Do You Have A Business Mindset for Funeral Service?

Are you frustrated with rising cremation rates?

Are your Average-Funeral-Values getting smaller?

Do you have more competitors and are they cutting into your market share?

Is your firm less profitable today than it was 5 years ago?

During the week of August 4th to August 8th, I will be hosting a series of free teleseminars focusing on the importance of taking a business approach to help deal with all of the issues that owners and managers in funeral service face today.

I will be hosting Nancy Lohman and Todd Van Beck as they will share their insights into why it is important for owners and managers to think strategically and have a business mindset to face the challenges of Funeral Service today.

Monday, August 4, 2008 at 2:00 pm Eastern / 11:00 am Pacific

I will be hosting Mike Kubasak as he shares his experiences with Price Shoppers, how to handle them, and how to win them over without lowering your price.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008 at 2:00 PM Eastern / 11:00 am Pacific

I will be joined by Bill Bischoff of Johnson Consulting Group who will share his experiences in creating strategic plans as well as why having a strategic plan can increase the value of your firm.

Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 2:00 PM Eastern / 11:00 am Pacific

Register below for access to all 3 of the teleseminars!

These 3 - 1 hour calls could be the start of turning your biggest challenges into a profitable future!

Funeral Manager Secrets

Free Business Strategy Lesson for Funeral Managers

As promised, I was able to pull in a favor - and I know that you will enjoy it and also find it very useful.  Join me and Brent Mainprize, Ph.D., as we walk you through step by step how to perform a strategic analysis on your company.

Topic: Business Analysis Tools for Funeral Home Managers

You can listen to the recording, but you must register by going to:

www.FuneralManagerSecrets.com

We demonstrate how to apply the following business analysis tools to the funeral industry:

1. PEDST Analysis to look at external factors: Political, Economic, Demographic, Social, and Technological
2. Five Forces of Competition analyzes: Power of Buyers, Power of Suppliers, Threat of New Entrants, Threat of Substitutes, and Competitive Rivalry (you vs. the funeral home down the street)
3. SWOT Analysis will look internally at your: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Then you will have all you need to leap ahead of your competition.

Register now and receive the Strategy Guide in advance so that you and your management team can use this as a brainstorming session or as a benchmark for your ongoing Strategic Plan.

www.FuneralManagerSecrets.com

Unfortunately, the training that we funeral directors receive from mortuary school doesn’t teach us to be funeral strategists. I found myself in the same position, but in our market - high cremation, highly competitive market with discounters and memorial societies - I felt that I needed some business strategy education right away.  So I went back to university and received my business degree in Entrepreneurial Management. The greatest skill that I learned in the entire program was how to use some Strategic Analysis Tools. Instead of you having to go back to university for an MBA, I want to share with you these tools and how they can be applied to your own funeral operations in your own market.

Dr. Mainprize holds a Doctorate in Entrepreneurship, is an internationally renowned professor who lectures to business owners about the strength of their business model and will share with you what strategies you can use to separate you from your competitors.

During this teleseminar you will learn how to apply these 3 KEY ANALYSIS tools to take you from a high overview look at factors that affect our industry and your market and then laser-focus in on your firm and start to differentiate you from your competition.

I hope that you can join Dr. Mainprize and me for the free teleseminar. Register right now . . .

www.FuneralManagerSecrets.com

. . . Hep

PS: Feel free to forward this invitation to your friends and collegues in funeral service

Be A Funeral Market Strategist (and leave your competition in the dust)

I received some great comments and questions about my “Competition” article – thank you! First, many of the issues funeral home owners and managers are unique to your specific market and situation so I cannot offer a blanket answer that everyone could benefit from. The issue was followed by the questions, “How do I fix this?” or “What should I do?”

As I always do in situations to solve problems, I reflected on the process that I have used many times in my home market that is very competitive plus is on the forefront of changing trends. In this type of market – and any market - you need to have a process to deal with issues and make decisions easily and with confidence.

By the nature of how we join funeral service, either as a calling to serve, or following in family footsteps, we rarely get taught how to think strategically. Strategy isn’t taught in mortuary colleges and the issues we face today – like increasing cremation rates, price discounters, memorial societies, and the Internet – were not big issues to the generations before us. Especially in our market where no-one had experience in dealing with these issues before – I decided that I had to go back to university and learn how professionals solve problems in other industries and then apply those methods to funeral service.

Although formal education was a great experience, what has really stuck with me was what I learned as a member of the “Case Competition” team. In a nutshell, a team of four would be given 3 hours to read and analyze a business case study and present our recommendations. Since you were “on stage” at the end of the 3 hours, I really learned to hone my strategic thinking with “tools” that made up my Business Strategy Toolkit.

At this point I could just tell you hire me to tackle your issues in a one-on-one scenario – and of course for those who wish that personal consultation I will make myself available – I also want to teach all of you “How to Fish” instead of selling you fish.

Whatever causes you the most pain - tough competition, price shoppers, losing calls, cremation families, memorial societies, expensive marketing – these tools can give can give you an competitive advantage for just a small investment of your time. So here we go - these are some of the tools that I use on a daily basis to solve clients’ problems. The three that I recommend to get started with are the Environmental Scan, Porter’s Five Forces, and the SWOT Analysis.

The Environmental Scan (sometimes referred to as PEST Analysis) looks at external factors: Political, Economic, Social, and Technological. Then Porter’s Five Forces of Competition analyzes: Power of Buyers, Power of Suppliers, Threat of New Entrants, Threat of Substitutes, and Competitive Rivalry. Then having a solid strategic framework of your market, you then look internally with a SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Then you will have all you need to leap ahead of your competition.

Don’t worry if this seems too overwhelming, I will put together a demonstration next week using funeral industry examples. Also, I will try to pull in a favor and get another expert on the line with me and we will go through step by step through the process as it relates to us.

If you would like to have your company profiled for the example – at absolutely no charge to you, please click the link below and provide me with some basic information. Then I will be in touch to get some additional information. Be assured that your identity will be kept confidential.

Apply for the analysis of your market and company, click here and fill out the form:

http://www.funeralfuturist.com/application-for-strategic-analysis/

Thank you for your time and look for my newsletter next week for the details of the “Funeral Industry and Competitive Analysis” free training session.