Is pet memorialization worth it?

Jason Murphy,
Director of Family Services,
Sunset Memorial Park

Many families see their pet as a part of the family and will go the distance for them. In some situations, families will spend thousands of dollars throughout the course of a pet’s life to keep them healthy and happy. So, why wouldn’t they spend the time and resources on honoring their life in the end? The simple answer is that people will spend their resources on pet memorialization if they know it is an option. However, they probably won’t spend enough to make this a huge profit maker for your business. The question then becomes, how do we make the pet memorialization business worth it?

At Sunset Memorial Park, it took us a while to fully commit to the pet memorialization business. We’ve had a pet section in our memorial park for a long time, but never fully committed to providing other funeral services for pets until recently. We now have our own pet crematory and a program titled, Cherished Companions, which deals strictly with helping families honor their pets' lives.

We’ve found that we can’t expect to make a huge profit off of pet cremations, burials and merchandise.  But, we can expect to serve these families to the best of our ability. We can work hard to make them a Sunset family for life.

When you take care of a family’s beloved pet like you would their mother or father, then they have peace of mind in knowing you will take care of them and their other family members with care and dignity. We train our counselors to go beyond simply serving the family at the time of need when their pet dies. They are trained to encourage the families they serve to preplan their own final wishes and their loved ones as well. If they are taking the time to preplan their pet’s final wishes, they’re more likely to see the value in preplanning for themselves. It is only a matter of whether or not your counselors are bold enough to ask the question.

This is where you will see that the pet death care business has value. When you begin to increase your preplanning and cemetery sales through touching families after the loss of their cherished companion that is when the pet business will make the biggest impact on your company.

This article originally appeared in Modern Memorialization, Trigard Memorials' weekly electronic newsletter featuring information for the funeral industry. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.trigard.com/thursdays.

What do your finances tell you?

Beth VadeBonCoeur,
Accountant

What do we care about the most when finances are concerned? The bottom line. Are we making any money? The only sure fire way of getting that answer is by reviewing our financial statements on a regular basis. One financial statement in particular is our income statement or sometimes referred to as our Profit and Loss statement (P & L). This statement shows the following equation: Sales – Expenses = Net Income.

Financial statements should be understandable, relevant, reliable and comparable. Do you have your income statement set up so it’s giving you the needed information? It’s important to design your financial statements so that managers are getting the detailed information needed in the important segments of your business to make better management decisions.

On the revenue side, sales should be broken down into sales categories that allow management to determine what segment of the business is growing or declining. It allows management to see which segments provide the most and least amount of revenue.

On the expense side, expenses should be categorized by cost of goods, administrative and selling.  Within each category decide which expenses are relevant and significant to the business and make sure they are listed separately.

When your income statement is designed effectively, management will have the key financial data available on the income statement to better run the company.



This article originally appeared in Modern Memorialization, Trigard Memorials' weekly electronic newsletter featuring information for the funeral industry. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.trigard.com/thursdays.

Benefit your company by getting involved

Drew Edwards,
General Manager,
Sunset Funeral Homes

How often do you leave the office to learn and connect with others in our industry? Are you involved with regional, state or national organizations? I think one reason a lot of us are afraid of change is that we don’t make the time to refresh our knowledge and get involved.

By the time you read this, I will be finishing up a week in Orlando, Florida, at the National Funeral Directors Leadership Conference. This conference is designed to place leaders from each state association together to share ideas, goals and visions, and to network with the objective of preserving the industry that we love. It typically has representation from almost every state in the United States.

The Darby Family encourages its employees to stay involved in the industry and to get out of our comfort zone. If you are an owner of a memorial company, funeral home or cemetery, I encourage you to invest in your employees and send them to industry conventions and workshops. Not only will they come back more knowledgeable, they will also know that you care about them and want them to share in your success. It might very well be one of the best investments you ever make.

This article originally appeared in Modern Memorialization, Trigard Memorials' weekly electronic newsletter featuring information for the funeral industry. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.trigard.com/thursdays.

The reality behind marketing myths

Do the families you serve struggle to understand your flower regulations?

Do they understand the importance of memorializing their loved ones after choosing cremation?

Do they know all the facts about the benefits of planning their final wishes ahead of time?

Did you know that a solid marketing strategy can help ease all of these situations?

As long as we have been in marketing, we have heard our fair share of myths for why businesses have sub par marketing. And, because many believe these myths, marketing gets a bad rap. Well, we want to help you debunk those myths and get you headed in the right direction. 

Marketing myths:

MYTH: Marketing is just making information look pretty.
Reality: While the graphics may be what you see first, marketing and graphic design are so much more than that. You’d be surprised how much time, research and talent goes into creating something that will effectively educate the families you serve and help them make a well-informed decision.

MYTH: Marketing is for our sales staff only.
Reality: Marketing is not the same as advertising or sales. Marketing includes everything your customer touches, from the sign on your front door to Yelp reviews. It’s the way your staff answers the phone and your email signature.

MYTH: The right brochure solves everything.
Reality: Great marketing puts the information where your unique customer is looking for it. Unless you regularly have customers who come to you looking specifically for brochures, you probably need to expand your arsenal of communication methods. Well-placed signage, social media, multimedia advertisements and editorial articles are just the start to a layered approach.

Is it time for you to update your marketing? We have resources to help you get started. Give our Customer Service team a call at 800.798.4900 to get in touch with our experts.



This article originally appeared in Modern Memorialization, Trigard Memorials' weekly electronic newsletter featuring information for the funeral industry. Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.trigard.com/thursdays.