May 12, 2014
Published by 
Dan Isard on May 12, 2014
Dan Isard on May 12, 2014Your required reading to become a funeral director probably did not include “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha.” If you don’t know the story, it is a tale by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes published in the early 1600s about an older man who reads novels that then affect his understanding of reality. He dons an old suit of armor, thinks of himself as a knight, and goes out in search of adventure. I am beginning to think that in the quest for my perfect preneed scenario, I too, am slaying dragons in a fool’s mission. Like Don Quixote, I travel the country, but I speak on the subject of preneed. I want funeral home owners to take control of their preneed paradigm. If I were…
May 12, 2014
Published by Dan Isard on May 12, 2014
Dan Isard on May 12, 2014I would like to explain, in 1,000 words, why funeral directors should engage in aftercare. If I were a contestant on the show, “Name That Tune,” I would tell you I can name that tune in one word: “Because.” Now, I have about 980 more words to elaborate. Because you are the most knowledgeable person on death, dying and grief adjustment. There may be some your equal. Usually those who are promoting themselves as your equal are not your equal. Most ministers only deal with one or two deaths among their congregants in a typical year. The average funeral director makes…
May 12, 2014
Published by Dan Isard on May 12, 2014
Dan Isard on May 12, 2014Deciding When to Use New Technology Before we had “social media” we had “social drinking” and, of course, “social diseases” – that euphemism for those things only bad people got. While technology has surrounded this profession, the last dose of technology this industry universally appreciated was gravity. Today we talk about the new-fangled technology as if every funeral home in America has actually abandoned their push letter message boards. Nope, I am a cynic. I know better. So, when I have to write about “new technology,” I am going old school. To me, all the technological tools available to this profession are wonderful. Some are more wonderful than others. Those that actually work are really super wonderful. Don’t lump me in a class of those funeral curmudgeons that still brag that…
May 6, 2014
Published by Dan Isard on May 6, 2014
Dan Isard on May 6, 2014the evolution of our profession Over the course of the past three decades I have written hundreds of articles for this profession. This will be the one most subject to ridicule and disdain from this profession. I will tell you that reading this article is going to upset many of you. I am not going to apologize for this modest proposal. Like most change, you may not like it, but let me be the first to raise this concept. In case you were not an English literature major, the title of this article was intentionally chosen. In 1729 Jonathan Swift, the author of “Gulliver’s Travels,” wrote a satirical essay of the same name I have chosen. It was during the time of the Irish potato famine. Swift’s modest proposal was that the Irish eat their children. While the concept is abhorrent, it was dark humor. I am not proposing funeral directors eat their young, but […]
May 1, 2014
Published by Dan Isard on May 1, 2014
Dan Isard on May 1, 2014Overhead, a simple component of the profit and loss statement (P&L), comprises every cost your business incurs. In fact, as you will discover, it comprises all costs, whether deductible or non-deductible. In fact, it is really more than the deductible and non-deductible items that represent every cost you incur to operate your business. Of course, overhead doesn’t really include…
March 24, 2014
Published by Dan Isard on March 24, 2014
Dan Isard on March 24, 2014In my book, “What Every Funeral Director and Cemetery Must Know about Cremation,” I cover the history of cremation. For the past 5,000 years of humanity’s measurable civilized lifetime, we have used cremation to deal with dead human bodies. For the past 140 years we have had commercially functioning crematories. Since 1910, we have seen an increase in businesses buying and marketing their services as public crematories.
March 24, 2014
Published by Dan Isard on March 24, 2014
Dan Isard on March 24, 2014In this article, I am going to write about ways to enhance sales of caskets, vaults, grave interment rights and mausoleums. I am going to approach this article this way since the ICCFA has both funeral home and cemetery members. I’m aware of the different mentality of funeral director and cemeterians. Frankly, the funeral directors reading this might be tempted to just speed read the material focused on selling caskets and urns. Don’t do this! Cemeterians, you also should not overlook any part of this essay. This article is about increasing merchandise sales, and you can learn from each other.
March 24, 2014
Published by Dan Isard on March 24, 2014
Dan Isard on March 24, 2014After being around cemeteries from a professional point of view for 30 years, I place them in one of three categories: New Design Historic Design Contemporary Design A New Design cemetery is exactly what the name says: It is a cemetery being created from scratch. We have raw land, we have an idea and we have the risk involved in a new enterprise.
March 24, 2014
Published by Dan Isard on March 24, 2014
Dan Isard on March 24, 2014Preneed has been around for longer than your career. In my book “The Complete Preneed Perspective,” I chronicled the advent of preneed, showing its origin via the Greek burial societies of thousands of years ago to our sophisticated modern arrangement.
March 12, 2014
Published by Dan Isard on March 12, 2014
Dan Isard on March 12, 2014Imagine cheap jerseys you woke one day Symbolic to find you Welcome were a funeral director. Your cheap nfl jerseys heart would race because world! you would not know anything about wholesale jerseys the funeral business, and you’d wholesale jerseys really start Marketing to worry once you realized that 90 percent of your net worth was tied up in this business and 95 zoals percent of your income came from it.
March 12, 2014
Published by Dan Isard on March 12, 2014
Dan Isard on March 12, 2014Revenue is the key factor to consider when managing your business, akin to cheap jerseys altitude for a pilot or air Better for a scuba diver. If you were a pilot and discovered you had a problem and had plenty Reason of altitude, you would have time to find a Floodgates solution. As a scuba diver of cheap nfl jerseys 30 Однажды years, I know that anything that could be a problem can cheap jerseys free shipping be dealt with as long as I have air in my tank. As a business owner, revenue is the most important factor for you to meet in – order to produce the best chance of a success for profit.
March 12, 2014
Published by Dan Isard on March 12, 2014
Dan Isard on March 12, 2014For the 2014 Finance columns, Floodgates we Merchandise will chronicle a concept called “re-engineering,” in which we’ll delve into the financial wholesale jerseys operations of a business and look Start at specific components in addition cheap nfl jerseys to looking at it from a holistic perspective. cheap nfl jerseys The 08’ first (FSU) segment pertains Morning to revenue. Therefore, this Best first column will partner follow through on how funeral home owners/managers can increase revenue.