Funeral Director Daily

In Memoriam: Robert Waltrip, SCI founder — Services today

By Funeral Director Daily / March 3, 2023 /

        Robert L. Waltrip, age 92, founder of death care company Service Corporation International, died on Monday, February 27, 2023.  A Celebration of Life service is scheduled for today (March 2).  Interment is scheduled in the Reflection Garden of Memorial Oaks Cemetery in Houston, Texas.   You can access an obituary powered…

Bucking the trend

By Funeral Director Daily / March 2, 2023 /

    “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” is a popular misquote attributed to author Samuel Clemens, known by his pen name, Mark Twain.  However, that quote has stayed with Clemens (Twain) forever and is now simply a part of his lore.   The same thing may be said for cemeteries.  The demise…

Will rural funeral directors be able to replenish themselves

By Funeral Director Daily / March 1, 2023 /

    Funeral director Collin Bourgeois made this comment in this article from CBC, “I certainly tried to retire.  It lasted three weeks.”   Bourgeois is a funeral director and owner of and operator of a funeral business with three locations in northeastern Ontario.  After 45 years in the business he’s staying on the job…

Preneed to Millennials. . .Maybe so

By Funeral Director Daily / February 28, 2023 /

  Editor’s Note:  This article was scheduled for earlier this morning but for some reason was not picked up by our email subscription service. . .Well, better late than never.  Sorry for the inconvenience.  Here is the article you should have received earlier today:   Sometimes things happen that can turn a fundamental business upside…

Acquisitions, buy-outs, creative ideas. . . here’s a recap of our month’s top stories

By Funeral Director Daily / February 27, 2023 /

    We are a little bit late this month but here are the stories that our readers found most interesting over the last 30 days. . .well, actually the 30 days from January 15, 2023, to February 15, 2023.  There’s something for everybody in these articles — acquisitions, buy-outs, local promotion, corporate thoughts, and…

Carriage Services reports Services and Revenue drops in 2022

By Funeral Director Daily / February 27, 2023 /

    Funeral home and cemetery operator Carriage Services reported their 4th Quarter and Year End Financial Reports last week.  You can access that report here.  In doing so they reported that the number of “Services” the company conducted had dropped 2.9% as compared to the yearly results for 2021.  The company conducted 47,184 services…

What’s with “Excess Deaths”?

By Funeral Director Daily / February 24, 2023 /

    This is one of those articles that I will write that probably has no answers.  It only brings up questions.  That question today is “What’s with Excess Deaths”?   When the pandemic hit and deaths increased for almost all funeral homes across the world, one of the questions asked was “With these extra…

Propel Funeral Partners makes acquisitions. . . are acquisitions larger in general?

By Funeral Director Daily / February 23, 2023 /

    Last week North America’s largest funeral service company, Service Corporation International (SCI), announced in their 4th Quarter report “On the acquisition front, we had a very active fourth quarter investing $89 million in four separate transactions across the United States and Canada. These transactions added 14 funeral homes and 3 cemeteries, which included 3 combination locations.”   And…

Non-compete agreements, Customer Experience, Community Engagement. . . some timely learning opportunities for our readers

By Funeral Director Daily / February 22, 2023 /

    We’ve recently noticed some webinars and podcasts that we feel are very timely and you might enjoy watching them.  Also, all of these programs are free of charge, except in some instances where you may want to earn CEU credits for them.  Here’s the information you need to access these.     From…

Don’t forget “Low-tech” to build your brand

By Funeral Director Daily / February 22, 2023 /

    There are a lot of great companies out there who can help you with the newest way to reach potential client families.  Some of them, like RingRing Marketing are sponsors of this forum.  They will do a great job in helping you navigate social media and the internet to let potential clientele know…