Elevating Funeral Service

Funeral home owners will face increased competition in 2021 and it's critical to have the right strategy. On this episode, we discuss three things owners should focus on to win more calls and increase their market share.

Do you have defined goals for growing your at-need calls, preneed, or your profitability in 2021? Have you analyzed what you've done so far in 2021 and what you need to do differently heading into the next year? The Peter Drucker quote "you can't manage what you don't measure" is absolutely true, and on this episode, we discuss how successful funeral home operators think about their business and why goal setting is critical to their success. Ellery and Welton share insights ...

If you're a funeral home owner, at some point, you're going to exit the business, and hopefully, that is through a successful acquisition. Whether an interested party has approached you or you've put it on the market, the offer(s) you receive, and eventual selling price, can be significantly impacted by a few key metrics that you may not even realize. On this episode, we talk with Jake Johnson about what acquirers look at when purchasing a funeral home or cemetery and why this shou...

The biggest convention in funeral service is going virtual this year and we asked Anthony Kaniuk and Troy Blewett to give us an overview of the convention and what we can expect. Surprisingly, other than the obvious fact that it's virtual, the same opportunities exist for education, CE credits, networking, and, of course, the exhibit hall. The staff at NFDA have put a lot of work into making this a great experience for the attendees and exhibitors and we are all looking forward to ...

One of the most important assets a funeral home owns is their domain name, and if not protected properly, it can unknowingly be at risk. A few common problems we see are the funeral homes not actually owning their domain names, or domain names expire and are lost because they weren't renewed on time. Another problem we see is when a funeral home wants to change website providers, they face roadblocks as they try to transfer the domain name to the new company. These problems ...

If your phone isn't ringing as much as you'd like, there are a few things you can do to change that. Before a consumer calls your funeral home they've likely done some research on your site, your competitor's sites and more. What they're doing is to getting their questions answered, they are arming themselves with as much information as possible, and they're making a judgement about your value proposition. If you provide the answers, information, and value they are seeking, y...

Think of a blog like the game of Jeopardy. On that game, the answer is given and the contestant must state the question to win. A blog is similar in that you're going to write articles that are the "answer" to a person's search query before they ask. When a user searches for something, Google matches that query to your content. In short, if you don't have content that answers a searcher's question, Google will never send them to your site. On this episode you will...

If you are not surveying families after the service is over, you are missing a HUGE opportunity. Surveys aren't just about rating how pleasant your staff was, or how smoothly everything went, you probably already know that. Surveys provide hidden gems like unique insights, patterns, and data that provide you with a literal checklist of what is needed to continually improve your service levels.On this episode, Ellery and Welton discuss family follow-up surveys in detail, including:...

If a funeral home wants to convert more website visitors to customers, adding the right videos to their website is the quickest way. Videos add a lot of value, create a better experience, and help the consumer make a confident choice. Understandably, creating videos can seem expensive if hiring someone, or difficult if trying to create in-house, but neither is true. In this episode, you will learn how to quickly get the videos you need to stand out from the competition. In th...

There has been a lot of confusion the last two months on how funeral homes can have their Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan forgiven. On June 5, 2020, a revision was passed that changed the rules in a positive way and made it easier to qualify for forgiveness. On this episode, we invited Tim Bridgers from Live Oak bank to explain the most recent changes, why they were necessary, and how funeral homes can position themselves. What changes were madeWhy the changes were nec...