FrontRunner today announced that it has formed a strategic alliance with Funeral Solutions Group to rapidly provide new innovations to the funeral profession. FrontRunner clients will benefit from this alliance through vastly expanded solutions available to them, all within a single data entry, tightly integrated architecture. This alliance will further reinforce the single-solution logic with a one point of contact, saving funeral homes both time and money.
CEO and Founder Kevin Montroy cites, “Our two respective companies have very different focuses and approaches in the market, but will come together with the common goal of helping both funeral professionals and the profession as a whole. We will forge a relationship of collaborating on projects, along with the sharing of new ideas, with a goal of accelerating new and exciting innovations for our clients.”
As the market continues to face dramatic changes, and new entrepreneur groups and opportunists rush in to try and stake their claims at the expense of funeral service, it is more important than ever for funeral professionals to become vigilant about safeguarding their data, online traffic and obituary assets. FrontRunner and Funeral Solutions Group both have deep roots in funeral service and remain committed to protecting the great heritage of funeral service while providing unique and innovative ways for funeral professionals to respond to consumers’ changing needs.
FrontRunner attracts some of the profession’s most progressive firms, who are genuinely interested in growing their business. Different from many companies in this space, FrontRunner is not interested in selling to any and every funeral home.
“We respect that the only way we can truly provide clients all the tools to aggressively compete against ‘the guy up the street’, is to work with one firm in a given area to develop a strategic plan for market domination. Our Exclusive Partner Program helps ensure that. Our clients understand the tremendous value, efficiency and focus that comes from working with one company that can carefully orchestrate and coordinate their complete marketing and technology strategy. They are not interested in being distracted by every gizmo and gadget that comes from the barrage of new opportunists that care little about the real impact their offerings have on the overall good of funeral service, or the firm they are trying to sell,” adds Montroy.
This alliance will help better educate the market about just how critical it is for funeral homes to switch their focus from protecting their ‘back-end’ or management software and focus on their ‘front end’ if they are going to survive the next wave of online competition. While many casket companies and management software vendors are scrambling to increase their bottom lines by offering, or forcing, lackluster websites on their clients, few have the commitment or real infrastructure and full range of services that it takes for funeral homes to survive in this new online world.
“As I watch how things are shaping up and how and what is being offered, I sometimes wonder if these companies are intentionally trying to help put smaller funeral homes out of business in order to assist their larger purchasing clients. Companies forcing their websites and solutions on funeral homes to get a signed contract or get at client’s data and online profits is appalling. Funeral service deserves better and we are going to do everything in our power to help” adds Montroy.
Funeral Solutions Group is a progressive company specializing in no-charge website models, affordable light-management solutions and creative cremation business solutions. FrontRunner is a leading technology provider to funeral professionals and the only truly integrated funeral home website and funeral home management solution, complete with an Exclusive Partner Program, on the market.
To learn more about these two highly innovative companies visit Funeral Solutions Group online at www.FuneralSolutionsGroup.com or 1-844-486-0246 and FrontRunner Professional online at www.FrontRunner360.com or 1-866-748-3625.
Isn’t Funeral Solutions Group their own division? See this announcement:
http://connectingdirectors.com/articles/46887-frontrunner-professional-announces-launch-of-funeral-solutions-group
They did the same with Simpler Times. See here:
http://connectingdirectors.com/articles/46845-simpler-times-appoints-frontrunner-professional-as-the-exclusive-distributor-of-the-new-simpler-times-marketing-program
Why create a division and then claim to do a deal with it?
Hi James,
As mentioned in the announcement, we at FrontRunner will be working very closely with Funeral Solutions Group. The two companies will collectively work together to develop initiatives to help funeral homes, allowing FrontRunner to remain focused on advanced marketing and technology solutions for their partner clients. Funeral Solutions Group will be there to help businesses that want less when it comes to technology and marketing and will also be key in developing national initiatives to help all funeral homes world-wide. It’s actually a very common way of diversifying a business to allow for focus where focus needs to be. We are very excited about this new venture and we are already getting incredible feedback from funeral homes.
More spin. Shouldn’t expect any different I guess.
