Remember that bill congress needed to pass to see what was in it? Well, surprise!! The Medicare Tax has been expanded to include almost ALL income (active and passive) over $200k for singles and $250k for couples. This even includes the gain on the sale of a personal residence over the exclusion amount. If the… [Read More...]
EXPERT OPINION: How to Be Exceptional in the “New Normal”
January 23, 2012 By 1 Comment
When asked what it was that made him so exceptional a hockey player, Wayne Gretzky is said to have responded, “I see my job a little different from most other hockey players.” Pressed for details, he said, “my job is to skate to where the puck is going to be.” The question that all of… [Read More...]
How Insurance Companies Make Money: Wisdom From Warren Buffett
September 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment
When I first began negotiating with insurance companies some 25 years ago I made the same mistake now common in the funeral profession: I assumed they made their money the way all “normal” businesses do. In other words we generate revenue through sales we pay for our merchandise at wholesale prices generating a cost-of-sales and… [Read More...]
Preneed 402b: How to Compare Apples With Apples: Insurance Products
September 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Having addressed, last week, assumptive fallacies let’s look at the actual mechanics of comparing products. Here is an apples to apples comparison of 4 products from 3 of the 4 companies I would be willing to work with. CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO SEE IT IN FULL SCALE. Notice that for each product the Prearrangement… [Read More...]
Preneed 401: Trust Vs. Insurance
September 5, 2011 By 4 Comments
This may seem like a “Yawner” topic but it’s important and I am going to make it short. Let’s pretend that you walk into a bank or trust company with, say, 15 contracts totaling a $100,000 in prearrangement value. You say to your banker that you want him to track each contract separately, invest in… [Read More...]
Preneed Math 301: Commissions
August 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The theory of commissions is that it motivates producers to produce more. This is not necessarily true. What is true is that if you overpay two things happen: Your program becomes economically unsustainable and your producer becomes demotivated. Here is why: First, It is my absolute belief that preneed selling should never…repeat…never… be a burden… [Read More...]
Greatest Hits: How To Get Customers to Stop Fixating On Price
August 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Well, it’s summer time and I am on vacation. So, I thought I would resurrect some of my most popular articles The first is a series I wrote last summer entitled: “How To Get Customers To Stop Fixating On Price” Part 1: “Equalize Price Points to Crystallize Personal Relevance” Part 2: ”Using Price to Clarify Your… [Read More...]
Is Wall Street Interested in DeathCare Again?
August 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
One of the ways I spot trends is to look for frequency of mentions in publications. This last week The Motley Fool seems to be spending a lot of space on DeathCare. Specifically, SCI, Stonemor, Stewart and Hillenbrand. As an analyst I find some of their insights and methods to be interesting Is Service Corp… [Read More...]
Bad Math Leads To Poor Decisions
June 1, 2011 By 1 Comment
I am sure that those of you who practice the art of embalming are annoyed when you see other practitioners making the same mistake over and over again. Well, as a Certified Public Accountant I have a similar reaction when I see other DeathCare advisors in trade journals making the same errors over and over… [Read More...]
EXPERT OPINION: HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR SHARE-OF-WALLET
A few years ago we came to the realization that there was a real necessity to review our system. Not all calls are equal in service type, in merchandise and in revenue. The old system indicated that direct cremation had the same market share value as a traditional burial. In a sense that is true. … [Read More...]