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FEBRUARY 2013
FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS
S ec t i on A
+
High Quality Velvet Interiors
with Custom Piping Trim
+
Service Branch Emblem
On Head Panel
+
Service Branch Chrome
Emblem on Lid Exterior
+
US Flag Emblem at Both Ends
+
Stars on Front and Back
1-800-882-5907
Other Models Available
D.O. McComb Funeral Home purchases
New Lincoln MKT Hearse
National Mortuary Shipping Welcomes
New Employee
CLEVELAND,OH—
Nation-
al Mortuary Shipping
is
proud to announce a recent
addition to the NMS fam-
ily.
Reverend Tony Wil-
liams Sr.
became a part of
the NMS team on Novem-
ber 12, 2012. Reverend
Williams acquired his asso-
ciates of arts degree and vol-
unteers his spare time to the
American Red Cross, Gid-
dings Elementary School,
City Year Cleveland, and
St. Philip Neri Family Cen-
ter. His favorite pastime is
playing basketball with his
friends or with his children.
When asked about his new
position Reverend Williams
states “I love my job and the
positive atmosphere. I feel I
can grow within the compa-
ny and am looking forward
to the challenges ahead.”
Founded in 1981, for over
25 years National Mortu-
ary Shipping’s mission has
been assisting hometown
directors with out of town
deaths. Their philosophy
has been to provide depend-
able, professional and effi-
cient service by emphasizing
quality, trust and commu-
nication with clients. For
more information on NMS
visit their website at www.
FORT WAYNE,IN—
Pictured are
Van
Weeks
and
Mark McComb
of
D.O.
McComb & Sons Funeral Home
tak-
ing delivery of their new Lincoln MKT
Hearse and Limousine purchased from
Muster Coaches
. D.O. McComb &
Sons has eight locations in the Northern
Indiana area.
Their first location in Fort Wayne was es-
tablished in 1925 by
D.O. McComb
who
was well known in the community and
held the position of Superintendent of Al-
len County Schools for 20 years. Later in
1940, sons
Walter
and
David
joined the
company and expanded the business even
further to serve their community.
By Christopher Kuhnen
There’s More
To It...
Advance
Funeral
Planning
It’s About More Than Just
Advance Funeral Planning
The New Year is here and 2013 comes in (as most do)
full of hope, optimism and the promise of better things to
come. Each New Year, American funeral homes are faced
with new business trials and challenges. The biggest chal-
lenge our noble profession faces in the years ahead is how
to safeguard healthy business profits. By healthy business
profits I mean the return on a business after all the expens-
es (and taxes!) have been paid. The money you plow back
into your business to help it grow and remain vital and
alive.
Are you aware, over the past seven years, the average
family owned and operated funeral home profits hov-
ered around 5.5%? Is this paltry percentage acceptable
for your business? Do you know there are some funeral
homes making anywhere from 14% to 17% profit? Ev-
ery funeral home profit should be around 15%. Even in
this economic recession, your funeral home business prof-
it should be and can be healthier than it is right now.
As a century’s old profession, it’s always been the under-
taking of American funeral home owners to provide hu-
mankind the very best, most dignified, caring and afford-
able funeral services and merchandise they need on the
worst day of their life. It’s not about money, pride, pres-
tige or ego. It’s all about serving families that are hurting
at the deepest levels of humanity…Period!
If your funeral home is not making a healthy and rea-
healthy business profitability. There is so much more in-
volved that needs to be addressed!
That’s why I have founded a new company called Fu-
neral Profit Protectors, LLC. There is an art to navigat-
ing the complexities and intricacies involving making a
business profitable. Your funeral home can make a fair
and equitable profit, if you are astute and careful in your
planning, execution, follow-up and spending. That’s
where Funeral Profit Protectors can help. Making a fair
and reasonable business profit is not about selling more
or better caskets; serving more families; performing
more full-service funerals; selling more pre-need plans,
offering more ancillary services or turning the lights off
when you leave the building at night. It’s about all these
things and so many more, working in perfect harmony
with one another.
In future columns I will be freely sharing with you var-
ious ways and means by which you can retain more of
the business profits you are already making, but inad-
vertently turning around and wasting somewhere else.
I have personally seen and experienced what works and
what doesn’t and I want to share it with you. Thank you
for your faithful readership these many years. I invite
you to contact me with any questions or comments at
(859) 307-7223. I hope you will continue to follow my
monthly columns in the years ahead!
sonable business profit on the first-class services you provide,
then you will not be able to provide those services for very
long. Why? Because an ever changing and evolving death
care industry has brought with it a host of challenges, which
work to erode the profits of family run funeral homes.
•Rising consumer choice of immediate cremation or abbre-
viated funeral services.
•Escalating business, payroll and employee benefit expenses.
•Underperforming pre-need programs.
•Alien service providers and manufacturers.
•Competitive pressure from “storefront” and “discount fu-
neral” operators.
•Indifferent, unfocused, under trained and unmotivated
employees.
•Hard-hitting competitor marketing, website and social me-
dia strategies and programs.
Far too many funeral home owners are focused on chasing
payroll money every month. They have no idea what their
actual expenses are. They don’t know the difference between
“busy” and “profitable”. Every one of your employees must
be pitching in to improve the bottom line: networking, mar-
keting, watching expenses and cutting costs. If you have em-
ployees who show up to take a paycheck and don’t meaning-
fully contribute to help your business run more profitably,
their jobs should be on the line. Funeral homes today cannot
afford this type of unaccountable mentality anymore. Every
employee should be looking for ways to save money on what
they are doing and help the funeral home earn more. Ev-
ery employee should be an ambassador for the funeral home,
reaching out into the community to help bring in more
families to serve – at-need, pre-need, any-need. These chal-
lenges and so many more are slowly and systematically strip-
ping away the life giving and healthy business profits funeral
homes need to remain strong and viable. It’s time to take a
stand and do something about it.
I have been writing a monthly column in
Funeral Home and
Cemetery News
for over ten years. In that time, I have focused
primarily on offering proven advice on how to grow, expand
and improve funeral prearrangement programs. I have come
to appreciate that running a successful funeral home opera-
tion is about so much more than just having a fine tuned fu-
neral pre-planning program. Yes, funeral pre-planning is a
part of the overall solution, but it is not the entire solution to
Christopher Kuhnen of Edgewood, Kentucky is a 27-year veteran
of Funeral Service. He is perhaps best known, in the funeral profes-
sion, as a progressive Funeral Prearrangement, Marketing Services
and Public Relations expert. As an insider into excellence, he is a
trusted advisor to those in the death care industry.
He has considerable experience in business management, market-
ing, public relations, training, consumer and business to business
sales. Over the course of his distinguished career, Chris has provided
comprehensive consultation, education and positive and meaningful
support to funeral home owners nationwide to help them coordi-
nate, develop and implement profitable business strategies.
Christopher is a Kentucky Licensed Funeral Director, Life Insurance
Agent, Certified Preplanning Consultant (CPC), Insight Institute
Certified Celebrant and Certified Marketing Specialist. He can be
reached at (859) 307-7223 or cpkuhnen@gmail.com.