Kizer and Bender

Kizer and Bender http://www.connectingdirectors.com/members/connectdirectors/blog/VIEW+00000089 2008 NFDA Keynote Speaker en Copyright 2009, Connecting Directors Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:03:19 GMT Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:03:19 GMT The 360 Degree Pass-by http://www.connectingdirectors.com/members/connectdirectors/blog/VIEW+00000089+00000486#00000486 <img src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/blog/00000486.jpg" border=0 vspace=5 hspace=5 align=left> One good thing about being away from your funeral home is that when you return to what’s familiar, you have a fresh perspective.  This time away allows you to see it more clearly through the eyes of our clients. If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times there is no reality in business today, only perception – the customers perception of your funeral home is the only one that counts.  You can have a beautiful facility, caring and knowledgeable staff, the best product, and fair prices BUT the second a client walks in your door and finds something amiss, their perception changes; and usually not for the better.  We all make an unconscious value judgment about the places we visit within the first 10 seconds of contact.  It isn’t fair but it happens.  That’s why you have to constantly be on guard about how your funeral home looks through your clients’ eyes.   How often do you look at your funeral home through the objective eye of the client?  Notice that we said “objective”. You’re not being objective if you look at a tired display and think, “Oh, that display needs to be re-done, but I just don’t have time to do it now.  I can leave it up another week or two.”  No, you can’t.  Clients will look at that display and think less of your funeral home. Ideally, you should do an in-depth tour of your funeral home at least once a month, but to keep things in balance, try our 360 Degree Pass-By each morning before you unlock the doors for business: Begin in the Outside Your Funeral Home Survey the Parking Lot:  Is the parking lot easily accessible?  Are staff members cars parked in the best spaces?  Is the parking lot clean and brightly lit? Size Up the Building Front:  Does your building front require paint or repair?  Is there clutter to be cleaned up?  Have the flowers in your planters seen better days?  Can clients and potential clients easily see your exterior front sign?  If your sign is lit, are all the bulbs in working order?  Are your windows clean? Access the Decompression Zone:  The Decompression Zone is the 5’ to 15’ just inside the front door of your funeral home. Its purpose is to slow down rushed and distracted customers so they can concentrate on the task at hand.  Is your Decompression Zone uncluttered, inviting, and easy to navigate? Now, walk through each public room of your funeral home, this includes offices and other public rooms. Make sure that each room is properly set to reflect the caring professionalism of your funeral home. Inside Your Arrangement Room Work Your Speed Bumps:  Do your Speed Bump displays – small tables or fixtures of hot product placed just beyond the Decompression Zone – need to be straightened or re-stocked?  Work your Speed Bumps – they sell product. Power Wall Ahead: Look Right:  Your main Power Wall is located just inside your arrangement room and to the right.  This is a premium location that is highly visible to clients.  Is this area used to tell a product story?  Is the product displayed there new or high demand items? Are your Power Wall displays set to sell?  Do they need to be straightened, re-stocked or re-merchandised? Review Your Signing:  Does your signing reflect the style of your funeral home?  Can clients easily read your signs?  Is there old signing that needs to be removed? Walk the Aisles:  Clients need to be able to move freely through your selection room.  Is there product blocking the aisles?  Can clients easily maneuver a wheel chair, motorized scooter or stroller down the aisles?  Can two clients easily pass one another throughout the arrangement room? Survey Your Merchandise Presentation:  Are your displays fresh?  Do they encourage clients to stop and look, and entice them to buy?  Are there open areas that need attention?   Blog Sponsors: <a href="http://www.funeralone.com" target="_blank"><img title="funeralone.jpg" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/funeralone.jpg" border="0" alt="funeralone.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.cooperschoffcpa.com" target="_blank"><img title="cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" border="0" alt="cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.farnsworthgowns.com" target="_blank"><img title="farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" border="0" alt="farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" /></a> funeral homefuneral arrangmentskizer and bender Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:18:00 GMT Which Layout is Right For Your Selection Room (Part 2- Merchandising Power Walls) http://www.connectingdirectors.com/members/connectdirectors/blog/VIEW+00000089+00000468#00000468 <img src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/blog/00000468.jpg" border=0 vspace=5 hspace=5 align=left> Walk inside the selection room, stop just past the Decompression Zone, and look to your right at about a 45 degree angle.  