Brett Schwartz, Co-Owner, Vice President and Funeral Director of Goldsteins’ Rosenberg’s Raphael-Sacks Funeral Home, belongs to a five-generation family in the funeral industry. His great-great-grandfather established Morris Rosenberg Furnishing Undertaker in 1877.
Goldsteins’ Rosenberg’s Raphael-Sacks provides funeral and cremation services as well as veteran services, transportation out of state, memorial services and more. Schwartz helps families plan a meaningful funeral that respects their wishes while honoring tradition. He guides families through the funeral arrangements and provides emotional support.
Schwartz has observed significant changes in the funeral industry including the increase in interfaith marriages and requests for cremation. Today, the company focuses on assisting more people with funeral pre-arrangements, a service that families consider a valuable gift.
Schwartz holds a B.A. in Business Management with a minor in Insurance from Penn State University and an A.S. in Mortuary Science from the Gupton-Jones College of Funeral Service.
Please tell us a little bit about your business – what is Goldsteins’ Rosenberg’s Raphael-Sacks Funeral Home all about?
To our knowledge, Goldsteins’ Rosenberg’s Raphael Sacks is the oldest funeral home primarily serving the Jewish community. We provide funeral, pre-arrangement, and cremation services for people of all faiths. We strive for excellence in everything we do to serve the needs of our families and ensure that the experience of saying a final farewell to their loved ones helps ease the burden of grief. We currently have two locations in the Philadelphia area and one in Southern New Jersey. It is a family business that was established nearly 150 years ago.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company.
I am a fifth-generation funeral director. My great-great-grandfather, Morris Rosenberg, started his funeral home in 1877. Later, his son Judah followed in his father’s footsteps and began working with his father. Judah’s daughter Jane married my grandfather, Bernard Schwartz, who had been attending law school at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, he became a funeral director and joined the family business. 1958 Morris Rosenberg Furnishing Undertakers merged with another local funeral home, Raphael-Sacks. My father, Harry, later became a licensed funeral director as well. In 1992, Goldsteins’, a very large funeral home in Philadelphia, merged with our family business to become Goldsteins’ Rosenberg’s Raphael-Sacks. It was in the early 2000s that I joined the business after graduating from Penn State University and Gupton-Jones College of Funeral Service. I later became a Vice President and Co-owner.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
- You must to be motivated. You have to find your “why” and never lose sight of it, like a guiding star when you are lost in the wilderness. You must connect with what you are doing. Understanding “how” you work allows you to figure out what you are best suited for and to share that “why” with people. It’s not easy and you may have more than one why in your lifetime. It’s not enough to succeed, your motivation for what’s next is what sets you apart from others.
- The ability to be willing to fail is critical because you will fail. There will always be setbacks, bumps in the road, and growing pains, but it is your responses to those issues that arise that will determine your progress. You have to fail in order to learn what is the right path for you and your company.
- Remaining humble is key. It does not matter how old you are or how much experience you have. You must be willing to admit that you do not know everything and that there is always room for improvement. As I try to tell my six-year-old son, always try to be better tomorrow than you were today.
What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company?
The funeral industry is one of, if not the oldest profession; in many ways, what we do has not changed in hundreds of years. On the business side of Goldsteins’ Rosenberg’s Raphaël-Sacks, there are things we can update. As the self-proclaimed “techie” of the firm, I always seek opportunities to streamline the business and make us more efficient. Better ways to securely store data and access the information is one of the many ways.
In terms of growth, I see a number of areas to focus on. First, pre-arranged funerals equals guaranteed future business, and I want to secure as much of the local market as possible.
Overall, I believe that by expanding our services and educating our families, we can continue to grow and evolve as a funeral home while still maintaining the values and traditions that have made us successful for over 100 years. Typically, we are known in the community as a “Jewish funeral home.” While we have primarily serviced the Jewish community of Philadelphia and the surrounding areas, we are a “funeral home” first. We are able to serve all faiths and ethnicities, including interfaith families. This includes a focus on cremation, which has grown in popularity and will only continue to grow in the years to come.
Lastly, I would like to expand our current footprint. We maintain our location on N. Broad St. in Philadelphia, as well as our Suburban North location in Southampton, Bucks County, PA. Still, I would like to see locations in surrounding counties such as Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester, as well as Southern New Jersey.
How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business?
Sadly, that was an extremely busy time for our funeral home. For us, there was no lockdown. Of course, we needed to adapt and modify how we conducted business and the services we offered. We began to do most work over the phone and via email, adopting services such as DocuSign.
Zoom became a mainstay for funerals as well because attendance became so limited. There were times you went to a cemetery for a funeral, and you were the only one there. It was you, an iPad, and a tripod. I think that the worst aspect of the pandemic was telling people they could not see their loved ones again, even though they may not have been able to see them for some time.
Safety was priority number one, and for much of the pandemic, we felt like we were flying blind and doing the best we could. Since the pandemic, we have continued to offer services such as online consultations, electronic signatures, and streaming because this is what people have come to expect.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
We have a long history of helping people at a very difficult time. I like to think that we offer people a sense of warmth, empathy, and compassion. But just as important, we provide professionalism, experience, and after-care support. For many funeral homes, their involvement ends with the funeral service and burial, but we have always been here for our families to help with grief support, follow-up, and assistance when needed.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
I entered the business thinking I knew everything and thought I would change the world. While I quickly learned that this was not the case, I believe I bring innovative business and marketing ideas. My delivery was, unfortunately, immature and lacked respect for those who came before me. I was ignorant about their views and experience as well as their successes and failures that brought them to this point.
