Managing An Underperforming Family Member WOW! What a topic! If you have ever attended a county fair, you may have witnessed a Mule Pull. This is a contest of mule teams pulling a weighted sled. Sometimes you will see an interesting and metaphorical phenomenon: A team of two mules will be pulling the sled. One [...]
Recruiting at Zaxby's The single greatest challenge facing funeral service is not cremation. It is our inability to find and recruit and retain good quality funeral directors. Fully 2/3 of the current licensee labor pool is over 55. Our inability to replace this work force has very nasty consequences. Not only will families be [...]
These two questions will help you set the stage and provide the service your families are looking for. Today, there are two schools of thought on how to attract more families: Low cost Hyper service To be financially successful as a low-cost provider requires a level of discipline and cost control rarely seen among [...]
Should You Join The Family Firm? When John decided to pursue his career by coming to work at the family funeral home he thought (as did everyone else) that someday he would succeed his parents and own the firm. John is now 46 and his parents are in their late 60's. In retrospect, [...]
Several years ago the Funeral Service Foundation commissioned an unorthodox market research project. They retained one of the foremost market research firms - Olson Zaltman - to study the funeral consumer's unconscious thoughts about funerals. They broke the research into two segments: What consumers actually thought about funerals at the unconscious level What consumers actually [...]
Call it what you want: Career fatigue, burnout, and boredom. The truth is almost all of us go through times when we feel our heart isn’t in it anymore. In fact, research shows that only one in three of us are actually engaged at work. I realize there are circumstantial issues that contribute to this; [...]
I have a book on my office shelf entitled “Perfectionism...Sure Cure For Happiness”. The reason this is important is that, having performed almost 100 culture assessments in funeral service I know that perfectionism is the dominant industry neurosis. Yes, I agree, “Funeral Service Is In The Details”. But it’s how we measure performance that gets [...]
Partnerships, by their very nature, are problematic. They are worse when there is not a clear vision of role differentiation that is understood by all and mutually respected. This role differentiation is key to smooth and successful partnerships. When differentiation is not present roles tend to overlap and conflict. Competition among partners develops and eventually [...]
Why I Am Not A Funeral Home Broker Jack B. Stalk has a special goose. His goose lays a single golden egg every year. That annual egg has enabled Jack to live in a nice home, drive a luxury car, take nice vacations, eat well, put his four kids through college and be a [...]
This week I was privileged to be interviewed by Sebastian Thalhammer of Austria. You may or may not have heard of Sebastian but he is a pretty interesting media guru who somehow decided I had something to say. So, Here is my "15 minutes of fame." Actually, it's 45 minutes but it does have [...]