The wall you see is called a Power Wall and it's another one of those key merchandising areas.  And because it's the first wall the family will see after turning right, it's a perception builder. If you use this wall and the area on the floor in front of it to house basic product, you are making a costly mistake. Instead, use the Power Wall and surrounding floor space to display new items, to show an ensemble, and to feature high profit items.  Each selection room actually has more than one Power Wall: stand in various places throughout the selection room and look around, the walls that stand out are Power Walls. MAKE THE SELECTION ROOM “ZOOMER” FRIENDLY "Zoomer" is the latest term coined by marketers to describe the 140 million Americans over the age of 50.  People over 50 aren't old; they're in the prime of their lives. They are healthy and happy, and far richer than any other generation. According to Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D, founder and president of Age Wave, as the Baby Boomers pass through their middle years, and on to maturity (the first Boomers turned 60 in 2006!), several key factors will reshape consumer demand.  They may not admit it, but the Zoomers face new physical challenges each and ever day; challenges that businesses must address.  The following checklist lists what's important for you to know: A ZOOMER CHECKLIST: •    Place product at more easily reachable heights. Many customers over the age of 50 will develop arthritis, which can prohibit them from possessing the flexibilities they once had.  If product is placed out of reach in the selection room, too high or too low, remind personnel to respectfully offer a helping hand when needed. •    Presbyopia, a disease that affects our ability to see clearly up close, kicks in at around age 40. Those Zoomers wandering thorough the selection room may be missing signing or key product detail. We recommend placing baskets of reading glasses in various magnifications in the selection room and in other places the family is likely to spend time. •    If large numbers of people need reading glasses, then it's safe to say that large numbers also wear bi-focal glasses. When you wear bi-focals, you have to choose which part of the lenses to look through. The top part helps the wearer see far away, and the bottom helps to see close up. This means that at any given time, merchandise displayed below eye level is out of focus to these customers.  Take a walk through the selection room and see what important product or signing you have housed near the floor that needs to be moved to a higher location on the fixture. •    Pump up the type size currently used on signing, brochures, newsletters, and other point-of-purchase materials. These materials are designed to help family members make a good purchasing decision.  If they can't read the materials, no one wins.  Take a hard look at the signing in the selection room and throughout your funeral home.  Can older eyes easily read what's important about your product?  Can they easily read directional and other important signing? Here's a good rule to follow:  take the average age of your oldest clients and divide it half.  That is the smallest size type font you can use in signing. •    As we age, it gets harder to adapt to different lighting. We've been in too many selling environments that are unbelievably dark.  This makes it tough for anyone to see the merchandise, and tougher still for aging eyes that need 2-3 times more light to see as clearly as younger eyes. Yet, rooms that are too bright can also cause problems for Zoomer customers. If you are not sure where you stand lumen-wise, consider calling in a lighting professional to help you out. •    Interior designers love shiny floors, but shiny floors scream trouble for Zoomers who do not want to risk a fall on what appears to be a slippery surface. When it comes time to replace flooring in your non-carpeted areas, consider one made of a non-slip material. •    Do you have doorknobs or handles? A large percentage of Zoomers suffer from some form of arthritis. It's much easier for them to operate a handle versus a knob. This is a quick fix; door knobs are easy to replace. MAKE IT HAPPEN There are so many ways to improve your selection room through Visual Merchandising. The problem is that we all tend to get tunnel vision.  