Team Compensation
As part of your year-end planning, you’ll want to revisit the salaries of your team members and ensure they’re being paid a competitive rate. Since most employees expect a yearly raise of some sort, you’ll also want to account for additional monies being spent in this manner. Potentially, you might even recognize high-performing team members with promotions.
While it might seem unnecessary to give out compulsory raises to everyone, these yearly raises are an important component of employee retention. Some studies show that to replace an employee, it costs roughly six to nine months of their salary to recruit and train a new person.
For example, if a team member is paid $80,000, you can expect to pay about $40,000-$60,000 in recruiting and training expenses. In light of these numbers, a standard raise of about 5% looks much more appealing, especially if you’re pleased with a team member’s performance.
Marketing
Unless you want your business growth to stagnate, then you’ll need to develop a marketing strategy that not only retains current customers but also attracts new ones. While you won’t necessarily need to hire a full-time marketing manager, you’ll definitely need to allot for marketing-related expenditures.
For starters, this will likely include managing or (if you haven’t already) creating a website for your funeral business. Here, visitors will be able to find contact information for your business, as well as a variety of informative posts that establish trust with your brand.
Additionally, you might consider conducting market research in the form of sending surveys to your families. By obtaining feedback from prior clients––even if only a fraction of them respond––you’ll gain valuable insight into where your business excels and where it needs to focus.
One cost-effective way to administer these surveys is through digital platforms. The Performance Tracker X from J3Tech is a software solution built specifically for death care businesses. With this tool, you can create digital surveys, send them to families via email, and automatically track their responses.
Business Growth and Improvement
A large portion of your funeral home’s strategic budget planning should be set aside for business growth initiatives. Anything that will improve your business and make it better or more profitable will fall into this bucket.
This might include investing in new technology that improves customer experience, adding new services like green burials or cremation, or even renovating your facilities. To figure out where to focus your efforts, you’ll want to rely heavily on feedback from families, as they’ll likely be able to provide you with key insights related to your services.
Additionally, on the back end of things, you might consider investing in training for your team members. Particularly when it comes to your high-performing employees, helping them acquire new skills will allow them to take on new responsibilities (adding value to your business) while further engaging them with your workplace.
Johnson Consulting Group, a leading death care consulting firm, offers a variety of personalized training courses for leadership and management skills. While these courses do cost money, the results will be well worth your investment.
Plan for Success With JCG
Oftentimes, business owners don’t know where to begin when it comes to yearly funeral home strategic planning. Particularly if your business is running well and seeing year-over-year profits, it might not be obvious where you should focus your attention. In these cases, it’s often helpful to seek the guidance of consultants.
At Johnson Consulting Group, our team of death care consultants has worked with funeral businesses at all stages in their life cycle. Through a combination of experience and business acumen, our team can partner with your leadership, identify opportunities for improvement, and create a strategic plan––one that is budgeted to a T.
The key to a successful 2023 is having a plan in place before the prior year ends. To get started, give JCG a call.
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