Sometimes we make the process of gaining business or market share more complicated than it has to be.  We pay for focus groups and surveys and hiring marketing companies to tell us how to grow our businesses.  All of those methods can help and paying experts in those fields to do just that is many times worth the money paid.

However, I find it interesting that when the world’s biggest company executives and financiers met at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland last week that one of the most common words used to tell how to earn business in today’s political, cultural, and economic climate was “Trust”.

Here’s an article on the WEF from Yahoo Finance that, in a way, portrays that topic.  When writing on what he learned at the WEF, Yahoo Finance Morning Brief editor Brian Sozzi put this as his number one answer:  “Don’t compromise your values as a leader”.

Doing some research on the subject of “Trust in Business” I came across this 2024 analysis by Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) about findings on a “Trust in Business” survey.  One of PwC’s statements in the analysis stated this:  “Consider that 90% of business executives think customers highly trust their companies while only 30% of consumers actually do.”

PwC also made this comment which points out why trust is so important in the perception of your business:  “Trust:  Consumers buy it, employees feel it, and investors demand it”.  Most funeral homes don’t have outside investors, but that statement weighs at least a ton when a funeral home owner realizes how being “trustworthy” moves consumers and employees in their positive perception of the business.

A Newton’s Cradle

We are in 2025 and for about a quarter of a century I’ve felt like America lives in a “Newton’s Cradle” world.  A Newton’s Cradle is the device you see above whereby the concept of energy transfer is shown by the silver balls on either end moving to the extremes while the three middle positioned balls do not move at all.   My take is that the Conservative position is one extreme and the Liberal position is the other extreme. . . . In American politics over the past quarter-century we have seen the extremes move while the vast majority of Americans remain still in their views of moderaton represented by the three silver balls in the middle that don’t move at all.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

One of the casualties of this political reality is that many businesses have moved in a direction, back and forth, when they feel the situation will benefit them.  The easiest way to see this is with social media companies who have moved their rules and restrictions back and forth depending on who is the resident of the White House.

I think in furthering the point of “Trust”, those media companies lose the trust of consumers because of that seeming chase of approval by the party in power.  That comment is actually made in the above-linked Yahoo Finance article.

I also think that that ever-changing philosophy is easily seen by consumers who then lose faith, loyalty, and trust in those companies.  That’s when a switch to another provider of choice may happen.

Like the graphic leading off this article, I think local funeral homes that want to build their business need to exhibit the values of:

• Integrity
• Consistency
• Sincerity
• Reliability
• Competence
• Commitment

It’s my opinion that those funeral establishments and Death Care suppliers that operate in a field of consistently being ethical, sincere, and trustworthy will be the companies that stand-out to their eventual consumers as the company that those consumers will choose.  It’s a process of playing the “long game” where others without this “authenticity” may win a little business in the short-run but never win in the long-haul because of their shifting of values.

Finally, when you look at some of the longevity in years, decades, and centuries, of some family-owned funeral homes this reality is probably already pretty well-known in our profession.

Related:  Here’s a quote from the Edelman Trust Barometer:

“Our work has proven that an organization’s ability to succeed or fail is defined by trust in their mission and leadership, and our industry-leading research explains why.”

Related Article:  “Standing out in a world where trust is in short supply”.  The Rough Notes Company

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