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NOVEMBER 2014
FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS
S ec t i on A
Funeral Discounters – Friend
or Foe?
“It is unwise to pay too much, but
it is worse to pay too
little
. When you pay too much, you lose a little money –
that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose ev-
erything because the thing you bought was incapable of do-
ing the things it was bought to do.
The common law of
business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a
lot
– it cannot be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder,
it is well to add something for the risk you run
, and if you
do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.”
–John Ruskin, Philosopher, 1819-1900
As I travel around the country, visiting with funeral home
owners, the conversation inevitably turns towards the topic
of Funeral Discounters. These are the funeral homes that
habitually offer the lowest priced funeral and cremation ser-
vices and merchandise in the marketplace. They oftentimes
attempt to brand themselves (in one way or another) as be-
ing the “Wal-Mart” of local funeral providers. Is this a good
thing or bad thing for funeral service?
In my opinion, it’s simply the American free market sys-
tem working as it was meant to work. Both the Discounter
and the Non-Discounter offer the consumer good service
and bad service; quality merchandise and substandard mer-
chandise; cheap prices and affordable prices; caring staff and
disinterested staff. There are no real winners or losers, based
solely on price alone. There is much more to it than that.
For the consumer, price is only one part of the total cost of
doing business. Cost assessment differs between individu-
als, and depends on various personal and situational factors,
such as socio-ecological awareness and knowledge, income,
peer group and the purchasing situation.
Falling victim to your impulse to charge less oftentimes
will bite you. Why? Because there is no real good way to
underprice your competition. If they’re game, they will also
and part time staff and those individuals who are “friends
of the funeral home.” You know who I’m talking about.
Those longtime, very satisfied and eternally loyal families
that you have served for years and years. They love you
and your funeral home and they simply cannot imagine
going anywhere else. You are “their family funeral home
– period.” They need to be a part of your strategy session,
because of the invaluable input and insight they will bring
to the table.
When everyone is gathered together, begin to make a list
of all the things (big and small) that make your funeral
home special, unique, different and valuable to all those in
the community that require the services of a funeral/cre-
mation provider. What do you offer families, which they
perceive as valuable, that they simply cannot get with any-
one else? Put your thinking caps on and come up with
a minimum of five things. It’s these five things that will
help to form the backbone of your branding statement
and your total service commitment. In short, why should
I call upon your funeral home to serve me before, during
or after a death, when all I want is the very best I can ac-
quire, at a fair and reasonable price?
I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments
on the topic. Feel free to share them with me at
cpkuhnen@gmail.com.
Christopher Kuhnen of Edgewood, Kentucky is a 26 year veteran of
funeral service. He is perhaps best known as a charismatic, progressive
and highly innovative funeral industry specialist. As an insider into ex-
cellence, Chris is a trusted advisor to many in the death care industry.
Mr. Kuhnen is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer and President
of Funeral Profit Protectors, LLC. Funeral Profit Protectors is a fu-
neral business profit counseling business serving independently
owned and operated funeral homes. The company specializes in
teaching, providing and engaging our clients in successful strate-
gies, products and services to secure and/or increase their business
profits. Chris has considerable first-hand experience in this area,
as well as funeral home marketing and public relations; Individual
funeral home employee training, coaching and mentoring; pre-
need sales training, lead generation and marketing support; con-
sumer and business to business direct sales and management.
Over the course of his distinguished career, Chris has provided
comprehensive consultation, education and positive, meaningful
support to funeral directors nationwide to help them coordinate,
develop and implement their distinctive business strategies.
Christopher is a Kentucky Licensed Funeral Director, Life
Insurance Agent, Certified Preplanning Consultant (CPC),
Insight Institute Certified Celebrant and Certified Marketing
drop their prices until you are no longer in business. And
even if your competition is not willing to fight for the bot-
tom spot, what did you actually win? Will your clients re-
spect you more for charging them less? Will they remember
you fondly the next time they need your services? Will they
even tell all their friends, neighbors and co-workers what a
“great deal” they received from you? I doubt it. Be honest. If
you have the absolute lowest prices in your area, do you truly
believe you will attract that many more families, which will
make it worth all you’ll need to sacrifice, in order for your low
price strategy to work? Most funeral homes don’t survive long
enough to find out.
