Funeral Director Daily

Matthews International Reports Good, but Mixed Results

By Funeral Director Daily / July 27, 2018 /

Matthews International, a death care conglomerate with operations in crematory equipment, bronze memorialization products, and caskets, reported their 3rd Quarter 2018 fiscal year results yesterday.  You can read their press release here. Their report can be summed up by increased total sales – albeit not to the extent that they had predicted, but a beat…

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Netherlands Firm Designs Contemporary Funeral Home

By Funeral Director Daily / July 27, 2018 /

In an article that appeared in FastCompany.com that you can read here, Dutch architectural firm HofmanDujardin, described what it believes may become the new wave of funeral home ceremony establishments.  The design, which has not been built, was inspired by their attendance at a death of a partner whose funeral was attended by the principals…

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Are You Getting Your Wallet Share?

By Funeral Director Daily / July 26, 2018 /

One of the advantages of getting older, grayer, and more experienced in business is that you get a lot of time to reflect on the many things that have happened in the past and then can try to understand how you can put that knowledge into today’s society.  One of the terms I thought about…

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Earnings Week is Here

By Funeral Director Daily / July 25, 2018 /

I’ve told readers many times that while I owned and operated a small funeral home – one that grew from 140 calls to about 325 calls – I always learned by reading and watching what the “Big Boys” in our industry were up to.  That meant, over the years, buying some stock and reading annual…

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Building Business and Retaining Clients by Adding Services

By Funeral Director Daily / July 24, 2018 /

My wife’s 85 year old father died suddenly last February.  He and his wife had lived in the small – under 3000 person – community that they were both born in for all of his years.  Life in a community like that revolves around community activities that many times are centered around families – not…

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Moody’s Upgrades Hillenbrand Debt Rating

By Funeral Director Daily / July 23, 2018 /

In a release dated July 19 that you can read here, investor’s service Moody’s upgraded the debt rating of public company Hillenbrand Industries from a Ba1 to a Baa3.  They also noticed that the outlook of the company going forward is “Stable”. Hillenbrand Industries is the owner of U.S. casket manufacturer market share leader Batesville…

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When Opportunity Knocks . . . .

By Funeral Director Daily / July 23, 2018 /

I noticed a couple of articles in the last couple of days about ownership at single proprietor funeral homes that are changing hands.  What struck me about the articles is that as you go through living your life, you really need to be ready to answer the door when an opportunity knocks. The first article…

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Cemetery sues city for Gross Abuse

By Funeral Director Daily / July 20, 2018 /

In what is a somewhat timely item for us at Funeral Director Daily, we learned yesterday of a lawsuit filed by suburban New York City cemetery, Ferncliff Cemetery, against the City of Greenburgh.  Timely for us because this week we have highlighted zoning and location issues among the industry. The lawsuit, according to an article…

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Is Your Funeral Home a Growth Industry?

By Funeral Director Daily / July 20, 2018 /

In my opinion, when I look for something to invest in, I gauge the safety of the investment as well as the possible return and then make a decision if the balance is there between the two.  I also look at two sides of an equity investment as the potential for growth (as defined by…

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Location, Location, Location

By Funeral Director Daily / July 19, 2018 /

You have heard it said before that when planning a business nothing may be as important to the success of that business as the location that you place it in.  For retail businesses — a stand alone building, a strip mall, a shopping mall — all are potential locations, but the key is to figure…

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