By The Leader Staff
The ICCFA Educational Foundation, led by President Jim Price of Park Lawn Corporation, has released a new video library showcasing knowledge and expertise from more than 30 leaders in the deathcare industry.
The participants were asked several questions, including: “What single point of advice would you offer?” Below are just a few of the responses that were recorded.
Former Cypress Lawn President & CEO Ken Varner, current Chairman of the Board of Cypress Funeral Services, Inc.
“What I advise is to master our business. Our business is like any other business. It has three disciplines: the discipline of marketing, the discipline of finance, the discipline of operations. It has three processes: lead procurement, lead conversion, and then, client fulfillment. What most of us do is focus on client fulfillment, but what we really need to do is focus on all … and if you do that right, you’re going to have a very successful business. No matter what your role in the business is, if you understand and strive to understand all aspects of the business, you’re a valuable employee. And you’ll advance, you will be sought after, and it’s a key to what we do.”
Marilyn Jones Gould, President of MKJ Marketing
“Every time that I am doing in-house training, I try to cover with all staff members in funeral homes, cemeteries, crematories – don’t let anyone tell you this is a dying profession, that we are not in our golden age anymore. There are more millionaires in the deathcare industry today than ever before. If you’re passionate about it and you love it, you’ll make as much money as you want to, and guess what, you will have greater satisfaction from this profession that anything else you can choose, I believe.”
Laura Blevins, COO and Certified Celebrant at Williams Funeral Home
“Carrying your grief, or your burden, or whatever that may be on top of trying to handle someone else’s as well can be very devastating to your career. You can’t service people if you can’t function. Everybody needs to step back sometimes and deal with what’s going on in your own life and then go back to serving your families.”
CLICK to watch these videos and to explore what these experts – and many others – have to say about a variety of industry-related topics.
