Starting a Funeral Home – Sample Business Plan Template
1. Name and Register Your Business
Naming your business in line with your area of service is the right and logical thing to do if you want to be remembered and located easily. So make sure you choose a name that tells what you do and one that can easily be remembered. Registering your business also is very important; it will position you to do business with corporate bodies like hospitals, mortuaries, and insurance firms; so go all the way to register your business.
2. Choose a Strategic Position
In this kind of business, the location of your business means a lot. The best to do when searching for a location for your business is to consider where other thriving funeral homes locate their businesses. If you do your research properly, you will realize that most funeral homes are located close to a mortuary, hospital or a public cemetery. Make sure you locate yours around any of these areas.
c. Get the Required Skills
Dealing with bereaved families will require that you have certain skills that will help you manage their pains and still strike good business deals with them. Anybody going into funeral home business must have excellent customer service skills cum people’s skills and excellent managerial skills. They must also be good with empathizing with people and must also be highly compassionate. If you don’t have any of these skills, in the bid of trying to sell your products or services, you might end up aggravating the pains of your bereaved customers. Part of the training you will also require, is to know how to relate with people of different religions and how to handle their burial ceremonies. It sure would help your business.
4. Get the Basic Things Needed
The basic things needed to be able to operate a funeral home could range from getting a license to even getting a certification. Some countries consider these as the basics, while in some other countries you could get a waiver for it. In starting a funeral home, you will be expected to have a standard Casket Carts, Casket Lowering Devices and Accessories, Preparation Room, Embalming Chemicals, Cremation Supplies, Mausoleum, Urn Vaults, Vases, Burial Garments, Waste Containers, Lawn Boards, Straps and Slings and Chairs & Accessories.
5. Employ Passionate Staffs
When recruiting for a funeral home, your aim should be to look for people who can handle grieving and bereaved people not just people looking for a job in other to be able to pay their bills. The qualities you should look out for when recruiting are: Good customers service skills, people with compassion, people who can empathize, who love this line of business and people who don’t have any problem handling dead bodies. If you make the mistake of recruiting people with the wrong skill sets, you can ruin your business before it even get started. Make sure you recruit smartly and wisely.
6. Relate With Mortuaries in Your Area
One of the ways to get people to patronize your funeral home is to build good business relationship with owners of mortuaries. Having a good working relationship with people who mortuaries will enable them refers people to you; their job is to preserve corpses and yours is to conduct a befitting burial. If possible strike a deal with them that will ensure that they get a commission for any referral you get from them.
7. Relate with Relevant Insurance Firms
There are various insurance companies that have funeral insurance policies for their clients. Building a good working relationship with them will position your funeral home to help them handle some of their policy holders. You can also help them market their funeral insurance cover with the agreement that you will be the one to handle the funerals of the customers you bring to them. This is of course will be a win-win for both parties, and every business person would want to go into such agreement.
8. Advertise Your Business
When you advertise your business, it opens up your business to all and sundry. Make sure you utilize both the print and electronic media when advertising your business. If you don’t have enough money, you can start with one of them, the idea is to make sure that people know about the services and products you have to offer.
In conclusion, these 8 solid tips stated above will help anybody start and run their funeral home business from the scratch to a level of profitability within a short period of time. However, the place of tenacity and optimism cannot be over flogged. Make these two virtues yours and your business would be on the rise.
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