By Thomas A. Parmalee
Daniel M. Isard, the founder of The Foresight Companies, is pretty much retired these days and no longer has an equity stake in the company he built.
But when it comes to individuals who helped get funeral home owners to start thinking like business owners – to focus on the numbers – he has to rank right up there at the top.
FuneralVision.com recently took notice when Isard posted on social media about having perhaps given his last talk ever to a group of death-care professionals.
For decades – at least a 30-year span – Isard was an absolute force in the profession, writing several books, numerous pamphlets and handbooks, hosting all sorts of webinars and experimenting with various business ventures along the way. If you’re channel surfing cable TV, you may even see him sharing his wisdom on American Greed, an American documentary television series that focuses on white collar crime. (Isard was interviewed as an expert on the National Prearranged Services preneed insurance scandal.)
We recently caught up with Isard to learn what he’s been doing, what he sees as his legacy and more. Edited excerpts follow.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you’ve been doing since settling into retirement. Do you have kids in funeral service?
I have completed 70 trips around the sun and look forward to more! I am not married but have been in a committed relationship for about a dozen years. I am proud of the two children I have fathered, Phillip (the owner of a company that is the manufacturer of high-end French Fries that are distributed around the country) and Risa (who earned a Ph.D. in sports management and is an assistant professor at UConn) as well as having raised my partner’s two girls, Olivia and Sophia, both working in the medical world. I did not want to push or influence my children and stepchildren to go into the business. If they wanted summer employment, that was one thing, but they did not exhibit the skillset to work in the business.
We heard you may have you given your last speech to a group of death-care professionals. Where was it, what did you talk about … and is it true?
I have nothing lined up beyond the speech I recently gave to the New England Cemetery Association, so I guess I will be ending that chapter of my career. It felt melancholy and proper, going out on a high note. Education was my ministry to this profession. Between the speaking and writing, I hope I influenced many to be better business operators.
You are the author of several books for the death-care profession. Which book do you think is your best and why? Can people still buy them?
I have written four books. They were on business succession, business operations, cremation business practices and preneed. They are not now in print, but the preneed book (“The Complete Preneed Perspective”) is being updated as part of a new mortuary college curricula. It should be available in the next 90 days or so. I will keep you posted when it is available. I liked the process of writing each of the books. They took a lot of effort. None is a favorite – they are all so different in subject matter.
When did you start The Foresight Companies and what was the biggest change you went through as its owner? Did you ever think Foresight would last as long as it has or become as successful as it has?
My background in financial services led me to Phoenix in 1984. The firm that hired me wanted me to help grow the company, so I had to discover a path toward marketing this company. In my first weekend there, I took every corporate client file out of the file cabinets and read through them.
Ironically, they had three funeral homes as clients. Two of the three were making money and the third was not. In contrasting the companies, I could clearly see why the third firm was losing money and the path they needed to take toward profitability. I ultimately began working with this third firm, and they implemented my recommendations for immediate success.
So, I decided this was an underserved market. I reached out to the National Funeral Directors Association and did a seminar for them, which led to a convention address, which led to an encore of the convention address. At the end of the convention, we had almost 100 funeral homes that wanted our help, which led to the death of the firm I had joined, as we grew too fast. So, I created my own company with five clients, and the rest is history.
My vision was always to build Foresight into a company and not a practice. The difference being a practice is generally a one-person enterprise, with some support help but a business had services provided by many following a corporate theme.
The theme was, in 1987, High Technology but High Touch, which resonated with funeral home owners and cemeterians. Fast forward to 2021, we had served more than 3,000 funeral home and 800 cemetery clients and built our staff to about 20. The company evolved during the last 10 years to create a continuity if something happened to me. The culmination of that was the merger with Doug Gober and bringing Chris Cruger on to be the next generation of leadership.
What is your biggest career regret?
In the late 1990s, if a private funeral home owner wanted to go out and acquire another firm (or build a new location), there were limited options for financing. The only provider of “goodwill” financing was a company that was a wholly owned company of SCI. Not to be anti-SCI but borrowing from a company that could acquire you if you default, I thought was like getting a mortgage from your mother-in-law.
I worked to create a lending company with another well-established person, and we raised the money in equity and debt to form Allegiance Capital. In our first year of lending, we issued many loans. Our equity partners were a NASDAQ company that bought out life insurance contracts from those with incurable diseases. The company was located in San Francisco and the bulk of its purchases were from HIV-stricken consumers. That is where the regret set it.
