6 Resolutions That Will Bring Your Funeral Home Success In 2016
December 31st, 2015A new year brings a new opportunity for innovation and improvement. As 2015 winds down and you look ahead to strategies and plans for 2016, ask yourself what resolutions and goals you hope to accomplish in your professional life next year.
It can be easy to fall into a routine, sticking with the business strategies and practices that have been successful for your funeral home in the past. Or, you can take this exciting turn of the calendar page as a cue to improve your practices and become even more valuable to your community and the families that you serve.
Want to make sure that your funeral home calls and services grow in new year? Read on for a checklist of business resolutions you can set for 2016 that will help inspire unmatched success in your professional endeavors over the next 12 months.
1. Set SMART resolutions and write them down.
It’s hard to accomplish goals of any size without a clear understanding of what it means to achieve them. When you outline your goals for 2016, make sure they are “SMART”: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound. Once you’ve crafted your goals with these descriptors in mind, write them down somewhere you and your team will be able to see them, triggering a periodical mental check-in. Setting goals won’t do much if you forget what they are by February 1. But placing your list somewhere visible will help you stay motivated and in tune with your overall hopes for the year.
2. Get organized.
No matter what goal you’re trying to tackle— whether it be a financial benchmark or a community outreach event —it’s hard to be sure you’re on the road to success with a cluttered workspace or a filebox in disarray. Getting your schedule, outlines, paperwork and objectives organized is step one in any successful business endeavor.
Start with a task list that you can assign ownership and due dates to. Any colleagues or community members assisting you should also be organized and supplied with as much information as possible to help move them towards achieving the goal. Developing these good habits will help you and your team members retain momentum after the buzz of the new year wears off.
3. Understand your community to serve them better.
For your funeral home to have the best and most significant effect on the families you serve, it’s important to truly know what they want. Learning about the community helps you to serve them better, so set a goal in the new year to extend your funeral home into the community in a measurable way. Find out who they are, what they look for in a funeral service, what kind of marketing strategies they respond to and what kind of relationship they want to have with you. When you truly understand and relate to the people you’re trying to communicate with, that communication becomes easier and more valuable for all parties involved.
4. Deliver valuable services that match your identified worth.
The start of the new year is a great time to check in on your pricing and evaluate the value of your services. The prices you set are often times a family’s first impression of the type of services you offer, and begin to prepare their expectations of your funeral home. Does your service deliver on that implied expectation? And further, are your prices fairly positioning you too? Meaning, in an attempt to offer visible value, are you charging less than you are worth? Staying competitive is important, but businesses need to keep the lights on as well. Don’t undervalue your service in 2016, but do be sure you’re delivering what your pricing promises.
5. Offer education as a service.
Your funeral home already offers families products and services they know they need. But as a professional, you have a much clearer and more nuanced understanding of funeral services, memorials and related products than the community you serve. Make it your mission in 2016 to not only provide solutions, but also an education.
Many people don’t know the right questions to ask when planning a service for a loved one, but would leap at the opportunity to add services that you provide—if only they knew about them. Create a plan for the new year that allows families to receive more education before they make decisions. Your uniqueness in doing so will set you apart as a business, as well as offer families even greater value in picking a unique, personalized service that truly tells the story of their loved one… rather than a basic cookie cutter service that they have seen time and time again.
6. Be effective online.
The people you want to reach are online, and you have to be too. Reevaluate your funeral home’s Internet presence in the new year, and take an inventory of where families can find you: Facebook? Twitter? Google Business Pages? Make sure you are visible, and that what families find when they identify you online is an educational and trustworthy website that was built specifically to answer the questions they have.
Effective communication with your families starts with your website. Right now you’re probably spending valuable hours each day answering calls and emails from families regarding basic questions that they have. Wouldn’t it be great to have all this time back in your day to work on other urgent tasks… but still be there for your families when they have questions? An effective website can do just that.
With an f1Connect’s website, you can educate families about the value of the services you provide, your pricing structure and provide answers to frequently asked questions about your services—all without taking time out of your day to write the same email or answer the same call several times. With f1Connect, you can also provide the social obituaries and memorial pages people appreciate, as well as begin your relationship with the families who will want to use your services. A successful website saves time for you and stress and energy for the families you serve.
To learn more about how you can get started with f1Connect today, click here!
Your success throughout 2016 begins with the plans you make today. As you prepare to improve your funeral home’s services and relationships in the new year, remember to reach your community online with an effective website from f1Connect.
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