You get so involved in the day-to-day business of running the funeral home store that you miss the things family members, visitors and potential clients see every day. Before you begin your next selection room change – whether it’s a complex retrofit or the smallest reset – take the blinders off and look at your funeral home through a visitor's eyes.   Blog Sponsored By: <a href="http://www.farnsworthgowns.com" target="_blank"><img title="farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" border="0" alt="farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.cooperschoffcpa.com" target="_blank"><img title="cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" border="0" alt="cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" /></a> merchandisingkizerbenderfuneralhome Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:01:38 GMT Which Layout is Right For Your Selection Room? (Part 1) http://www.connectingdirectors.com/members/connectdirectors/blog/VIEW+00000089+00000464#00000464 <img src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/blog/00000464.jpg" border=0 vspace=5 hspace=5 align=left> In a retail store layout the common goal is to expose customers to product and to gain maximum traffic flow.  In every case, the layout is affected by the shape and size of the available space.The layout that fits most selection rooms is commonly called a Free Flow Layout because it allows the product and fixture placement to determine for the most creativity.  In a Free Flow layout, there are no set aisles or straight lines.  Instead fixturing is placed at angles, encouraging shoppers to easily move throughout the room, where they will find new merchandise displays at every turn.  This layout offers the most flexibility.   If you already have a blueprint of your selection room then you are ahead of the game.  A blueprint will help you determine layout and appropriate locations for merchandise departments.  If you don’t have one, don’t worry!  Get a large piece of paper and draw a schematic of your own.  Measure the sales area, carefully noting all the nuances including columns, doors, etc. Next, mount your schematic to a piece of foam core board, and overlay it with transparent tissue paper.  Now, you will be able to merchandise and re-merchandise your arrangement room on paper before you touch a single fixture. LAKE FRONT PROPERTY Some areas of the selection room are more important than others.  Think of them as prime real estate or lake front property.  As soon as the family walks in the door and through the Decompression Zone, they should be surrounded by merchandise.  This is not the place for desks or racks of brochures.  If you mis-merchandise your lake front property, it can cost your funeral home in sales.  Here are the key areas you need to pay close attention to throughout the selection room: SPEED BUMPS Just past the Decompression Zone (see previous post) you’ll want to place what store planners refer to as Speed Bumps.  These merchandise displays work much the same way as speed bumps in parking lots work – they slow you down.  Speed Bumps capture the family's attention and introduce them to items you don't want them to miss.  Speed Bumps are best used to tell product stories and to feature new items. ATTENTION: RIGHT TURN AHEAD We American's shop the way we drive, so we have a tendency to turn right when we enter a room.  So unless there is something peculiar about your selection room that causes you to enter and move to the left, your clients will do the same thing.  In fact, 90 percent of people will move to the right. That’s why it’s so important to properly to merchandise the front right side of the selection room with care.   selection roomkizer and benderfuneralindustry Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:52:52 GMT Inside The Front Door and The Decompression Zone http://www.connectingdirectors.com/members/connectdirectors/blog/VIEW+00000089+00000452#00000452 <img src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/blog/00000452.jpg" border=0 vspace=5 hspace=5 align=left> I hope that you had a wonderful new year. Here at ConnectingDirectors.com we are continuing to stay on the cutting edge, we have laid out our goals for the year and I truly believe we are poised to revolutionize the funeral industry. Big things we do have planned!! I am sure you are making out goals for your funeral home and also personal goals for the year of 2009. The following blog post from Kizer and Bender will walk you through the importance of what is right inside your front door. I bet you never knew just how important the first 15' inside your front really is.   INSIDE THE FRONT DOOR The first thing clients will notice inside your funeral home is your décor package;  we say package because all of the elements – walls, flooring, furniture, art, primary and accent colors, fixturing, signing, etc., must work together to tell a single story. There are two kinds of colors used in business and store décor: Primary Colors (neutrals) and Secondary Colors (accent colors).  Primary colors are used in 80% of the décor to create a relaxed atmosphere; Accent Colors are used in 20% of the décor to add interest.  