Funeral Director Daily

Black funeral directors believe Covid may change funeral culture forever

By Funeral Director Daily / April 23, 2021 /

I visited, as I often do, with a former Senior Level Executive this week just to catch up on what was happening in his world and visit about a story Funeral Director Daily had recently ran.  We talked about a lot of things — including COVID-19, and because of it, we had not seen each…

Wilbert adds precast concrete company

By Funeral Director Daily / April 22, 2021 /

It’s not only funeral homes and cemeteries that are in the business of growing their businesses to better serve clientele. Last week we received word that Wilbert, Inc., the nation’s preeminent burial vault company, made an acquisition to bolster their presence in the Northeast corridor of the United States.  Here is the information that we…

Politics and your funeral home

By Funeral Director Daily / April 22, 2021 /

Former Vice-President Walter Mondale died Monday night at age 93.  Being a Minnesotan like Mondale put me into a reminiscing mood and I thought of the 1970’s when Mondale was our state’s U.S. Senator and elected with President Jimmy Carter as Vice-President in 1976. It also reminded me of a lesson from my dad about…

Make sure to watch your flanks in holding onto revenue

By Funeral Director Daily / April 21, 2021 /

I’ve noticed with much interest over my career in funeral service that most funeral home owners are really up to date when it comes to market share percentage as compared to the competitor(s) in their market area.   They all either watch the local obituaries or have someone else watch and count death numbers on their…

Heroes on the front lines. . . . not only in 2020

By Funeral Director Daily / April 20, 2021 /

I was visiting on the phone with the CEO of one of the funeral home consolidation companies on Friday when he asked me how long I had been out of direct management of our business.  I replied that it is just over seven years and I was happy not to have been there during the…

Kentucky passes Covid liability shield law for funeral homes

By Funeral Director Daily / April 19, 2021 /

There has been a lot of talk at the federal level about creating a limit to liability law for those essential businesses that had to operate over the timeline of the Covid-19 pandemic while knowledge of the virus was becoming better and better every day.  The thought process has been that businesses should not be…

Restorative art thru 3D printing

By Funeral Director Daily / April 19, 2021 /

If you have been a funeral director and did prep room work for any length of time you are aware that there are some situations where you will question that you can get the deceased back to an acceptable level of appearance for a casketed viewing. I will be honest and tell you that while…

The month’s top stories and more

By Funeral Director Daily / April 16, 2021 /

It is the middle of April and time for us to bring you a list of the top read stories on Funeral Director Daily over the past 30 days.  We know many of you are too busy to check in every day and this new feature lets you take a binge look at what you…

On looking back. . . and moving forward (Part 2)

By Funeral Director Daily / April 16, 2021 /

We told you yesterday that Carriage Services CEO and Chairman Mel Payne had published a lengthy Letter to Shareholders in early April.   In that letter, that you can access here, he painted what we call a somewhat aspirational future for Carriage Services, after first pointing out how they got to where they are today. Today,…

Weigel on marketing

By Funeral Director Daily / April 15, 2021 /

I get plenty of commentary and critiques on my opinions in Funeral Director Daily.  Most of them are justified and most of them are constructive in their suggestions.  Funeral Director Daily recently did an article on marketing and social media — you can find that article here. Shortly after publishing that article I received an…