Leadership and the Modern Funeral Director
The funeral profession is very different today than it was 20, 10, even 5 years ago. A lot has changed over the years including family preferences, religious beliefs, and technology available. As family needs continue to change and technology advances, today’s modern funeral professionals need to evolve as well.
As a funeral home owner or manager, you have an important role in many peoples’ lives. At the funeral home, your staff that look to you for direction and the tools they need to succeed. For families and the community at large, you’re an educator and someone to offer guidance during a difficult and stressful time in their lives.
As a successful funeral professional, you likely already have many of the traits discussed below. With that being said, it’s always helpful to review and refresh what great leadership looks like and what technologies are available to make life for you, your staff, and families a little bit easier.
Open Minded To Changing Times
The world is constantly changing and evolving. To be an effective leader, you need to be open minded to these changes and adapt accordingly. In our profession, cremation rates are on the rise. With the cremation rate now exceeding 50%, it’s important to understand how families beliefs and preferences have evolved. Now, more and more funeral homes are starting to operate cremation focused businesses and adjusting their services to meet the new needs of families.
Being open minded doesn’t just include the types of services you offer. Over the past decade or so, we’ve seen tremendous growth in digital marketing. The tried and true tradition marketing practices of the past are still an option. However, that doesn’t always mean they’re the most cost-effective or best way to connect with today’s families.
Being open minded allows you to be flexible and adapt to change. Aside from just technology and consumer preferences, being adaptable can make a huge difference in overall success. With the continued evolution of technology, this is one trait that is critical to future and continued success.
Be An Educator For Staff and The Community
There are very few things more valuable than education. As a leader at your funeral home, you’re responsible for helping shape the future of the business. This includes mentoring staff and consistently offering training, feedback and advice.
Education doesn’t just happen with staff though. There are a lot of misconceptions in the community about funeral services and options. If you want to be an effective leader in the community, it’s important to make sure to drive the conversation and doing what you can to educate families. Whether it’s through seminars, consultations, marketing materials, social media or something else entirely; a great leader makes sure to prioritize helping families make informed decisions.
A Visionary Looks Ahead and Prepares For The Future
For many years, funeral service did not need to evolve. For the most part, families planned more traditional services just like their loved ones before them. Funeral homes were passed down to the next generation and they followed the same practices year after year.
We’re now at the point though where change is happening faster than ever before. The successful business leaders of today are the ones who are looking ahead to the future and preparing for it. Over the past few years, we’ve seen many clients have success by expanding and growing their funeral businesses. Whether that was launching a cremation focused brand as the popularity began to rise, or adopting new ways to connect with the community, they looked ahead and took action.
Having a vision for the future or business strategy is important today. As a leader, it’s your job to help shape the future of your business. The work you put into growing and adapting is what will set the successful funeral homes apart from the ones who remain the same and are adverse to change.
Technology To Help Lead Your Funeral Home
Changing technology has been a prevalent theme throughout this article so let’s look at how exactly it can help. At FrontRunner, we offer several products to help you save time and have more control over your day to day operations.
Use Task Manager To Organize Your Staff
Depending on the size of your firm, you might have several services happening at once or over the coming days. As you’re working with families and preparing for the service, it’s important to stay organize. For years, many funeral homes have relied on white boards with Post-it notes, spreadsheets, and many other ways to stay organized. Now you don’t have to anymore.
With Task Manager, you have a digital scheduling board to coordinate and delegate your firm’s ongoing tasks, events and cases. Included within our management software, Task Manager helps you organize staff and track their progress. Even better, if you have multiple funeral homes, you can filter by location and always be on top of everything going on. Check out the video below to learn more!
Manage Your Staff and Inventory
Task Manager isn’t the only tool we have to help you lead your funeral home staff. Included within the Pulse Business System are tools to review staff, inventory, and reports.
Within the system, our clients have access to staff timesheets so you can easily track your staff’s hours worked and pay periods. This tool also lets you track inventory count so you know when you need to order more inventory. It even lets you review reports for different things like accounts receivable, types of services being arranged, casket sales and more.
With the Pulse Business System, you’ll save time and money, all while having greater control over everything happening at your firm. Best of all, this is all possible within one comprehensive and easy to use software.
Let’s Talk About The Future
Ready to take your funeral business to the next level? Are you interested in learning more about our management software and tools? If so, contact us today! We’d love to show why thousands of funeral homes are able to effectively run their firms and keep staff organized with our powerful suite of software and products.
Tommy holds a Communications degree from Laurentian University and an Integrated Marketing Communications Graduate Certificate from St. Lawrence College. He is a Content Marketing Specialist at FrontRunner and focuses on producing engaging content that funeral homes can use to connect with families. In addition, Tommy crafts SEO content for clients and specializes in helping the general public connect with the death care industry as a whole.