What This Role Looks Like Day-to-Day

The Counselor's Study — The Family Service Counselor

Theory is important, but you need to see what this actually looks like in practice. So let's pull back the curtain on the day-to-day life of a Family Service Counselor.

Some Family Service Counselors are full-time. Some are part-time, splitting time across two or three locations. Some are contract. What they all share is a presence in the community that goes beyond the funeral home walls. They show up at BNI meetings and networking events. They volunteer at senior health fairs. They attend church socials — not with a stack of brochures, but as a neighbor.

Here's what a typical week might look like for a Family Service Counselor:

Monday: Morning check-in with the funeral director. Review any families from the weekend who might benefit from follow-up. Afternoon: Visit with the activities director at a local senior living community to plan a "Getting Your Affairs in Order" lunch-and-learn.

Tuesday: Attend a BNI networking breakfast. Not to pitch — to listen, connect, and be the person people think of when funeral planning comes up. Afternoon: Follow up with a family from last month's community event who expressed interest in pre-need planning.

Wednesday: Partner visit with the local hospice liaison. Share updates, ask how you can support their families better. This isn't a sales meeting — it's a collaboration meeting.

Thursday: Host a pre-need informational session at the funeral home. Coffee, cookies, and a warm conversation about planning ahead. No pressure, no applications on the table — just answers to honest questions.

Friday: Attend a Rotary Club lunch. Administrative work: update the CRM, note relationship milestones, plan the next two weeks of community touchpoints.

Notice What's Missing

Spectrum

Visualize scales and ranges from "What This Role Looks Like Day-to-Day" with interactive spectrum

Concept

Planning Phase

Calendar

Look at that week again. Notice what's not there: cold calls, quota dashboards, pressure-based follow-ups, hard closes. The FSC's calendar looks more like a community leader's than a salesperson's. That's by design.

The most effective FSCs build a web of community partnerships that generate organic referrals and trust. These partnerships include:

The key across all of these partnerships? Reciprocity. The FSC isn't just taking referrals — they're giving them. They're connecting families with resources, sharing community information, and being a genuine asset to every partnership they cultivate. That's how trust networks grow.

One of the strengths of the FSC model is its flexibility. Not every funeral home needs — or can afford — a full-time counselor. Here's how the role can scale:

Single-location, full-time FSC: Ideal for larger homes serving broad communities. The FSC can dedicate all their energy to one market.
Multi-location, part-time FSC: A counselor who splits time across two or three homes. Each location gets a few days per week of dedicated community presence.
Contract FSC: For homes just starting to explore this model. A contract counselor can test the approach without a full-time commitment, proving the concept before you invest further.

Regardless of the arrangement, the principle remains the same: consistent, genuine community presence that builds trust over time.

Start Where You Are

You don't need to hire a full-time FSC tomorrow. Start by asking: Who on our current team already has strong community relationships? Sometimes the best FSC is a director, office manager, or family member who naturally embodies this role. The title matters less than the approach.

The FSC's Calendar

What does a typical FSC week look like, and what is notably absent from their schedule?

The week is filled with cold calls and quota dashboards, similar to a traditional sales role The week is spent entirely inside the funeral home handling administrative tasks The week includes community events, partner visits, director check-ins, and informational sessions — with no cold calls, quota dashboards, or hard closes The week is unstructured, with the FSC deciding each morning what to do

Community Partnerships

What is the key principle that makes an FSC's community partnerships effective?

Signing formal referral agreements with financial incentives for each partner Reciprocity — the FSC gives as much as they receive, connecting families with resources and being a genuine asset to every partnership Limiting partnerships to only one organization per category to avoid conflicts of interest Requiring partners to display funeral home brochures in their offices

Scaling the FSC Role

For a funeral home that wants to explore the FSC model but isn't ready for a full-time hire, what does the lesson recommend?

Wait until the home can afford a full-time counselor before trying the model Hire a traditional salesperson and gradually transition them to the FSC approach Start with a contract FSC or identify someone on the current team who already has strong community relationships and naturally embodies the approach Outsource pre-need outreach to a third-party marketing company