funeral and cemetery professionals are natural caregivers. They serve grieving families with empathy, walk alongside them during life’s hard moments, and ensure that every detail of every service is handled with care. But in the process of supporting others, those same caregivers can neglect their own needs and those of their firm. There’s a lot of talk about self-care these days – and for good reason. Burnout and compassion fatigue are real risks in funeral service. But self-care isn’t just about bubble baths and meditation. It’s also about financial clarity, operational stability and long-term peace of mind. In short, it’s about taking care of your funeral home, too. One of the most powerful means of professional self-care is something many funeral directors only associate with selling their firm: a business valuation. This article reframes that misconception and demonstrates that a […]
June 25, 2025
Published by 
Matt Blackwell on June 25, 2025
Matt Blackwell on June 25, 2025There’s no perfect script for telling your team you’re selling the funeral home—but there is a wrong way. That’s not addressing it head on, keeping things vague, or waiting too long and letting your staff hear it from third parties like their casket rep. In a profession built on trust and relationships, that kind of surprise doesn’t just bruise morale—it can erode the culture you spent a career building. Selling your funeral home isn’t just a transaction. You’re handing over something deeply personal—a community institution, a brand your team helped shape, a space where families found comfort. When staff are kept in the dark until the last second, it stirs panic, invites rumors, and makes buyers wonder if they’re inheriting a team—or a time bomb. Here’s how to do it better. These aren’t just bullet points from a handbook—they’re lessons […]
June 25, 2025
Published by 
Luke Potter on June 25, 2025
Luke Potter on June 25, 2025Most funeral home owners don’t spend much time digging into financial statements— and understandably so. Your focus is on families, staff, facilities, and the day-to-day operations that make your business what it is. But when the time comes to plan for retirement, transition ownership, or even apply for financing, the numbers matter. And often, they don’t reflect the full picture. Recasting financials is the process of adjusting your financial statements to show the true earning potential of your business. It’s not accounting manipulation—it’s about separating personal or one-time expenses from your actual operational performance so a buyer, bank, or successor sees the business as you run it, not just as it appears on paper. For many funeral home owners, traditional financial statements understate profitability because they’re built around minimizing taxes. You may run personal expenses through the business, like a […]
June 23, 2025
Published by Nicole Vullo on June 23, 2025
Nicole Vullo on June 23, 2025Written By Jennifer Graziano, Coxe & Graziano Funeral Home There are many seismic shifts that have rattled the foundation of funeral service in recent years. The funeral consumer has changed; it’s all about getting the most while paying the least. Couple this with industry challenges; a dire shortage of labor and a steady decline of qualified candidates seeking entry into the field, and the situation grows grimmer. The challenges we face on both the consumer and labor fronts are not readily solvable but there are steps we can take to mitigate the impact. Among them, employing a cooperative and combined approach amongst funeral homes and working together to rebrand the industry by setting new norms and standards. On the consumer front, we can attribute this latitudinal shift behavior to the post-Covid societal trends of the world we live in. Everything […]
June 23, 2025
Published by 
Axel Jean-Francois on June 23, 2025
Axel Jean-Francois on June 23, 2025Six Proven Plays to Lift Funeral-Home Margins — Without Losing Your Soul “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” — John Wooden Running a funeral home today is like steering a tugboat through fog while speedboats zip past. You can’t keep jacking up prices, and you definitely can’t cut corners on care—families remember both. What you can do is run smarter. The six plays below come from live field data (and a few hard-earned scars). Margins may be math, but leadership is still about people. PLAY 1 — Master the Fundamentals “Excellence is achieved by the mastery of the fundamentals.” — Vince Lombardi Why the Middle Wins Offer three crystal-clear packages—Good, Better, Best. Behavioral economists call it the Goldilocks effect; we call it a license to boost average ticket. 51 % of families in our 2025 study chose the mid-tier […]
June 23, 2025
Published by 
Welton Hong on June 23, 2025
Welton Hong on June 23, 2025Written By Welton Hong If you haven’t looked at your Google Business Profile lately, now’s the time. Google has quietly rolled out several powerful new features that make business profiles more than just digital listings — they have become a real-time marketing tool. For funeral home owners who want to retain market share, attract more calls, and connect with families at the exact moment they’re searching, these updates are too important to ignore. Here’s what’s new — and how to make it work for your funeral business. Product Highlights: Showcase Your Services Like Never Before What’s new: Funeral homes can now list services and packages in the “Products” section of their profile — complete with descriptions, prices (optional), and images. Why it matters: Most families searching for a funeral home are in decision mode. Clear, easy-to-scan information about cremation, traditional […]
