In writing Funeral Director Daily I take pride in keeping up with what is happening in the Death Care profession and industry. And, even though the occupation and the choices it has for consumers faced with death of a loved one moves along at a fairly slow and methodical pace, there are changes to keep up with everyday. But sometimes things happening in the industry escape me for a time. That’s why it was interesting for me to read this […]
There is an insurance company that used to use the slogan “The Quiet Company”. That company was, and still is, known as one of the most successful life insurance companies in America. . . . The “Quiet Company” claim came, at least to my way of thinking, from the idea that they used captive agents who did good old-fashioned client prospecting for the right type of clientele on an individual basis within a culture that was humble and quiet about […]
Canadian company, Kinwood, issued this press release last month about a recent submission to the Competition Bureau that they say is “evidence to the Competition Bureau that shows the commercial funeral industry, and its regulator are stifling competition in the funeral sector”. Kinwood CEO, Jeff Corcoran, is quoted with this comment in the press release, “The funeral & bereavement business is a mix of vulnerable clients, a predatory business model, and old-school funeral companies, all overseen by a regulatory body […]
Unless you have been living on the Space Station you’ve noticed prices in almost all things are moving up. Housing prices, gasoline, groceries, service work, and even that cup of coffee or latte that you buy at Starbucks. I’m old enough to have lived through this before in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. . . life will get back to normal, but just like in those days during the inflationary period there will be some businesses who fall victim and […]
Ray Dalio is the founder and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater, the largest hedge fund in the world. He’s one of the 100 richest people on Earth. Here’s what he says of leaders: “Most people at the top of their profession made it there because they must be very smart and very capable. Of course, that enters into it. But it’s really how they deal with what they don’t know.” I read a couple of articles that dealt with leadership last […]
Every death care company is looking for ways to draw potential consumers to their online presence in order to engage them before they become clients of another death care company. We decided to ask industry expert Welton Hong for some tips on how funeral homes can get that “extra reach” that may be able to build case numbers in a competitive community. Here’s five tips that Mr. Hong shared with us. . . . . Written by Welton Hong: Paid search […]
It was 85 years ago this past March when “funeral directors from across East Texas showed up. Dallas dispatched 25 doctors, 100 nurses, and 25 embalmers” to the small Texas oil boom community of New London. After the tragedy and according to this article , “morticians embalmed more than 200 bodies in the Overton American Legion Hall over the next 18 hours”. I learned of the tragedy of the New London School quite by accident when I was researching the […]
On May 24, twenty-one people lost their lives to the latest American school shooting. Those twenty-one have been, or will be, laid to rest as their families choose and desire. A lot of people help out in the grief process and they are all appreciated. I couldn’t help but think when I read this article from Baptist News Global, entitled “When you’re tempted to forget the latest school shooting, remember the embalmers” about the role funeral professionals play in that […]
Over the last couple of weeks I have read a couple of articles that seem to indicate a path that death care is going — at least as some people see it. The first article which you can read here is a public relations piece from the United Kingdom and is titled, “Cultural shifts and word-of-mouth changes UK funeral landscape”. The second article comes from the University of Chicago News and you can read it in transcript form or listen […]
It’s another way I see that the death care world has changed since I left the active profession in 2013. That’s only nine years ago but even how funeral and memorial services are paid for has changed. In my day families came in to the arrangement conference and almost all services were financed by savings, credit card, or pre-arrangements set up in advance. Today, there is a growing trend to finance funerals through crowd-funding such as sites like “GoFundMe”. So […]