The whole concept of “low pricing” means that your funer-
al home consistently tries to be the provider with the lowest
price in the marketplace for funeral goods and services. Hav-
ing the lowest price can be advantageous to your marketing
effort; however, the strategy also has several disadvantages.
Let’s review what actually allows you to lower your prices
in the first place. First, the costs of all merchandise you sell
have must be cheaper than your competitors. Can you really
buy everything you need for that much less? Now what about
paying for good, caring, hardworking and honest employees?
Will the fact you need to pay less wages and offer less bene-
fits than your competitors attract and keep the quality talent?
Doubt it.
Consider this. If you charge less, to make a half way decent
profit, what are you willing to discontinue providing your
families? All of the “little extras” that mean so much to all
those you serve cannot be afforded by the cheapest provider.
No frills, no extra service. Just the basics. Why? The lowest
provider simply cannot afford any additional overhead. No
extra staff means less help. Minimal salaries, means minimal
support. The cheapest vendors mean more defects. A low-
price offering reduces your profit margin and forces you to
operate on a low budget. If you cannot afford to hire the
number of staff needed to maintain a high level of customer
service, then low pricing may not be enough to maintain re-
peat business. The list can go on and on.
The Internet offers everyone the ability to check your pric-
ing against everyone else. Your firm stands to lose credibility,
among your families, if your “advertised low prices” are not
comparable to pricing found on the Internet, according to
the Knowledge@Emory website.
In some cases, you may be forced to sell product at a loss to
remain competitive. Always being the lowest-priced funeral
home sometimes creates the perception that your service and
merchandise quality is lower than that of the competition, ac-
cording to Karl Heil, writing on the Reference for Business
website. Some consumers might assume that reconditioned,
second hand, inferior and/or foreign made merchandise is the
means by which you maintain your low prices.
Instead of “rushing to the low price basement” why not take
a higher road? Convene a strategy meeting of all your full
Mausoleum in Spring
the business that was already
turning away from the lo-
cal funeral homes instead
of telling callers we could
not help them as a cemetery
and sending them to other
towns,” said Bailey, adding,
“it doesn’t hurt that the cem-
etery business should im-
prove as well with a natural
connection being forged.”
The new company also
brought on
Britt Paynter,
a funeral director of impec-
cable reputation who has
worked in the industry lo-
cally for almost 25 years.
“We knew we wanted to
make it more affordable but
we would not move forward
until we had the right peo-
ple in place to ensure the
quality of service was not
compromised.”
Wake Funeral and Crema-
tion plans to grow into its
own place in the communi-
ty and in the market rather
than overextending up front
and passing costs along to
the public. “We own a cre-
mation retort and we have it
in storage ready to be put to
work, but we’re going to get
established first, and make
sure we are making the right
choice when we expand into
a larger space. We want to
continue to provide those
affordable options.”
Wake Memorial Park LLC opens Wake
Funeral and Cremation Services
CARY,NC—
Wake Memo-
rial Park, LLC
in Cary, NC
was founded and opened in
2004, and is still the newest
perpetual care cemetery in
North Carolina. It has tak-
en every bit of those 10 years
for word to spread that the
cemetery, serving one of the
fastest growing areas in the
country, is available in the
heart of an area dominated
by high tech industries and
high cremation rates.
“We serve such a diverse
community in age, nation-
ality, and traditions, but
one thing became very clear
to us during the recession,”
says
Brad Bailey,
cemetery
director, “and that was that
people were shopping for
more affordable funeral and
cremation arrangements af-
ter exploring the traditional
funeral homes.”
That was motivation
enough for Wake Memori-
al Park to open a compan-
ion company,
Wake Funer-
al and Cremation Services.
Using the kiosk style of fu-
neral establishment operat-
ing out of the cemetery offic-
es, with no assembly chapel,
casket room, limousines and
other expensive endeavors,
the new service allows lower
cost funerals and cremations
by lowering the overhead of
the business. Since church-
es, neighborhood clubhous-
es, and rental venues in the
area were already being used
for funerals and memorial
services, the notion of not
doing services in a tradition-
al funeral home is not star-
tling to the community.
“Our goal was to capture
I bought a Thumbie.
When I rub his print I feel like he’s with
me. I remember his soft touch on my
cheek and the scent of his cologne.
In that brief moment, I am not alone.
I can breath.
He was my hero, my dearest. My life
will never be the same. But now I can
touch him, feel him and ease my
aching heart.
Give your families hope,
Call 877.848.6243