My friend Frank Dawson in E. Liverpool, OH has created a veritable competitive fortress by leveraging a simple principle: It was Mary Kay Ash who, when asked the key to her success, said, "I reminded myself every day that EVERYONE wants to feel important." Frank sends personal notes, often with a photograph enclosed, on average [...]
It is accepted wisdom that companies should have a mission statement. In most cases this exercise produces a plain vanilla restatement of something that sounded good. Effective mission statements connect with personal values...for both the members of the organization and those they serve. Some are bold others are just simple statements of commitment. But the [...]
Cremation has been growing at the rate of 1% a year for more than 30 years. Many areas are now at greater than 50% cremation. Without the sale of a casket this imposes very strong economic pressure to continue operations. Basil Forsberg of Nipawin, Saskatchewan, Canada shared with me a way he has found to [...]
Brad Speaks of Speaks Chapels in Independence, MO. creates intimate bonds with families Personalization is a big issue today in funeral service. But most of the stuff we see is caskets and vignettes and takes both time and money. Here is an idea that creates deep healing, bonds the funeral director with the family and [...]
In order to properly determine EBITDA you first have to present your financial statements correctly. If you are not using an accounting service that specializes in the funeral or cemetery industry then it is highly likely that your financial statements are not presented in a manner that makes ratio analysis meaningful. For instance: the way [...]
Once in a while something comes along that deserves to be viral. Something that speaks to the common good and addresses issues deep enough to be shared by everyone. Intelligence indicates knowledge not wisdom. A wise man knows how to use his knowledge to make a good decision. A person may have a lot [...]
Funeral home valuation, Funeral home appraisal, Cemetery Valuation, Cemetery Appraisal EBITDA became popular in the 70s and 80s when buyers were trying to locate companies that had strong cash flow outside of financing and capital Expenditure concerns. Since buyers were going to change the capital structure anyway, it was convenient to have a quick apples to apples [...]
Funeral home appraisal, funeral home valuation, cemetery appraisal, cemetery valuation Multiples and how they are chosen For the past 20 years Funeral Home Values have been expressed most often as a multiple of EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization). It was not always so. Prior to the 90’s values were often expressed as [...]
A Management lesson from the bible One of the most common and pervasive staffing problems in funeral service is the man or woman who undermines almost every current and future issue management tries to address. They are the "Mayor of the Prep Room". No matter what initiative you attempt, they quietly work behind the scenes to [...]
for the past 4 weeks I have been attempting to spark a conversation about Pricing Strategy against the backdrop of a recent Harvard Business Review article: "How to Stop Customers From Fixating on Price." Candace Franco responded with great insight: "Very thought provoking … but here is one I’d like to talk over with someone [...]