Mrs. Montroy, I am not sure that you answered James’ question. He is stating that your press release on announcing a strategic partnership with this Funeral Solutions Group is not actually accurate since you have already made it clear that Funeral Solutions Group is just a subsidiary of FrontRunner Professional. As pointed out in his links that he graciously provided. For both Funeral Solutions Group and Simpler Times.
As a licensed Funeral Director I am always watching for new trends and look to ConnectingDirectors.com to provide me with some useful information. But now I see that anything can be published I will have to make sure I watch all articles very closely for “connections” and make sure we don’t get “tricked” into thinking one thing when really it is just a mask for the parent company. I believe I read a few weeks ago that a President was appointed to Funeral Solutions Group, so is this company a separate company or a Operating As? Are the owners the same as FrontRunner Professional or different? As a strategic partnership you would think they are different but I am not sure that is the case.
Thanks James for the links, and Mrs. Montroy for beating around the bush and not providing an accurate answer.
This is nothing new from them. There are several articles where FrontRunner appoints people who are employees of the company, or forms partnerships with themselves, or become exclusive distributers of their own product. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors happening with their articles, so buyer beware.
Having said that Connecting Directors has been informed about the inaccuracies, but has yet to do anything about it. This is becoming a dumping ground where people can just post whatever they like. For that matter, they use it as their personal advertising grounds where “Press Releases” are, look “so and so” is using our services. It is a shame, because there is a market for calling out such improprieties and being an actual watch dog for the industry. There is a lot of companies out there telling you they are the best, especially in the technology market, so read between the lines and do your research. See who owns which company, look into their Whois information do some research about the individuals that own the company. There is a lot of information out there, use it.
I agree with all of your points Jones. It really comes down to buyers doing some due diligence before taking these “articles” at face value.
Even at Connecting Directors; they have a “partnership” with Frontrunner via Disrupt Media. I personally don’t trust anything coming from either of these companies
This headline should read “Frontrunner Creates New Company Just to Form a Partnership”.
So much spin
“James”, “Jones Jones”, and others who I cannot identify because there is no proper account setup to identify you,
There is nothing malicious happening by FrontRunner or Funeral Solutions Group here. We have been VERY upfront about these being two separate companies and why they were created. As we saw the market breaking into three distinct areas of needs, so too did we need to move to provide solutions that could accommodate all funeral homes. In order to protect the focus of FrontRunner without overlap, we supported the creation of 2 new companies by those employees that wanted to create something on their own to meet these market needs. The structure of these new companies allow these employees and individuals to become shareholders in their own futures and allows them to be rewarded for their ongoing dedication and commitment to growing their company.
Unfortunately, the only deception going on here are these attacks on everyone’s announcements orchestrated by competitors hiding behind factitious names, as we have uncovered by identifying the IP addresses of some of those commenting. Connecting Directors has become a great source of information and a channel for companies to make the market aware of new announcements or releases that can help the profession. It is tactics like these that only hurts everyone.
It is unfortunate that some do not possess a greater understanding of business structures and the strategy of why sometimes it is important for a company to move in a different direction or diversify.
At FrontRunner, we support the entrepreneurial spirit, particularly when it is connected with helping funeral professionals. We will continue to support these new companies and employees while finding ways to continue to grow new innovations for the market at large, just like we have always done at FrontRunner.
We trust the market will see these negative comments for what they are, as many are coming from vendors that cannot distinguish themselves in the innovative space of technology.
Sorry, not a competitor, just a long time reader of CD.
Unfortunately your claims are largely unfounded. The IP’s of the posters being shared, is that what you are saying? So Connecting Directors is giving you that information? Are you sure that you don’t want to retract that, and if not maybe Ryan would like to comment on why he is giving you our information.
Second to that, you can not accurately determine the claims that you are making. We are the general public asking, what I see as ver valid questions. Fact is your weren’t clear about your affiliation. You did not say in that article that this was a spinoff company. You are trying to market with deception and you were called out, and now you are trying to back track and or passive aggressively attack the posters and consumers of your product.
While I would like to continue the conversation, I believe your post pretty much sums up your business practice, there is no need to comment further.