Merry Christmas!

Jason Murphy,
Director of Family Services,
Sunset Funeral Home

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Or as we say in the cemetery, Happy Memorial Day!

It really is our biggest season, isn't it?  

We all spend a lot of time, money and effort during Memorial Day weekend, which is why it is important to track and analyze your return on investment after the weekend is complete.

Have a staff wrap-up meeting with everyone who worked the cemetery during Memorial Day. Gather a list of things that worked and things that didn’t quite go to plan. Fix anything that needs immediate attention, and put the list in a safe place for next year. You’ll already be a step ahead when planning for 2016.

Did you create a sales goal for Memorial Day leads? First, figure out if you reached the short term goal that was set and reward your staff accordingly. In fact, you should reward them in some way no matter if they reached the goal or not. They did work the entire holiday weekend for you! For the leads that haven’t been closed, make sure to game plan on how these leads will be followed up within a timely manner. Discuss possible scripting that may help your sales staff get the leads back in the door. Follow up is extremely important as most of the sales will come from leads obtained over the weekend and not sales made during the weekend. 

Lastly, make sure to share your results from the weekend with the rest of the staff. Acknowledge all of the hard work from your staff members and get the other staff engaged and interested in what the cemetery staff does for Memorial Day. Communicating what worked and some sales numbers will spark conversation and interest from all of the employees.

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.

Will families really pay more for personalization?

Drew Edwards,
General Manager,
Sunset Funeral Home

Cemeteries and funeral homes are always looking for better ways to serve our client families. We always want to provide services and products that rise above their expectations.

At Sunset Funeral Home, we recently swapped out a couple of caskets in our selection room. These new caskets had more features that allowed for more personalization than our standard line of caskets. These caskets had all the bells and whistles, but also a larger price tag. In order for us to hold our margin, we had to price these caskets higher than other caskets made of the same material.

At first, I wasn't sure if we would ever sell one of these new caskets. Would families be willing to pay $400 - 500 more, even though the basic casket was same as others? Would they be willing to pay more to personalize?

To my surprise, the answer was yes. This leads me to believe that whether selling caskets or beautiful bronze memorials, we need to offer as many products with as much personalization as we can. We have to set our own preferences and assumptions to the side and give families options. After all, if we don’t offer it to them, someone else will.

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.