Hockey, competitiveness, and time horizons
I’ve told you before that I get my inspiration for articles from the strangest of sources. The other day I was on YouTube and looking for a certain speech presented by then President Ronald Reagan. For whatever reason, this clip of United States Gold Medal hockey goalie Jim Craig came up as a recent guest on a podcast.
I’m a hockey fan and being from Minnesota, like many Minnesotans, have some type of connection with that 1980 Gold Medal winning hockey team dubbed “The Miracle on Ice”. In listening to the short 7-minute podcast with Craig I realized that a couple of factors that Coach Herb Brooks instilled in those college kids gave them some of the necessary tools to compete against the Russian professionals and win.
What were those factors? In my book they were “competitiveness” and “time horizon”. Craig pointed out that as huge underdogs the committee people at USA Hockey wanted to put a team on the ice that would be “competitive” and not embarrass the United States hockey community. Craig pointed out that attitude bothered Coach Brooks. Brooks asked the players “Do you want to ‘Win’ or do you want to just ‘Compete'”?
Goalie Craig also pointed out that most United States Olympic teams are put together and then play a few games in two or three weeks before competing in the Olympic games. In Brooks opinion that was not enough of a “Time Horizon” to build what he wanted to build — A winning team. The 1980 Olympic team lived together almost 7 months and played 40 games prior to the Olympic games. In Craig’s opinion, that gave Brooks enough time to instill confidence and build a team and it gave the players enough time to “form a family”.
So, how exactly is that thought process part of a funeral home business. My take is that you can go out and give great service to those that call you and be happy and content doing just that. I would consider that “competing”. However, if you can take how you serve families and expand that in your market or other markets you are making a difference and “Winning”. And, it is not just about the financial aspect of winning. . . . .your new families are “winning” by having access to the services that have provided your growth.
In my book, if you are growing in market share your services and care of families are probably better than your competitors so these potential client families also win.
Now the time horizon part. . . . . If you are in a two funeral home town and you both do about a 50% market share you cannot, even with exemplary service coupled with low prices, expect to get to 75% market share overnight. . . or in one or two years. But, with an extended “time horizon” you can get there and make your funeral home much more valuable.
I was never smart enough to do that strategic planning when I was younger. But, I was competitive. I always wanted better financial results than my budget in a 12-month period and I always wanted to exceed my services expectation and market share each year. Those were three things that I tracked almost daily — Financial operations, case volume, and market share.
I was in a market that was almost 50-50% when I started. . . Although our funeral home had a little better than 50%. After a few years my market share was going up as was my case volume. There was a point where I realized that if I could simply drive a 1% market share increase each year, when I wanted to retire in 30 years I would have an almost 90% market share and a very valuable funeral home in my market.
I then put in strategies such as a more agressive preneed program and a customer retention program in Aftercare to reach that goal. . . . .and guess what? . . . . About 25 years later that’s where I ended up — with the ability to, under mostly friendly terms, acquire my competitor and enjoy 100% of the market share until I sold the business later on.
Coach Herb Brooks used a proper “Time Horizon” to build a team capable of winning a gold medal. . . . and you can use a proper “Time Horizon” to build a business capable of being very valuable.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily
My Connection to the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team: It’s interesting when you realize how young those players on the “Miracle on Ice” team were. It was a day and age when America only brought its amateur athletes to the Olympic games while other countries brought professionals. That’s all changed now.
The other thing to remember of that 1980 Olympic Hockey team is that 12 of the 20 rostered players were native Minnesotans. Three of those players were freshmen hockey players at the University of Minnesota during the 1976-1977 school year and lived on the 2nd floor of Sanford Hall dormitory floor for that school year. I also lived on Sanford’s 2nd floor that year.
Those players were Eric Strobel, Rob McClanahan, and Steve Christoff. . . . . and while they were Gopher hockey players, they were 18 and 19 year old students just like me. It’s funny because I never remember talking hockey with any of them — I do remember talking about a certain class that one of them had with me and I also remember talking about what were they going to do for Spring Break. They were just student/athletes. . . never did I think they would all have the notoriety that they now do. . . .to me they are always just fellow students doing what freshmen students do during their first year away from home at college.
Speaking of “Time Horizons”. . . . all of us are now in the latter half of our 60’s. And, I’ve never seen or talked to them since we left Sanford Hall 48 years ago.
Three years after living in Sanford Hall I was at a Friday afternoon happy hour where the results of that USA-USSR Olympic game were being piped in periodically. If you remember, the game was not televised live in America and when the final results came in chants of USA took down the place.
Early that Sunday morning I was glued in front of my television watching those three and their teammates win a Gold Medal for our country.
So, set those goals with a realistic timeline. . . .because that timeline will come faster than you know.
More news from the world of Death Care:
- “I became a funeral arranger after my husband died”. BBC News (Great Britain)
- Charlotte volunteers honor military veterans buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery. Q City Metro (NC)
- “Human composting” of dead available in Michigan as long as it’s not done here. The Manchester Mirror (MI)
- Funeral director rebrands three homes for new chapter. The Business Desk (Great Britain)
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