June 23, 2025
Published by Chris Cruger on June 23, 2025
Chris Cruger on June 23, 2025Plotting the transfer of ownership of your firm –something you should start right now. Written by Chris Cruger and Jared Tanke In 2023, NFDA conducted a succession-planning study that provided valuable insights into how funeral home owners plan to exit the profession. One of the notable findings was that 55% of respondents said they would prefer to sell or transfer their business to a family member or key employee. This reflects how deeply rooted many funeral homes are in their communities. Unlike many other businesses, funeral homes often are tied to the identity of the owner and their values and service legacy. Maintaining continuity through trusted family or team members is a natural choice, but it’s a complex one, too. Succession planning isn’t just about naming a successor and stepping aside. It’s about ensuring the long-term stability of your business, […]
June 23, 2025
Published by 
Jarod Bernat on June 23, 2025
Jarod Bernat on June 23, 2025Intentional, transparent communication must be integrated into every step of your succession plan. Within the funeral profession – a field built on tradition, legacy and long-standing community ties –succession planning carries a particularly emotional and operational weight. The transition of leadership from one generation to the next is about ownership and financial continuity but also about the preservation of trust, culture and relationships cultivated over decades. At the heart of this delicate process lies a single powerful tool: communication. Communication is not just a helpful part of succession planning; it is the very foundation that determines whether a transition is smooth and successful or fraught with conflict, confusion and frustration. In a profession where trust is paramount, the way leaders communicate with their successors, staff, clients and community can make or break the legacy they worked so hard to build. […]
June 23, 2025
Published by 
Stephanie Ramsey on June 23, 2025
Stephanie Ramsey on June 23, 2025True Stories of the Everyday Funeral Business Owner Scenario: Meet Tony Morgan (age 54), owner of Morgan Funeral Home and Cremation Services. Tony’s business consists of a single location in the Midwestern United States, serving approximately 160 families annually. Tony began his business from scratch 25 years ago. Tony worked hard to make his dream of ownership come true. He raised the equity and qualified for a loan that allowed him to buy the real estate and build a reasonably sized funeral home that met the needs of the community that he decided to serve. It was a rural community that did not have a provider when he began his business. Over time, Tony expanded his location to provide additional space within the facility, parking, and cremation by purchasing the adjoining real estate. The growth he has experienced has been […]
June 6, 2025
Published by Nicole Vullo on June 6, 2025
Nicole Vullo on June 6, 20252025 Funeral and Cemetery Consumer Behavior Study Insights Summary DOWNLOAD NOW Insights in Action: How Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors Shape the Future of Your Business Model For six years, Foresight has been surveying consumer attitudes and behaviors regarding funeral services and the cemetery profession. This research aims to deliver meaningful, fact-based insights that empower our profession to stay ahead of evolving trends. In the last three years, we’ve expanded our research to include funeral and cemetery professionals. This dual-perspective approach reveals an unsettling truth: a profession often out of sync with consumer expectations, and in some cases, actively resisting market changes. Many businesses lack a strategic long-term plan to engage with an increasingly non-traditional and evolving consumer base. We delve into the disconnect between the profession and the consumer, highlighting key findings from our research. You will gain actionable […]
May 22, 2025
Published by Nicole Vullo on May 22, 2025
Nicole Vullo on May 22, 2025Written by Alan D. Wolfelt PhD As you know, there are many families out there who are more difficult to satisfy than in the past. Some observers have noted that today’s consumers are “never satisfied customers.” Many of the families you serve are not familiar with the value of funerals. In addition, we now live in a culture that is convenience and efficiency oriented. These are only two of the many factors that have influenced why some families consider holding “parties” as opposed to meaningful funeral ceremonies. In the face of these challenges, it seems those of you committed to the future of funeral service confront an important choice. On the one hand, you can decide to give up and project that it is the difficult family’s problem. On the other hand, you could work to really listen to the […]