It used to be said that "Funeral Service is in the details." One of the characteristics of truly great practitioners and one that fascinates me is their preoccupation with even the smallest details. I have often thought that one of the most important traits I would look for in a funeral home employee might be [...]
I used to have a senior manager who worked for me that told me that when he served a family he consciously made that family the center of his world. He wanted them to feel they were the most important thing in his life at the moment. If you have ever seen the training film [...]
I have never been able to find anyone who can explain to me why our profession believes they should always be unobtrusive. Then I met John Wujek. John and his firm have created a way to dismiss funerals that affirms the speakers, the deceased, the family AND the attendees while reinforcing WHY WE HAVE FUNERALS. [...]
If you watch "Antiques Roadshow" with any regularity or you are like me and are old enough to have met practioners who were around 60 and 70 years ago you are probably aware that almost all the innovation of the past 5 - 12 years is really reintroduction of practices we abandoned decades ago. When [...]
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 [...]