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MichaelBjerum
Senior Technical Adviser
Kelco Supply Co.
Most funeral professionals do 95 percent of what theyneed to do, but what about that other 5 percent? It’s those extra things that so often don’t get done that separate everyday funeral professionals from great ones.
Bjerum, a certified funeral service practitioner, former funeral home owner and location manager and certified crematory operator, helps you look at your business with a new perspective. You’ll learn how to:
• Inventory your facilities and equipment to maximize business efficiency.
• Offer customized service that boosts market share.
• Prioritize tasks to pursue what makes the most sense for your firm.
• And much more!
Just as we mature out of our ability to see the fun in a dandelion puff, and to see dragons and sailing ships in the clouds, we lose the ability or willingness to adapt our facilities, equipment and services to meet expectations. Making the conscious decision to be a 5 percenter starts with listening to Bjerum.
Mark Krause
Owner
Krause Funeral Homes
Join a funeral home owner who seeks to keep families happy no matter what – and it’s a philosophy that pays off handsomely for his business.
Krause explores step-by-step how his team makes customer service a priority. You’ll learn how to:
• Create value and meaning for the contemporary consumer.
• Connect food service, hospitality and celebrant services
with funeral service.
• Deliver the products and services that your customers
don’t even know that they want.
• And much more!
By discovering service enhancements that provide families with meaningful value, you’ll hold on to their business, build referrals and establish your brand as the funeral home that cares the most.
Kim Medici Shelquist
Director of Marketing Communications
Homesteaders Life Co.
Shelquist, who worked for several years leading the marketing and education efforts of Iowa’s largest not-for-profit hospice and is currently director of marketing communications at Homesteaders Life Co., explores the potential benefits and challenges involved with working with hospice organizations.
Shelquist provides proven strategies so you can:
• Forge alliances with hospice groups to ensure smooth transitions
from hospice care to funeral service.
• Raise awareness of your funeral home and the focus you place
on caring for families.
• Initiate conversations in your community about the value of funeral service.
• Enhance end-of-life experiences for your families.
Funeral homes can sometimes have an uncomfortable or competitive relationship with hospice, but by finding common ground, both sides can recognize enormous benefits.
Quinn Eagan
President
Preneed Funeral Program
If you knew there was someone who had designed selling systems that have resulted in $2 billion of funded preneed sales, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to seek his counsel?
Fortunately, all you have to do is drive or take a flight to New Orleans because Eagan is that man, and he opens up his book of marketing secrets in this session. You’ll learn how to:
• Educate families on the emotional and financial benefits of prearranging.
• Reducethe negative effect of the rising cremation rate.
• Speak directly to different groups in your community so their
specific concerns about prearranging are addressed.
• Recruit and train the right people to engage your community.
• Position your firm for short- and long-term growth.
• Target the right prospects and craft the right messages.
• Put to work systems that have successfully worked in funeral homes
throughout the United States and Canada.
Eagan answers everything you need to know about building a solid preneed program or bringing an existing one to the next level.
Dan Isard
Founder and President
The Foresight Companies
Measuring customer satisfaction is key for funeral homes, but many have been doing nothing or using the same tired surveys for years.
It's time to take your family satisfaction surveys to a new level and use them to revolutionize your business. In this session, you’ll learn how to:
• Use operational surveys and effectively track the results.
• Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of individual staff members.
• Modify questions in surveys based on the type of arrangement.
• Decide what changes will have the most meaningful impact
on your bottom line.
With Isard as your guide, you'll return home knowing how to design surveys that pose great questions, and you'll increase response rates so that your data are meaningful. Lastly – and most importantly – you’ll know what to do in response to that data.
Our speakers team up to answer all your questions in this no-holds-barred question-and-answer session. It may be the last session of the day, but you’ll be energized by candid, straightforward answers to your most pressing questions. Be sure to have your computer or notepad ready because you’ll be jotting down notes the entire time.