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If you want your business managed thoughtfully
and prudently, you need a CFO.
Diehl-Whittaker Funeral Services
Richard J. Diehl, Owner
Tell us about Diehl-Whittaker.
Diehl-Whittaker is a funeral service
company. My father owned a funeral
home in Youngstown, and back in the early
seventies, the economy in Youngstown—a
steel town—was struggling. He saw the
opportunity to buy a funeral home in
Columbus (Whittaker) that had been
in business since 1905. I took over the
Columbus funeral home in 1973 when
my father passed. My daughter, who was
actually trained as an electrical engineer,
now works with me in the business. When
she takes over someday, she’ll be the
third generation.
How did you connect with
FocusCFO?
We first learned about FocusCFO when
they gave a presentation at the Conway
Center for Family Business in Columbus. I
understood the role of a CFO, but only in
a corporate setting. I didn’t know there
were independent CFOs. My daughter
said “Dad, we need some people like that
to help us out.” We contacted FocusCFO,
and Tom Flynn and Rick Dillon, who
became our dedicated CFO, came out and
met with us to review our needs. On a
personal level, Rick and I clicked right away,
and the meeting was very conversational
and educational.
What were you looking for
in a CFO?
We knew we needed help with financial
controls and accountability. We knew of
other firms—and by the way, most funeral
homes are family owned—where the
owner had died, family or other key people
took over. We wanted to make sure we
had the right systems in place, and we
needed help with our internal accounting,
financial controls, and overall management.
What is FocusCFO’s role in
the company?
Our CFO, Rick Dillon, is part of the staff.
He intimately knows our operations, he
knows our staff, and he is part of the team.
He comes in once or sometimes twice a
week, and he makes himself at home. He
has his own desk, and he and our business
manager work very well together. He also
works with my daughter and helps her to
focus on what she does best, while Rick
focuses on what he does best, although
he also teaches her things to help her
do her job better. Rick works with us on
our budgeting, forecasting, pricing, cost
accounting, and planning.
How has FocusCFO benefited
your organization?
One of the most recent things Rick did
was to find some errors on our tax
returns that went back several years. He
helped us fix those errors. He has also
What would you say to other
helped us with pricing. Our business is
companies of your size about
very competitive—cut-throat, even—and
the impact of your investment in
there are often bootleg funeral shops that
FocusCFO?
open up and undercut the competition.
The public doesn’t care if you make a profit. If someone is apprehensive about hiring
They just want the lowest price. This puts a a CFO, I would say that you have nothing
lot of pressure on us and other businesses. to be apprehensive about. If you want
your business managed thoughtfully and
Understanding the costs of a funeral is
prudently, you need a CFO. I got my MBA
very important, and Rick has helped us to
from Capital University, and I remember
do that. The information that he generates
a professor saying “anybody who doesn’t
for us allows us to determine the right
have adequate financial information is flying
blind.”
price point to be profitable but still be
competitive and remain in business. Also,
it’s hard to have a cash flow forecast in the
funeral business. Some weeks we might
have 10 funerals, some weeks only one, so
we have to gauge where we are daily and
Rick helps us do that.
The two most important things that
FocusCFO has brought to us are timely
information and the ability to manage
effectively.
How is FocusCFO different from
your other business advisors?
The work our CPA does is limited, and
our CFO offers much more. We also had
another CFO who worked offsite, and he
generated reports for us, but they were
not meaningful to me in a management
sense. Rick gives us information that we
can use to better our business.
Having a CFO allows us to fly without
being blind. If you don’t have a firm like
FocusCFO working with you, then your
business plan is to go out of business. My
advice to other business owners who
don’t work with FocusCFO is that you’re
playing with fire.
“
We wanted to make sure we had
the right systems in place, and we
needed help with our accounting,
financial controls, and overall
management.
Our CFO is part of the staff. He
intimately knows our operations,
he knows our staff, and he is part of
the team.
The two most important things that
FocusCFO has brought to us are
timely information and the ability to
manage effectively.
www.FocusCFO.com • 1-855-236-0600 • Offices in central, northeast, and mid-Ohio
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