Some great advice and wisdom

December 27, 2021/Business/

Busch Funeral and Crematory Services, based in Cleveland, Ohio, co-owner Mark Busch retired not long ago. According to a recent article that I read, he began work at the family firm in 1982 and retired in 2020. The family firm dates it origins back to 1905.

Busch recently talked of his involvement as an owner and the decisions he made to help the company become a known leader in death care. He shared these insights with the NFDA’s Memorial Business Journal. Due to copyright issues, involving member’s only publications, I cannot link or post the article on here, however, I’m going to give you some of the advice and wisdom he gave in the article to those still owning and managing funeral homes. And, if you can get a copy of the article, I would suggest you read it.

There’s a lot in the article. I’m going to touch on a few of his thoughts. . . each of with I agree. . . and believe following them can help the success of your funeral home.

On Branding your Business: Busch mentions that the family started with one funeral home and through building and acquisitions at one time had nine in the Cleveland area. Today, they have seven. Here’s what he said of branding, “We did some things that we believe drove this number (increased calls) as hard as it did. We took all the heritage names [off the funeral homes] and branded everything Busch. We took the word ‘funeral’ off of our signs and called it ‘cremation, burial and preplanning.’

Funeral Director Daily take: In a confined area such as a metropolitan area, I believe that is a good move. A family, or descendants, might move around in that metropolitan area but a common brand can keep that family connected to your properties in other parts of the metropolitan area. It also really helps with the scaling of advertising and promotional costs for the brand which in my opinion can overcome the heritage name that was once there.

I’m even of the opinion that Dignity Memorial, in their confined area which is national, would probably prosper with this idea as Century 21 Real Estate or Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate have done as they have taken the heritage names off of their acquisitions/franchisees.

On Meaningful Goodbyes Now: Busch concludes that “delayed goodbyes or services” just don’t happen. With COVID-19 he made sure that his funeral directors helped families plan some type of meaningful goodbye right away. Busch would maintain that the farther out a service was delayed risked the chances of it ever happening. He then opined, “That sets you up for the next death down the road, when mom died during COVID, and those would be the words we’ll hear – we did it this way. That’s our greatest challenge: We need to plan meaningful services. The expertise of funeral directors is more important than ever as well. You need to rise up to the occasion and guide families to explore the new memorial options.”

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: I agree with Mark Busch on this situation as well. Even without COVID, when we had delayed (30 to 120 days from the death) memorial services for cremation disposition deaths they were never as large or as meaningful as when the services were closer to the actual death. It’s just something about the immediacy of death that makes the service within a more shortly confined dating seem more meaningful. We need to continue these “right-timed” services or risk losing them for the next generation.

On Funeral Celebrants: The Busch businesses have had Funeral Celebrants on staff since 2004. Busch commented that they have “Stop(ped) doing the minister/Rolodex thing and find somebody to officiate a service for a family and give them an honorarium.” Busch further commented that when breaking down family surveys they have found higher satisfaction among those families that use a celebrant than a funeral administered by a minister. Finally, Busch said this about the situation, “You will have people come up to you after they experience a celebrant-led funeral and say, ‘I want a funeral like that.’ “I’ve heard it time and time again throughout the course of my career.”

Funeral Director Daily take: This is an area where I don’t have much experience as I’ve always been one to find a minister for an un-churched family. However, I now realize with church membership fast fading among younger generations this might alienate their opinions. Furthermore, many church pastors are so busy with their own church work that, while they will generally look at the chance to evangelize to an un-churched group, they may not be willing or able to put the amount of time and effort into the services as a Funeral Celebrant, concentrating, just on the service may. I think this will be a growing movement in our professional care of the families that we serve.

So, there you have it. We only touched on three topics of the article and Mark Busch talks about more such as demographics, advanced funeral planning, and the hospice environment in the article also. As I said, it was a great read and really interesting to have the mind picked from one who had built a great death care business.

Here is the website for Busch Cremation, Burial, and Preplanning.

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