AG Associates

10/06/2026

What is your funeral home actually known for?

Not your slogan.
Not your building.
Not how long you’ve been in business.

If someone in your community has heard your name but cannot explain what makes your firm different, you may not have an awareness problem.

You may have a positioning problem.

In this new episode of Breaking the Silence, Why Nobody Knows Who You Are, we talk about why so many funeral homes sound exactly alike, why families often fall back on price when they cannot see a meaningful difference, and why better marketing cannot fix a business that feels interchangeable.

Your brand is not what you say in a marketing meeting.

It is what families experience, remember, and tell someone else.

🎙️ Listen to Why Nobody Knows Who You Are at:

www.agassociates.org/podcast

09/27/2026

What happens after the funeral is over?

The flowers are gone. The family has gone home. The phone gets quiet.

But grief is still there.

In Episode 4 of The Conversations We’re Not Having, Beyond the Funeral, I talk about the part of funeral service that begins after most of us have already closed the file.

We are a four-day business serving a two-year need.

This episode is about aftercare, relationships, community, and what it really means to keep serving families beyond the funeral.

🎙️ Listen now at:
www.agassociates.org/podcast

09/20/2026

🎙️ NEW EPISODE | Breaking the Silence

The Room Where It Still Happens

Almost everything in funeral service can now happen at a distance. But there's still one room where a family sits across from a funeral director, looking for guidance.

Are we making the most of that moment, or are we still just filling out forms?

In this week's episode, we explore why the arrangement conference must evolve, what meaningful personalization really looks like, and how we can better serve the families who trust us.

The room hasn't changed. But what families need from us has.

🎧 Join me for this important conversation.

👉 Listen now: www.agassociates.org/podcast

Share this episode with someone in funeral service who needs to hear it.

09/13/2026

New on Breaking the Silence — and this is a heavy one.
It’s about the families where the arrangement isn’t the hard part. The sudden death. The young death. The relationship that never got finished. The deaths our communities still whisper about.

Nobody really trained us for those rooms. We all improvised. This episode is about doing it on purpose instead — and about what it costs us to keep walking into them with nowhere to set any of it down.

Give it a listen and share it with your team.

🎙️ Listen now: www.agassociates.org/podcast

09/07/2026

09/06/2026

The family has changed. Has funeral service changed with them?

Today’s families arrive with different expectations, different questions, and more choices than ever before. And increasingly, they’re asking AI before they ever call a funeral home.

🎙️ Breaking the Silence is beginning a new six-part series:

The Conversations We’re Not Having

Episode 1: Not The Family You Trained For

We’re starting with a simple but important question: Are we serving the family in front of us—or the family we were trained for?

Listen now: www.agassociates.org/podcast

09/04/2026

Charlotte, I'm on my way.

The NFDA International Convention & Expo is one of my favorite weeks of the year — catching up with friends I've known for decades, and meeting the people who will become the next set of long-time friends.

This year I'm especially honored to be presenting one of NFDA's CE sessions: "Culture Is Your Product," Sunday, October 25, 1:15–2:15 PM. It's an interactive hour built around strategies you can put to work the Monday you get home.

I'll also be at NFDA Central signing copies of Breaking the Silence and The Empty Chair. Come find me — I'd love to say hello.

See you in Charlotte, October 25–28.

08/30/2026

A ripple can travel farther than we will ever see.

The way we serve a family today can shape how they experience grief and funeral service for generations.

But it raises an important question:

What kind of funeral service is waiting for them?

In this week’s Breaking the Silence, The Ripple Comes Home, we talk about where our real value lives—and why it may have very little to do with what’s on the price list.

What is it that we really sell?

🎙️ Listen now: www.agassociates.org/podcast

08/23/2026

Drop a single stone in still water, and the ripple travels farther than you can see.

The same is true when we help a grieving child.

In “The Ripple,” the final episode of Through the Hearts of Children, I explore how caring for one grieving child can ripple through a family, a community, and even the future of funeral service.

The children we comfort today are the future we are forming.

🎙️ Listen to the newest episode of Breaking the Silence at www.agassociates.org/podcast

The book may be the stone. The ripple is the point.