Think of accent colors as accessories. THE DECOMPRESSION ZONE It’s important to note that people tend to enter buildings at the same speed they were moving in the parking lot. This means that many clients are rushed and distracted when they walk in your door.  You need to give them the opportunity to slow down and refocus.  That's the job of the Decompression Zone. The Decompression Zone is the space that's located just inside the front door of your funeral home.  The size of your Decompression Zone will depend upon the size of your funeral home, but it's generally the first 5' to 15' inside the front door.  Its purpose is to give the family a chance to transition from whatever happened outside in the parking lot, to what lies ahead for them once inside.  If you watch clients enter your funeral home, you will likely see them enter the door and pause in your Decompression Zone before deciding where to go next. In most retail spaces there is only one Decompression Zone; however, your funeral home actually has several.  Every room that people spend time in will have a Decompression Zone.  After your front door, the Decompression Zone in your selection room is probably the most important.  Again, its size will depend upon the size of the selection room, but keep that first 5' to 15' inside the door in mind.  The selection room Decompression Zone is meant to help the family refocus on the task at hand. The Decompression Zone needs to be open, inviting and easy to navigate.  Understand that the family will miss anything placed here, that's why the Decompression Zone is not the ideal place for displays or signing.  Instead place these items just past the Decompression Zone where the family is more likely to see them.   Blog Sponsors: <a href="http://www.farnsworthgowns.com" target="_blank"><img title="farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" border="0" alt="farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.cooperschoffcpa.com" target="_blank"><img title="cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" border="0" alt="cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" /></a> <a href="mailto:jreilly@funeralhomes.com?subject=Please contact me for additional information regarding FuneralHomes.com (via ConnectingDirectors)"><img title="HorzbannerforCD.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/HorzbannerforCD.gif" border="0" alt="HorzbannerforCD.gif" /></a>   Wanna get noticed? Advertiser with ConnectingDirectors.com. <a href="mailto:ryan@connectingdirectors.com">Click Here to email for more info.</a> funeral industrykizerbendertips Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:14:02 GMT Kizer and Bender: Perceptions Begin in The Parking Lot http://www.connectingdirectors.com/members/connectdirectors/blog/VIEW+00000089+00000444#00000444 <img src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/blog/00000444.jpg" border=0 vspace=5 hspace=5 align=left> Did you know that buying decisions are being made in your parking lot?  Did you realize that family members are judging your funeral home before they ever step one foot inside? Your parking lot is often the first impression families receive when visiting your funeral home.  Walk outside and take a look at yours:  Is it easily accessible?  Do staff members park in prime places meant for clients?  Is the parking lot clean and well lit? Will families feel safe visiting your funeral home at night? Make the best first impression possible with bright lighting, clearly marked parking spaces, and a smooth surface to walk on.  You may also want to add a wheelchair ramp. EXTERIOR SIGNING Even the most expensive exterior signing won't do you any good if families and potential clients cannot see or read them.  Take a look at your exterior signing and ask yourself these questions: •    Are each of your exterior signs positioned in the best places for visibility? •    If you have internally illuminated or neon signs, are they well lit and in good repair?     Have you checked or replaced the bulbs recently? •    Does your sign work well with your funeral home's architecture? And most     importantly, is it easy to read? •    Does your exterior signing match what clients will find inside your funeral home?          Make sure that your exterior signing ties in with your interior signing. Use the same     type fonts, logos, etc.   Blog Sponsored By: <a href="mailto:jreilly@funeralhomes.com?subject=Please contact me for additional information regarding FuneralHomes.com (via ConnectingDirectors)"><img title="HorzbannerforCD.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/HorzbannerforCD.gif" border="0" alt="HorzbannerforCD.