Funeral professionals have a 365-day-a-year job. Taking a vacation is tough. And finding time to focus on productivity? That seems like a pipe dream.

Thankfully, you’re not on your own. There are a number of tools out there that will not only help you keep your New Year’s resolutions to get better organized and uncover business efficiencies, but can even do the hard work for you. To help you make 2018 the best year yet for your funeral business, we’ve collected all of our favorite tools for success in one master collection: our ‘Tools You Can’t Live Without’ Board.

This curated collection features our favorite funeral business tools, business productivity solutions, as well as  work and life tips in one place. It’s an ever-growing resource for funeral professionals to access — whenever you have a moment and on whichever device you might have on hand. Oh, and it’s free!

Want to get a sneak peak of some of the tools that we’ve collected? We’ve highlighted some of our favorites below, so keep reading. Want even more? Click here to access our full board of great tips.

The Tools We Can’t Live Without

Key Business Tools

Work smarter not harder with the right tools.

•  With Google Drive you can create, share, edit, and collaborate on documents, presentations, spreadsheets and more — all via your smartphone, tablet, or computer. Plus, you can store and access all your Drive files on the cloud, which makes it easy to find what you need when you want it, wherever you are.
•  Slack is a team messaging app that lets you chat and share files with colleagues. This cloud-based communication tool lets you keep track of separate discussions and any related shared documents in an organized thread. Oh, and when you need a laugh break, there’s fun emojis to play with.

Organization & Productivity

With technology today we can find information everywhere — but can we locate it again when we need it most?

• Evernote makes it easy to save anything you come across. This digital file cabinet lets you take notes, make lists, add images, scan in documents, and more — from any device — and then search it all (even from a different device) within seconds.
•  Although it’s named for a tomato, Pomodoro is a useful time tracking tool that monitors the time it takes to accomplish something. Plus it reminds you to take breaks too, which will help any burnout-prone business owners.

Marketing

You likely didn’t go into the funeral profession because of your love of marketing, but many tools today make marketing easier to manage.

• It may be no surprise that one of our very favorite marketing tools is our f1 Connect Social Memorial Websites. Taking advantage of the fact that about 20% of the global population today is on Facebook, we’ve created a tool that lets friends and families easily share their loved one’s memorial website on this popular social network. People can even create a free Life Tributes account with their Facebook page to share memories, stories, photos and videos right on your funeral home website. Love this idea? Talk to one of our funeral success specialists about putting social obituaries on your funeral home website!

Click here to check out the social obituary (above) that went viral on EJ Fielding Funeral Home & Cremation Services’ website.

•  Canva is an easy-to-use graphic design tool that provides pre-made design templates to make eye-catching social media posts, banner ads, webpages and more.

Personalization

One of the biggest buzzwords in business today. If you’re wondering how to personalize your support for families and friends, check out the tools below.

•   Life Tributes is funeralOne’s all-in-one personalization software letting funeral professionals create Hollywood-level tribute videos, webcasts, and personalized printing for the families you serve — in-house and in just minutes.
•   Pinterest is another easy way to discover and share DIY memorial project and personalized service ideas with team members or loved ones’ family and friends.

Supporting & Educating Families

Become the go-to grief support expert in your community with tools for helping people in the aftermath of a loss.

•  A successful funeral business depends on how well you can showcase your value and your expertise to your families, and a great way to do that is through an education-based website. Let f1Connect’s website platform educate your family on the value of funerals, and learn what services and products would best suit their needs.
•  The Sympathy Store web plug-in allows families and friends to shop for sympathy gifts and flowers without leaving your funeral home’s website.

Improvement & Inspiration

The funeral profession never stops changing. Keep learning and stay inspired by keeping up with tools that help you work and live better.

•  Improve your ability to meet your business goals (and successfully check off your New Year’s resolutions) with Stop. Start. Keep. This easy-to-use template helps you reflect, identify areas for improvement, and make an action plan.
•  Inspire your employees to go above and beyond with a Ted Talk created for leaders. In this inspiring video, you can learn what you need to do as a leader to get your employees to take action and inspire change.

To learn about more tools that will help you achieve your goals, click here to check out the rest of our favorite tools featured on our Tools You Can’t Live Without Trello Board.

Rilee Chastain

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