Business

Teaching “Soft Skills” now a necessity

By Funeral Director Daily / February 19, 2025 /

    It’s pretty well documented that mortuary or embalmer education began in the late 19th Century with the advent of the practice of embalming.  Most of that early education for the profession was no more than a course in the practices of embalming.   Almost a century later when I went to mortuary school…

Iowa funeral home announces “Unique Ownership”

By Funeral Director Daily / February 18, 2025 /

    According to this January article that I recently read from the Carroll Times Herald of Manning, Iowa, the Ohde Funeral Home of that community has recently came into new ownership.  The newspaper article made note of the fact that the funeral home “recently began a new chapter of compassionate care and trusted service…

The blueprint for 21st century modern funeral facilities

By Funeral Director Daily / February 13, 2025 /

    There are lots of ideas how a new, contemporary, 21st Century physical funeral establishment should look like and function.  I don’t think anybody knows exactly what that is, or even if there is a one-size fits all best practices solution to the question.   However, it is probably a fair assumption that like…

Pinnacle/Rollings add staff. . . .importance and presence of non-public companies seems to be growing

By Funeral Director Daily / February 12, 2025 /

    We received an e-mail last week that announced “Pinnacle Funeral Service and Rollings Funeral Service are proud to announce that Nancy Weil has joined the team as Director of Community Outreach. . . . .Nancy’s career includes serving as the Membership Director for the Order of the Golden Rule (OGR) for the past…

Trump and Musk. . . .Can you learn from their cost efficiency mandate?

By Funeral Director Daily / February 10, 2025 /

    President Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) leader Elon Musk are rapidly looking at costs that are currently in the government budget that may be able to be whittled out.  It may not be perfect and it may not even be proper — as is discussed in this Yahoo Finance article…

Funeral homes receive rare “Letters of Assurance” from public authorities

By Funeral Director Daily / February 6, 2025 /

    Every day I search out articles about Death Care services to provide me with information on topics of interest in our profession/industry.  One of the things that has been extremely disappointing to this life-long funeral director and funeral home owner is the amount of negative publicity our profession piles on itself because of…

The Trump tariffs and Death Care

By Funeral Director Daily / February 3, 2025 /

    The International Trade Association defines tariffs as such:  “A tariff or duty (the words are used interchangeably) is a tax levied by governments on the value including freight and insurance of imported products. Different tariffs applied on different products by different countries.”   I’m writing this on Saturday morning and the “Trump tariffs”…

Project “Trust” to gain business

By Funeral Director Daily / January 31, 2025 /

    Sometimes we make the process of gaining business or market share more complicated than it has to be.  We pay for focus groups and surveys and hiring marketing companies to tell us how to grow our businesses.  All of those methods can help and paying experts in those fields to do just that…

Newcomer Funeral Service adds locations in New York and Indiana

By Funeral Director Daily / January 27, 2025 /

    With one acquisition announced in December and another in January Newcomer Funeral Service, based in Topeka, Kansas, continues to grow.  The Newcomer website states “Newcomer Funeral Service Group is an independent funeral home, crematory, and cemetery service provider based in Topeka, Kansas with operations in ten states.”   According to this press releasefrom…

Celebration coffee and business insights that may help funeral homes

By Funeral Director Daily / January 23, 2025 /

    I’m writing this article mid-morning on Saturday.  It’s already been a busy morning for me as I got up early and did my run and have since been to Starbucks for what I term my “Saturday Celebration Coffee” which celebrates my six consecutive days of running.  I take Sundays off!!   I’m also…