5 Ideas You Can Steal To Become A Better Funeral Home Owner

funeral home owner

“[Anything] can be mastered if you’re willing to put in the time and energy.”

Tony Robbins

Are you are a funeral home owner looking for some inspiration to take your business to the next level? Or even a funeral home manager looking to up your business game? Or perhaps you’re an entrepreneur looking to get your hands dirty (pun intended) in the funeral profession?

Wherever you’re at in your journey, it’s always a good idea to pick up new and better ways to run your business. Heck, if no one found a way to do it better, we’d still be riding horses and talking on cell phones as big as our heads.

Whether you’re a novice or a veteran of the profession, these 5 tips for becoming a better funeral home owner will help you take your business to the next level:

1. Stop wearing so many hats

Hey, everyone loves a good hat, but when you have to wear a bunch of them, things get ugly (and messy, too). Filling too many roles and spreading yourself too thin is the number one mistake funeral home owners make, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead of working for your funeral business, make your business work for you.

This is where a tool like automation comes into play. Automating small things in your funeral business can cross more off of your to-do list than you think.  

What can you automate? Technically everything… but you’re still human, so here’s where to start:

  • – Make your email marketing smarter. There are a number of tools out there (like Mailchimp) that allow you to create a set of triggered (automatically sent) emails based on specific dates, events, or a potential customer’s activity on your website. Perfect for sending out daily email affirmations to your families, or catching pre-planning customers who visit your site.
  • – Automate your social media. Schedule your social media posts in advance and never worry about late night Facebook posting with Hootsuite (free plans available) or Sprout Social (starting at $59/month).

2. Get laser-focused

Too many funeral home owners lose sight of what they do really well by distracting themselves with their competition. Rather than wasting your time by using your peripheral vision (AKA constantly sizing up your competition), or adding countless services or products to your funeral home’s offerings in an effort to outwit and outdo your competitors, focus on what’s in front of you – what you do really well. That means three things – finding out what you’re really good at, focusing the appropriate time of energy and resources on it, and keeping a pulse on how that will lead you into a successful future.

For example, if funeral personalization is your thing, invest the money and resources you’ll need to become kick a$% at it. That means the right tools, really good research, and the appropriate way to report its success. You wouldn’t go on a backpacking trip with a $1 backpack, flip flops, and no plan or map, so do the same for your funeral home. Go the extra mile. Do what others aren’t willing to do. Trust us, hitting a homerun with one offering is far better than trying to master a catalog of just okay products and services, like your competitors.

Tip: If funeral personalization is actually your thing and you want to take it seriously, consider an all-in-one solution that anyone at your funeral home can use, like Life Tributes All-In-One Personalization Software.

3. Know what you know, but also what you don’t

Being an amazing funeral home owner means having a slew of awesome capabilities, of course. But the difference between a normal business owner and a successful business owner is having the ability to realize what you don’t know. Yes, I said it. So sit down and write a list of things out that you don’t know, or can’t do. Once you do, start to fill in the blanks. Who on your team does this better? Who can you hire, or outsource to?

If you plan to hire a third party company to handle huge aspects of your business such as your funeral home’s website, choose an industry leader who truly knows what they’re doing and has proven testimonials and research to back it up. Also, look for a company whose ready to set long-term business goals with you, not just help you find a quick fix to any of your marketing problems.

4. Know where to “trim the fat”

Just like a butcher knows exactly how to trim the fat to create the perfect piece of meat, a funeral home owner should know where to trim the fat from his or her business. As a funeral home owner, you truly are the captain of your ship. You know your overall strengths and weaknesses, and hopefully you have a pretty good idea where your resources and manpower are being distributed. With that information, you have the power to streamline the processes that support your funeral home’s business.

When you streamline, you’re essentially finding a cheaper, easier, simpler way to do things. And no, that doesn’t mean firing everyone and doing it yourself, or cutting anyone’s pay, nor does it mean cutting corners.  

Instead, try using one of the many online tools that have been created with small business owners in mind, and that will save you from a lifetime of headaches:

  •  f1Connect (An all-in-one website platform specifically for funeral homes)
  •  Sympathy Store (An e-commerce sympathy flowers plug-in for your funeral home website)
  •  Life Tributes (A memorial video and printing personalization software)
  •  MyASD (A professional answering service for funeral homes)
  •  Privy (A program to create email offers and gain customers)
  •  Canva (A free graphic design software)
  •  Mailchimp (A free email marketing program)
  •  BuzzSumo (A way to uncover social media market research)
  •  Later (A scheduling tool for Instagram)
  •  Google Analytics (A tool for online reporting & marketing analysis)

 

Want more tools? Here are 9 more tools we recommend, plus 11 tech tools via the MyASD blog.

5. Learn from your mistakes

Lastly, when you make a mistake (which you will), learn from it. There will be many failures — both big and small — that will happen if they already haven’t. And they’ll keep happening if you ignore the lesson that lies in each of them. Don’t be afraid or fearful when they happen. No business plan or model could ever save you from making them. Just let them happen, and learn from them on the fly. You’ll be happy you did, because they’ll teach you far more than perfection ever would.

How have you been able to succeed as a funeral home owner in a competitive landscape? Tell us your story in the comments below!

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  1. Scott

    Great information. I would also add that we should make sure we are purchasing smarter. Get quantity discounts where available and take advantage of online specials.

  2. Rilee Chastain

    Great tips, Scott. Thanks for the comment!

  3. Yilliang Peng

    Thanks for the help on how to become a better funeral home owner. I had never thought that by wearing too many hats, things could potentially get ugly. My wife and I always wear hats to funerals, but now we might have to reconsider. Thanks for the advice!

  4. Rony Jahid

    Very helpful information for me. Thanks for this great sharing.