Inside the Power of Community: Why Funeral Home Leaders Are Leaning Into Peer Groups

Barbara Welch didn’t hesitate when I asked her about the value of being part of Selected Independent Funeral Homes.

“I wish I had found Selected earlier,” she said. “There isn’t a problem I have that someone else can’t solve.”

That sentence hit like a hammer. In an industry where owners and directors often operate in their own silos—head down, phones glued to their ears, living in the grind—that kind of support is rare. And powerful.

This Is More Than a Networking Group

If you think associations are just about annual conventions, chicken dinners, and shaking hands in the hotel lobby, you’re missing the point.

What Barbara described isn’t networking. It’s masterminding. Real problem-solving in real time with people who actually get it.

Through Selected’s forums, study groups, and roundtables, she can drop a question into a thread and get a dozen answers from top operators across the country in minutes. Not weeks. Not buried in email chains. Minutes.

“I can ask a question that might feel dumb to me, but to them, it’s easy. And they give me answers I can use tomorrow.”

That’s operational gold.

Collective Brains. Individual Businesses.

Here’s the truth: No one funeral home has all the answers anymore.

• Cremation rates are climbing.
• Staffing expectations are shifting.
• Consumers want speed, options, and experience.
• Tech isn’t optional anymore.

Trying to figure it all out on your own is how good operators get left behind.

Study groups flip the script. One owner might have a killer approach to creative benefits packages. Another has solved night-call burnout. Someone else cracked the code on cremation service upsells. You walk away with playbooks you didn’t have to write yourself.

This is collective intelligence at work.

Vulnerability Is the Cheat Code

Barbara didn’t sugarcoat it. She said these groups only work when people show up ready to be real.

“I’ve heard the word ‘vulnerable’ a lot today. We talk about financials. We lay out problems. It’s real-world problem solving.”

That level of openness doesn’t happen in a trade show booth. It happens in tight-knit circles of owners who know they’re not competing with each other—they’re fighting the same fight.

And here’s the kicker: it’s not just for the big players. Whether you’ve got 10 rooftops or one, a team of 100 or just you and a handful of staff, the power of collective thinking levels the playing field.

When one person in the group figures something out, everyone wins.

The Pace of Change Isn’t Slowing Down

The profession’s slow pace is over. Cremation isn’t “the future”—it’s the now. Consumers aren’t waiting for us to catch up.

That’s why what Barbara shared matters. Access to a trusted group of problem solvers can be the difference between growing and just surviving.

• You can’t outwork this wave.
• You have to outthink it.
• And the fastest way to do that is to plug into people who’ve already solved what you’re struggling with.

This is what the next era of independent funeral service looks like: shared intelligence, not isolated hustle.

A Network That Actually Works

Barbara joined Selected in 2016. She’s still talking about how it changed the game for her business. That says something.

“It’s where I want to be with my family-owned independent mortuary.”

This isn’t about selling memberships. It’s about recognizing the shift happening right under our feet. The most successful operators in death care are no longer the loudest—they’re the best connected.

The Takeaway

If you’re running an independent funeral home and trying to figure it all out alone, you don’t have to.

Plug into a mastermind. Join a study group. Get in rooms where problems are being solved at the speed of text messages. Because the next decade of funeral service will belong to the people who collaborate faster than everyone else.

Learn more about Selected Independent Funeral Homes: https://www.selectedfuneralhomes.org/

Funeral Director Daily tries to provide some type of coverage for everybody.  This month’s Top 5 most read articles seem to give credence to that effort.  Our readers chose articles that deal with a diversity of topics — from bankruptcy to consumer groups suggestions to selling your funeral home.

We also bring articles that deal with the growing realization that technology is becoming a bigger and bigger topic among funeral homes and their clientele.  Here are the Top 5 read articles from June 15 through July 15:

1. Catholic Diocese of Fresno, California files for bankruptcy. . .says cemeteries and preneed will not be affected.
2. Consumer group calls for “cutting out the funeral director as “middleman” on direct cremations.
3. So, you’re selling your funeral home . . . . .and moving into retirement.
4. Memoria aims to be the “technology disrupter” of Death Care.
5. Acquisitions, equity funding, new funeral homes . . .The nexus between technology and traditional continues

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

Johnson Consulting Group’s Volume 8 of the Performance Tracker X Trends and Insights Report Now Available

[Scottsdale, Arizona]: Johnson Consulting Group (JCG) has officially released their Volume 8, 2025 Performance Tracker X Trends and Insights Report, Powered by J3Tech Solutions. 

Performance Tracker X is the complete customer service management tool that evaluates staff and financial performance by sending out surveys to families to get real-time, accurate feedback for a funeral business to make data-driven decisions. 

Each year JCG analyzes every survey that goes through their system to determine what today’s families need and where the profession is headed. Of 135,100 total contracts entered into the system in 2024, they analyzed 113,921 sales and survey data records.  

Some key takeaways from their recent findings include:

• Survey response results: 9.5% of completed surveys generate actionable leads, with an average response rate of 36.7%. This is a total of 5,433 leads generated in 2024. 

• ICPs increase revenue and satisfaction: Per the data, Incentive Compensation Programs do boost revenue and customer satisfaction.

• Cremation is gaining ground: All cremation case types have higher customer satisfaction scores than any burial case types, indicating a shift in family preferences. This could also suggest an exceptional effort being put forth by funeral professionals to enhance customer satisfaction for cremation families.

• Low NPS (Net Promoter Score) for pre-planning: Pre-planned funeral arrangements have the lowest NPS score compared to other reasons for choosing a funeral home.

The report is available to download for FREE.

“It has been said that…If you take care of the families, they will take care of you!…To this end, it’s a privilege to annually present this critical report to our profession,” says Jake Johnson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Johnson Consulting Group. “The customer experience remains central to every facet of funeral service, and this report offers invaluable insights for owners and operators, providing a comprehensive understanding of the evolving priorities of today’s families.”

About Johnson Consulting Group and Performance Tracker X: 

The JCG Performance Tracker X tool provides funeral homes, cemeteries, and cremation operations with timely, accurate measurements of customer service and sales performance. Through sending out surveys that allow for direct family feedback, the software offers comprehensive reporting that shows business owners what they are doing well and identifying the areas that need fine-tuning and improvements to increase enterprise value and profitability.

Johnson Consulting Group started its customer survey program in 2008 with continual improvement key to its success as a premier customer survey platform in the funeral space. This growing amount of survey data has proven invaluable for providing insight into customer needs and satisfaction. The company attributes its rapid growth based on its ability to offer the program with no contract to sign, a low monthly cost and accessibility to its experienced Consultants for interpretation and usefulness of the reports.