Employee Incentive Compensation Plans for Funeral Homes

Guest Nelson Thulin joins Funeral X to explain the benefits of Employee Incentive Compensation Plans and what factors should be considered when creating an incentive plan. For more information about the incentive plan for your firm, you can contact Nelson at 480-556-8510 or [e-mail]. See the complete transcript here: Robin Heppell: Welcome back to the Funeral X podcast. I am Rob Heppell and I'm joined today by special guest, Nelson Thulin from Johnson Consulting. Hey there, Nelson. Nelson Thulin: Hello, Rob. Robin Heppell: Hey, great to have you on Funeral X. And as we get going, maybe could you let the folks who are listening know what you do at Johnson Consulting? Nelson Thulin: Sure. In fact, my boss is probably wondering that too. I'm the Director of Business Consulting at one of the divisions within the Johnson Consulting group, and we specifically worked business owners, thought leaders to develop strategies to improve their businesses and hopefully have an impact on funeral service as a whole. Robin Heppell: Cool. Now, I know we'll get into a specific topic in a little bit, but let's dig into you a little bit further. Can you give a little bit more about your background, where you grew up? Nelson Thulin: Yes. In fact, probably what's more meaningful for everybody than whether or not I was born in a log cabin in central Illinois would be my career path has been about 35 years in the making. I started off just working for a mom-and-pop operation with about 100 calls. I ventured on to eventually buy into some funeral homes, built a new funeral home, bought and sold and all that went into that. Eventually found myself within the corporate structure and through a process of multiple mergers and acquisitions I ended up, my management career in funeral service overseeing 15 funeral homes doing about 3,500 funerals a year with about 200 plus employees across the group. So I understand what it means to have a team meeting when there are 2 people and a cup of coffee involved or when there are 40 people in a room and you're trying to explain the newest initiatives. And so I think if anything else, that is my greatest strength is just understanding the variety of different types of businesses that are in funeral service and can relate to them and the employees and everybody that's a stakeholder, so. Robin Heppell: Yes, especially from all those different levels. Hey, Nelson, how did you get introduced to Johnson Consulting? Or when did you make that jump from where you were, I guess in the funeral corporate world to working with Jake? Nelson Thulin: Yes. So as far as Johnson Consulting goes I think if you keep your eyes open and your interest upon funeral service in general, you're going to hear about Johnson Consulting. So over the course of, I guess now I'm at about 36 years in funeral service. And for about 30 of those, you would hear Johnson brought up in varying degrees, whether it was somebody working on a succession planning or a webinar or seminar or something like that. But actually, this month marks five years since I went in with Johnson's salting. I moved out of the corporate world and this opportunity existed and it's been a great utilization of my background. I tell people all the time that I'm basically still doing the job that I did for 18 years prior, because it's still talking about basic principles and how you can improve your operations, how you can impact the workplace and create a better environment for the people that are in that space with you. And of course, taking care of families and providing the highest levels of customer service, all of that I was focused either in my own business or working within the corporate structure for probably 18, 20 years of management now I can bring the bear for people that are looking for that, and maybe don't always have the resources of being a part of a large organization.