The Creedy Commentary
Building A Competitive Fortress Through Your Pricing Strategy
Last week I addressed our broken pricing model referred to as Cost-Led-Pricing. Apropos of everything this article came to my attention Tough times add hardship to heartache: More families ask for help paying for funerals underscoring the problem created by our outdated pricing strategy and causing me to wonder if maybe we won’t need to eventually […]
This Blog Is Interrupted For Something Much More Important
I know you are busy but YOU HAVE TO READ THIS! If you want to know what our future is about then I want to share a key example. Something that began just a few years ago and is now starting to pop up with a frequency that makes it into a trend. A trend […]
A Broken Business Model: Wringing More Money Out of Your Best Customers Is Not Sustainable
This image illustrates so well the folly of our more than century old pricing model. All was good until the market changed about 30 years ago. Because we didn’t know anything else (and neither did our advisors) our response to the growth in cremation has been to beef up our burial prices and focus […]
A Strange Bathroom Encounter–A Rite of Passage
It was between sessions at an NFDA convention and busy in the bathroom. An older gentleman approached me and asked brusquely, “Are you Alan Creedy?” Given his demeanour, for a moment, I wasn’t sure whether to say yes or run. I finally said yes. What he said next made me wish he had chosen […]
Expert opinion: What To Say When They Say “Dad Wanted Nothing”
A few years ago I was meeting with a husband and wife who operated a very successful funeral home. Like most successful people they were always looking for new ideas to help them stay in front of their competitors. To protect their privacy I’ll call them Bill and Jane. Over the course of our two […]
Are You Tired of Burying Your Local Treasure?
My friend, Ed Mazur of Kapinos-Mazur Funeral Home, ran a very successful PR / Public Service program in his local community. The campaign featured this poster and newspaper ads. Weekends were set aside to encourage parents to clean out unused medication from their medicine cabinets and bring them to the funeral home. On the first […]
Expert Opinion: Size Matters: Making the Case for Growth
Why is bigger better when it comes to creating memorable experiences? Look at any successful service business, whether it’s a hospital, a hotel, a restaurant or even a funeral home, and you’re bound to come away with one undeniable message: the experience you create for your customers and guests is crucial to the future of […]
Kudo’s to Batesville Casket
One of my favorite bloggers is Caleb Wilde who writes “Confessions of A Funeral Director.” He recently Posted this photo. Texting while Driving: A Great Way to Support Your Local Funeral Director For those of you that don’t know, Batesville, Indiana is the Mecca of the Funeral Industry as it houses the great Batesville Casket […]
Why Families Seem Ruder Today and Some Tips on How To Respond
Funeral Directors are increasingly distressed about being treated rudely by families. This rudeness often causes practitioners to lose control of vital conversations at critical moments. Industry vendors know that Funeral Directors can be very rude as well. In my opinion the reasons both are rude is fundamentally the same. And Yes! Funeral Directors can […]
Expert Opinion: Some Things Are Obvious
Here is an excerpt of an interrogation of a witness in a Massachusetts trial court: Lawyer: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse? Doctor: no. Lawyer: did you check for blood pressure? Doctor: no. Lawyer: so, it’s possible the patient was alive when you began the autopsy? Doctor: no Lawyer: […]
Death Goes Mainstream
last week in my article “Funerals as Counter Culture” I made a bold statement: “After 50 years of steady decline in public attitudes towards funerals the pendulum is swinging back our way. Like Croci in the spring, the signs are poking through the frost…” No sooner was that article published than I was exposed to […]
Funerals As Counter Culture
Are we rapidly moving toward a “Post-Funeral”culture? I don’t think so. After 50 years of steady decline in public attitudes towards funerals the pendulum is swinging back our way. Like Croci in the spring, the signs are poking through the frost if you will just look and this week’s post is one excellent example. 30 […]