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.cooperschoffcpa.com" target="_blank"><img title="cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" border="0" alt="cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.farnsworthgowns.com" target="_blank"><img title="farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" border="0" alt="farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" /></a> funeralhomeindustrykizerbender Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:50:52 GMT Funeral Industry: How to Help Your Product Sell Itself - Part 2 - "Hot Spot" Cross Merchendising http://www.connectingdirectors.com/members/connectdirectors/blog/VIEW+00000089+00000435#00000435 <img src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/blog/00000435.gif" border=0 vspace=5 hspace=5 align=left> Every section of every fixture has what's called a "Hot Spot Cross" – the part of the fixture that sells the best.  This is a good thing, because we all have a tendency to stop at the center of the category, and the Hot Spot silently points out important merchandise.   To locate the Hot Spot in any fixture, simply draw an imaginary cross through the center of the fixture.  Incidentally, when you display several different brands, categories or themes on the wall, each one will have a Hot Spot. Remember this: "Hot Spot and one to the right." Since most people will reach for product with their right hand, the position just to the right of the center of the cross is an equally hot display area. Use this space to display new items, and to energize classic product that might be suffering from sagging sales. USE A VARIETY OF SHELF HEIGHTS If your displays are all set at the same height then you are likely putting clients to sleep.  A monotonous line of items displayed at the same level around the perimeter of the selection room is boring. Vary the display heights when you can to highlight product and get the customer's attention. In addition to exposing customers to more of your product assortment, a variety of heights will help you better manage your display space. VISUAL CURVE MERCHANDISING Visual Curve Merchandising involves the use of slanted shelves or fixturing to increase the customer's visual strike zone – the amount of product a client sees in just one glance.  Look at the different areas of your selection room. Do you have interesting product laying flat on straight shelves? If you do, most people will miss this product as they peruse the selection room. Slanted shelving is a better choice for registration, guest and memory books. FUNERAL HOME SPACE PLANNING Your clients make a value judgment based on their first 10 seconds inside your funeral home. What does your front entrance say to family members, visitors and other potential clients?  Keep in mind that sensory signals (sight, sound, smell, touch and taste) play a role in the client’s perception.  A friendly hello does, too. This value judgment – perception – is completely based on physical surroundings. As your clients move through your funeral home these first impressions continue to happen each time they enter a new space.  Your selection room is one place you want the first impression – perception – to be a good one.  If clients move throughout the selection room without touching product, reading signs, or buying something, your selection room needs merchandising attention.  Put the science of shopping techniques to work for you. Website:  <a href="http://www.kizerandbender.com" target="_blank">http://www.kizerandbender.com</a> Retail Adventures in the REAL World™ Blog:  <a href="http://www.kizerandbender.blogspot.com" target="_blank">http://www.kizerandbender.blogspot.com</a> Blog Sponsored By: <a href="http://www.farnsworthgowns.com" target="_blank"><img title="farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" border="0" alt="farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" /></a> <a href="mailto:jreilly@funeralhomes.com?subject=Please contact me for additional information regarding FuneralHomes.com (via ConnectingDirectors)"><img title="HorzbannerforCD.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/HorzbannerforCD.gif" border="0" alt="HorzbannerforCD.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.cooperschoffcpa.com" target="_blank"><img title="cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" border="0" alt="cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" /></a> kizerbenderfuneralhome Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:02:50 GMT Funeral Industry - How to Help Your Product Sell Itself: Part 1 "Vertical Merchandising" http://www.connectingdirectors.com/members/connectdirectors/blog/VIEW+00000089+00000431#00000431 <img src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/blog/00000431.gif" border=0 vspace=5 hspace=5 align=left> There is an art to presentation and display, but there is also a science. Certain areas of your selection room sell better than others.  If you have ever gone to a store to make a single purchase, but left with several items, you too have fallen victim to the science of shopping.  