Shortly after we successfully launched Allegiance Capital, the combination cocktail of drugs was discovered to prolong the life of HIV patients. Therefore, their immense portfolio of viatical settlement contracts was now in an unknown status of when they might cash in on these policies. Our investor was suddenly on a path toward bankruptcy. They decided that they were going to “run” Allegiance Capital and made terrible decisions. So, this was my biggest regret in business.
But I converted a lifetime of failures into successes. I failed as a manager of bands, as a stand-up comedienne, I survived two large embezzlements, and learned from each failure. Ultimately, my resiliency was the path toward my successes.
What do you consider your biggest career accomplishment?
I think that is raising the idea that funeral homes are a commercialized business that should have key performance indicators. I don’t think anyone spoke of EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) before me. The profession was still bragging about bronze caskets and adult calls.
How tough was it to find the right people to transition the ownership and operation of Foresight?
I began my personal plan for transition of Foresight about 10 years before the actual transition date. My goal was to take my job description and find who on my staff can do each of the many tasks I did. When there was no one on staff, that was part of the recruiting plan for additional staff.
The big issue was marketing, and Doug Gober is an energy force like no other. He filled that gap. As my partner, he was also instrumental in identifying the chance to bring Chris Cruger on board. I saw Chris’s strong leadership ability immediately, but he has also excelled in marketing Foresight. The growth of Foresight has been through the efforts of them both, but also by Chris setting a paradigm by our professional staff to follow. This guarantees solid service to our clients.
The lesson to any of your readers is this:
1). Know the value of your business. Know the actual value number but also know what brings value to your business. Know what makes you different. Then find the people to promote these points of value.
2) Don’t be afraid to talk with your staff about the owner’s lifetime. If you are afraid to talk about it in advance, and acknowledge it, you are risking your succession and maybe your family’s well-being if you die before a transfer. Everyone in your building should know what your funeral plans are and what the business continuity plan is.
3) If possible, retire early. I always calculated how much a client needed to have before they retired. If you can accumulate that amount before the magical date of retirement, retire early.
In my own case, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, I was planning on retiring at the end of 2021. Chris came to me in December of 2020 and asked if I would move that date up a year, and I said “yes!” I don’t look back one bit.
What has impressed you the most about how Chris and Doug have run the business since you stepped away?
Chris’s vision for Foresight was more transaction focused. He implemented that plan, worked with the existing staff to provide for our clients and marketed successfully to new clients. Doug and he along with all staff have done an exceptional job helping existing and new clients meet their goals. Chris and Doug have also done a fabulous job keeping Foresight’s vision as a thought leader within the profession. Frankly, they have taken Foresight to a level I could not have taken it. I am very proud of their success and accomplishments.
What is the biggest trend or development that more people in funeral service need to pay attention to but are largely ignoring?
I think there are several trends (in no particular order):
1) Focus on what families need you to do. You are a service company not a merchandise selling company.
2) Technology is more important than ever. For internal purposes, communication and paperwork, it is critical. For marketing, it has never been more essential. All funeral homes are not the same. Show consumers how you are different.
3) Staffing and licensure. I am not anti-licensure, but we cannot as a profession focus on the wrong things. We cannot have one combined license for a funeral director and embalmer. These are two different skills. We need people that can talk with consumers and bond with them. More than half of all dead bodies are not embalmed. We need to make it easier to be a funeral professional, not harder.
4) State laws that are outdated. We have state laws that limit who can own a funeral home or how many funeral homes they can own. We have state laws limiting receptions within a funeral home. We have state laws that limit the combination of cemetery and funeral businesses in their states. Funeral homes should be allowed to own crematories.
Do you have any thoughts on Homesteaders Life Company agreeing to take an ownership interest in Park Lawn through an affiliate and Park Lawn’s plan to go private?
I only know what I read on FuneralVision.com and the press in general about the Homesteaders/Park Lawn alliance. However, I would say that we will see more of it. I would also say that it is natural that the money and the operators should be one and the same. I remember when SCI in the 1980s/1990s not only owned funeral homes and cemeteries, but they owned an insurer and a manufacturer. It can confuse the stock markets when that happens. But it makes sense. I think this is common in Mexico and Japan to have these groups.
What do you think your legacy in the funeral profession will be – and does that match what you think it should be?
I have thought much about my legacy with the help of Chris and Doug and my life partner. I have no expectations of a statue in front of NFDA’s headquarters or of being buried in Yankee Stadium. I love my career. It elapsed so quickly!
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