I also waited to be trained or taught, and when I wasn’t, I chose not to try to acquire the knowledge on my own but rather adopt the mindset that if it was not important to show me the way, then it was not important for me to learn it. I would also say that while I eventually learned and grew better at my trade, it would be a long time before I had even an inkling of what it meant to be a business owner and what the business end even looked like. Today, I have more confidence and experience to fall back on, allowing me to look at the solution rather than a problem.
Tell us a little about your marketing process; what has been your most successful form of marketing?
The best forms of marketing for funeral homes have always been your community connections, coupled with word of mouth. I am not saying that other forms of marketing and advertising are not important, but connecting with people, serving them, and having them tell others is critical. That said, the ways we connect have changed over the years, where once upon a time, local organizations and weekly meetings were a source of business. Today, people are looking towards all types of digital communications. We utilize our website to host service information and obituaries, social media to communicate that funeral directors are human, google ad words for those searching for our services, and email blasts for existing families. We still use traditional direct mail and support local organizations’ fundraising efforts through sponsorships.
What have been your biggest challenges, and how did you overcome them?
I would always say that I am my own worst enemy. I have never been overly self-motivated and am rather ADD/OCPD, which makes for a perfect storm of working issues. My inability to multitask and focus makes it difficult to crank out work at an adequate pace at times. As I said before, you should always try to be better tomorrow than you were today, and that’s what I do. I am always seeking out ways to better myself. Therapy is very helpful. Tools such as the reMarkable 2 have been useful as well. Oh, I am also a terrible typist. That is what it is at this point, but I am ok with it…for the most part.
What was your first business idea, and what did you do with it?
When I was in mortuary school in Atlanta, GA, I was very interested in moving there and opening multiple Rita’s Water Ice franchises there. They had barely left the Philadelphia market then, so it seemed like a great opportunity. I was too scared to take the risk, which was likely a blessing in disguise as the locations that did open there, failed and closed.
Later I broke the cardinal rule of going into business with a close friend. The ideas ranged from beer pong to a discount program for students, social media marketing, and even a QR code program. They all seemed to have potential but failed miserably. This would ultimately be the demise of the friendship as well. Although it really was for the best, it would be one of the more difficult times in my life.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
Personally, I am learning to be more efficient in my work environment and succeed despite my ADD/OCPD issues. I always have known I had ADD on some level, but OCPD is a newer realization and another struggle to overcome. That said, having this new knowledge brings a different perspective to the game and allows me to better understand why I am the way that I am and what I can do to compensate.
I also recently had an epiphany about the word should. Frankly, I think it’s awful and am trying to avoid using it. For example, other people can multitask. Their brains are able to focus on multiple items at once vs. having to give 100% attention to one task. My brain “should” be able to do the same. In reality, some people are just able to do what I cannot, and this is ok. On a professional level, my saying that the business “should” be a certain way is not necessarily correct. It’s just my vision of it. “Should” essentially implies there is only one correct answer.
If you started your business again, what things would you do differently?
I would know much more about business ownership than just the trade. I would also surround myself and my company with people better suited to aid me in operating and growing my business. We are really trained and licensed funeral directors running a company, but we are now working with consultants to improve other aspects of the business, such as operations, human resources, marketing, etc.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
- Grammarly: I tend to be a very fluffy writer and Grammarly helps me whittle down my wordy writing and ensures my punctuation is on point.
- DocuSign: Post-pandemic, more than half of the families we serve choose to work with us via phone and email, even when preparing for the inevitable in advance. We use DocuSign for all of our e-signature needs because it is simple, straight forward, and many people are already familiar with it.
- Hootsuite: An old-school profession calls for a simple solution regarding social media management. Hootsuite is a great solution for all of your social media marketing needs.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
Turn off those little red badges on your phone. For many of us, seeing those red indicators on an app icon compels us to open that app to see what we’re missing. Suddenly, what was supposed to be a quick glance at your email, becomes 30 minutes down the Instagram rabbit hole.
Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs?
Atomic Habits by James Clear – Sometimes to have a big impact, a lot of very small changes to a number of things over time is exactly what you need to be successful. Let this book be your guide.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
I have a passion for horology and watches. I would spend a few dollars building a website and buy some watches with the rest. I would sell those watches for a profit and reinvest those profits to buy more and better watches to resell.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
My desire is to help people. I have always had an innate, strong urge to help people. Whether it’s family, friends, acquaintances, or complete strangers, I usually do if I see that I can help. Knowing that every day, I am in some way helping a grieving family cope with the loss of a loved one is deeply satisfying and fulfilling.
What is your favorite quote?
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.
– Eleanor Roosevelt
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
Every day is a new day and a new call to action. There will never be a perfect time to start your business. There will always be something…some obstacle. Take that first step, no matter how large or small, and keep moving forward. I will say that starting when you’re younger can certainly be advantageous, but do not let your age stop you.
Who should we interview next and why?
Edward Sullivan
CEO & Managing Partner of Velocity Coaching
Co-author of Leading With Heart
For the last 25 years, he has traveled the world coaching political leaders, Fortune 500 executives, and start-up CEO’s. He has had a fascinating career and is one hell of a great guy.
What is your definition of success?
They say if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. That certainly sounds like success to me.
How do you personally overcome fear?
Well, what is fear?
FALSE
EVIDENCE
APPEARING
REAL
How can readers get in touch with you?
I am always available to speak with others about the funeral industry via GoldsteinsFuneral.com or info @ GoldsteinsFuneral.com.
Remembering that most of the time, there is nothing to be truly afraid of is definitely helpful. It’s also comforting to note that in a study by Cornell University, 85% of what people worry about never actually happens. Furthermore, for the other 15%, people addressed issues that did happen 79% of the time and even learned from their experience. In the end, this too shall pass…
