Extreme Funeral Home Makeover: The Eight Steps to a High Performance Funeral Home
Guest Article – Gregory Ferris is currently a regional director for Paradigm Associates. He specializes in helping funeral home owners move their business from the “as is” to a “desired state” Formally with Batesville Casket Company, he also worked as Director of Training and Development for a funeral home acquisition company. Gregory often presents at state funeral director associations as well as publishes in numerous association newsletters. You can contact him at Gferris@paradigmassociates.us.
Experience has taught us that high performance is achieved, and dramatic gains result, when commitment, energy, and efforts are focused on improved strategy, processes and people in funeral homes. The outgrowth can naturally lead to finding and keeping loyal families, referral sources and all others with whom you have important relationships. The Extreme Funeral Home Makeover is a proven process, recommended for getting a funeral home where you?ve always wanted it to be so you can get the professional and personal results you want.
The proven eight step process naturally falls under three categories: The Foundation, Planning and Execute. The Foundation is our premise and approach to the Makeover. It includes thinking strategically ? looking toward the future and determining what?s next; changing and operating ? managing today?s challenges and capitalizing on opportunities; muscle-building the funeral home by – developing people; and, muscle-building the funeral home – through improving processes and technology.
Under Planning emphasis is given to help managers, funeral directors and staff think strategically and having a well thought out, actionable plan to deal with continued growth while dealing with the seemingly ever increasing amounts of paperwork required and other responsibilities. Secondly, the Planning process develops team leadership. Simply put, great leaders and teams follow processes that engage the head, heart and hands of the staff as well as achieve desired results. Learning how to balance a demanding work schedule while achieving personal and professional goals allows individuals to be happier, creative and more productive in the workplace. Finally, the Planning category is centered on creating loyal families. When everyone involved has developed their ability to interact with families on a positive emotional level, positive feelings are created. People remember the feeling of being care for and cared about. With loyal families, a funeral home can save money on marketing and advertising by minimizing the cost of attracting new families.
The third category, Execute deals with office procedures. When good people have to struggle with poor processes and procedures, everyone impacted suffers unnecessarily. Processes that eliminate and streamline actions are developed and implemented within the office. Individual development is also part of the action in this category. When people are able to take full advantage of their skills, gifts and talents, more things can happen more effectively with fewer struggles. Monitoring is a key part of Execute. What gets measured gets done. What gets measured, self-reported, and rewarded gets done even faster. It engages the staff as well as increases job satisfaction. The last part under Execute is accountability and follow up. This is the culminating action of the Makeover. False starts and dropped balls are a thing of the past. High performance becomes the focus with sustainable actions that produce improved results.
The Extreme Funeral Home Makeover represents an approach that assures success. The facilitated process is flexible and produces measurable business results in a short period of time. The timeline can be adjusted based upon the time and energy your people can realistically invest in the steps of the process while also performing their day-to-day responsibilities. The Extreme Funeral Home Makeover delivers.
