When Growth Stalls, How it happens, why you’re stuck and what to do about it. By Steve McKee, Jossey-Bass 2009 “when growth stalls, everything begins to break down. Confidence wanes, and it can be difficult to tell which problems are cause and which are effect.” This simple statement hits too close to home in an industry [...]
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 [...]
I started my career in business turnarounds in the 1970's when I worked for a company whose business it was to buy and "refurbish" distressed businesses and resell them. DeathCare is in need of a turn around. There are different types of turnaround strategies and turnaround strategists. Many are simply liquidators who cut costs so drastically [...]
What employee turnover reveals about your leadership. Employee turnover can reveal a lot of things. Surely turnover is normal but both too much and too little are signs of serious management issues. The pressures of the last ten years have led many in DeathCare to be frustrated with their employees. An attitude has sprung up [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Partition Prices to Highlight Overlooked Benefits This is the 4th and last in a series on pricing strategy based on an article from Harvard Business Review of the same title. The purpose of this series is to stimulate thought and conversation among practitioners about pricing as a strategy rather than simply as a way of [...]