As consumers, we are trained to shop, to grab a cart and spend quality time in a store. And retailers have learned to set their sales floor to their advantage, silently directing shoppers to specific areas and product.  Although, your use of these same will be far more subtle, they can be utilized in your funeral home as well.       Funeral Industry - How to Help Your Product Sell Itself: Part 1 "Vertical Merchandising" By: Kizer and Bender   Our goal is to help you merchandise your displays using tried and true store planning and visual merchandising techniques.  The fact that consumers have been trained to shop can work to your advantage, as long as you use techniques that your clients are used to seeing.  An urn layout, for example, will look less foreboding if it is merchandised in a familiar manner. Merchandise will sell itself when product displays are well done, but when they are not, even the best product can sit, overlooked time and again by clients. The purpose of your product displays and selection room design is not merely to look pretty, their purpose is to create an environment that makes clients feel comfortable, entices them to spend time in the selection room, and encourages them to purchase impulsively while they are there. It’s a tall order, but it’s easier than you might think.  This article includes visual merchandising techniques to help you set your arrangement room to sell. VERTICAL MERCHANDISING There are two ways retailers merchandise product that is set on shelves or hung on a wall – horizontally and vertically. If you choose a horizontal presentation you make it harder for clients to easily see your product selection.  For the sake of demonstration, let's say that you have a 4-foot section of slatwall with four shelves, and you have four different products to display in this space.  If you choose a horizontal presentation, placing just one type of product per shelf, then you severely limit the amount of items clients are likely to see as they scan a shelf.  If they only glance at the second shelf, they will only see that particular product. A vertical presentation is almost always your best bet. Any time you display product vertically, you expose the customer to a greater variety of the assortment at any eye level. And since we are naturally inclined to read from left to right, Vertical Merchandising encourages purchases because it exposes clients to a greater variety of your assortment at any eye level.   This post is Part 1 of a series of posts from Kizer and Bender. They have presented their funeral industry specific keynotes and seminars at many industry functions since 2005, most recently at NFDA 2008.  They have also consulted for industry companies including Wilbert Funeral Services, Inc.  and Paws and Remember.  Their mission with Wilbert was to use the science of shopping to create merchandise displays that help product sell itself. Some of the upcoming blog post include topics like: <ul> <li>"Hot Spot Cross Merchandising"</li> <li>Visual Curve Merchandising</li> <li>Which Layout is Right for your Selection Room?</li> <li>Make the Selection Room "Zoomer" Friendly</li> <li>Perceptions Begin in the Parking Lot</li> <li>Inside the Front Door</li> <li>The Decompression Zone</li> </ul> Kizer and Bender have also provided two important exercises funeral professionals (you) can do in your own businesses. Please help me in welcoming Kizer and Bender to Connecting Directors!! Feel free to leave questions for them in the comments or you can visit <a href="http://www.kizerandbender.com" target="_blank">www.kizerandbender.com</a> where you can contact them and find out more information about who they are. The RSS feed for the Kizer and Bender Guest Blog has also been added to our mobile site <a href="http://connectingdirectors.mofuse.mobi" target="_blank">http://connectingdirectors.mofuse.mobi</a>, so there in no excuss for not reading the ConnectingDirectors.com blogs, even on the go!! Thank you to Kizer & Bender for guest blogging and big thanks to our sponsors for making it possible to offer amazing helpful resources like Kizer and Bender! Blog Sponsors: <a href="mailto:jreilly@funeralhomes.com?subject=Please contact me for additional information regarding FuneralHomes.com (via ConnectingDirectors)"><img title="HorzbannerforCD.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/HorzbannerforCD.gif" border="0" alt="HorzbannerforCD.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.cooperschoffcpa.com" target="_blank"><img title="cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" border="0" alt="cooperschoffcpa400x75.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.farnsworthgowns.com" target="_blank"><img title="farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" src="http://www.connectingdirectors.com/l1/connectdirectors/appdata/hp/admin/farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" border="0" alt="farnsworthgowns375x75.gif" /></a> funeral industrykizerbendernfdaconnectingdirectors2008 Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:42:18 GMT