Inside the Power of Community: Why Funeral Home Leaders Are Leaning Into Peer Groups
Barbara Welch didn’t hesitate when I asked her about the value of being part of Selected Independent Funeral Homes.
“I wish I had found Selected earlier,” she said. “There isn’t a problem I have that someone else can’t solve.”
That sentence hit like a hammer. In an industry where owners and directors often operate in their own silos—head down, phones glued to their ears, living in the grind—that kind of support is rare. And powerful.
This Is More Than a Networking Group
If you think associations are just about annual conventions, chicken dinners, and shaking hands in the hotel lobby, you’re missing the point.
What Barbara described isn’t networking. It’s masterminding. Real problem-solving in real time with people who actually get it.
Through Selected’s forums, study groups, and roundtables, she can drop a question into a thread and get a dozen answers from top operators across the country in minutes. Not weeks. Not buried in email chains. Minutes.
“I can ask a question that might feel dumb to me, but to them, it’s easy. And they give me answers I can use tomorrow.”
That’s operational gold.
Collective Brains. Individual Businesses.
Here’s the truth: No one funeral home has all the answers anymore.
- Cremation rates are climbing.
- Staffing expectations are shifting.
- Consumers want speed, options, and experience.
- Tech isn’t optional anymore.
Trying to figure it all out on your own is how good operators get left behind.
Study groups flip the script. One owner might have a killer approach to creative benefits packages. Another has solved night-call burnout. Someone else cracked the code on cremation service upsells. You walk away with playbooks you didn’t have to write yourself.
This is collective intelligence at work.
Vulnerability Is the Cheat Code
Barbara didn’t sugarcoat it. She said these groups only work when people show up ready to be real.
“I’ve heard the word ‘vulnerable’ a lot today. We talk about financials. We lay out problems. It’s real-world problem solving.”
That level of openness doesn’t happen in a trade show booth. It happens in tight-knit circles of owners who know they’re not competing with each other—they’re fighting the same fight.
And here’s the kicker: it’s not just for the big players. Whether you’ve got 10 rooftops or one, a team of 100 or just you and a handful of staff, the power of collective thinking levels the playing field.
When one person in the group figures something out, everyone wins.
The Pace of Change Isn’t Slowing Down
The profession’s slow pace is over. Cremation isn’t “the future”—it’s the now. Consumers aren’t waiting for us to catch up.
That’s why what Barbara shared matters. Access to a trusted group of problem solvers can be the difference between growing and just surviving.
- You can’t outwork this wave.
- You have to outthink it.
- And the fastest way to do that is to plug into people who’ve already solved what you’re struggling with.
This is what the next era of independent funeral service looks like: shared intelligence, not isolated hustle.
A Network That Actually Works
Barbara joined Selected in 2016. She’s still talking about how it changed the game for her business. That says something.
“It’s where I want to be with my family-owned independent mortuary.”
This isn’t about selling memberships. It’s about recognizing the shift happening right under our feet. The most successful operators in death care are no longer the loudest—they’re the best connected.
The Takeaway
If you’re running an independent funeral home and trying to figure it all out alone, you don’t have to.
Plug into a mastermind. Join a study group. Get in rooms where problems are being solved at the speed of text messages. Because the next decade of funeral service will belong to the people who collaborate faster than everyone else.
Learn more about Selected Independent Funeral Homes: https://www.selectedfuneralhomes.org/
