Business

Confessions of a retired funeral director

By Funeral Director Daily / July 20, 2023 /

      I had an incident in church on Sunday that both the party I was involved with and myself laughed about at the time.  However, when I returned home I thought about the situation and wondered to myself, “Is it just me in this stage of life or is humanity, in general, losing…

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What keeps ’em coming back. . .do you have the data?

By Funeral Director Daily / July 18, 2023 /

    The funeral home business is well known for its retention of retaining families served over the generations of deaths.  Most of us call this “Heritage” business and any great funeral home will find a way to keep the families they have served happy so they don’t look any where else the next time…

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Another argument for Preneed. . . .

By Funeral Director Daily / July 13, 2023 /

      Americans are taking a loan, early withdrawal, or hardship withdrawal from their retirement plans at record rates according to this article from Yahoo Finance.  And, one of the top reasons why, according to the survey, is to pay for a funeral.   According to the survey released by by the non-profit Transamerica…

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Here’s some good news from our profession

By Funeral Director Daily / July 11, 2023 /

      I like it when I read about good things happening in the Death Care business.  Sometimes, like this story, the good news grows out of bad deeds. . . but, in the end, it’s how our profession can step up and help that makes me feel good about what we do.  …

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Health care costs may drive increased expenses in 2024

By Funeral Director Daily / July 10, 2023 /

    According to this recent article from Yahoo Finance, businesses, including funeral homes, may find their employee health care costs rising by up to 7% in 2024.  And, that is on top of increases of 5.5% in 2022 and 6% this year.   According to the article, “. . .hospitals and providers will often…

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How much debt is too much?

By Funeral Director Daily / July 7, 2023 /

  Funeral Director Daily ran an article last Friday on the offer made by Park Lawn Corporation in its quest to acquire Carriage Services.  You can read that article here.   One of the reader comments to the article indicated that Carriage Services carried “too much debt” and that was hampering, and will continue to…

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The Supreme Court and the student debt decision

By Funeral Director Daily / July 6, 2023 /

      This topic might seem like a reach in a blog with the title of Funeral Director Daily.  However, there are a great many funeral directors working in the field right now whom this decision will probably affect in a negative fashion and owners of funeral homes, who have these young people as…

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A “Renaissance” in perceived value of services?

By Funeral Director Daily / July 5, 2023 /

      I receive the “Memorial Business Journal” from the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) every week and when I received it a couple of weeks ago I was excited to look at some of the findings from the 2023 NFDA Consumer Awareness and Preference Survey.   I looked at the results somewhat with…

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Is there a more “American” business than the funeral business

By Funeral Director Daily / July 4, 2023 /

      Today is the 4th of July — the day that America celebrates its independence of becoming its own self-governing country.  For me it evokes thoughts of freedom, independence, ingenuity, self-governance, and patriotism.  It also brings out the thought process of working to improve one’s self. . . .building yourself up or inventing…

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Nostalgia. . . or are you still using your “Pager”

By Funeral Director Daily / July 3, 2023 /

    In the day of almost universal cell phone use you might find this hard to believe but, the leading paging company in America says that they still have at least 800,000 pagers in use across the United States.  That’s down almost 90% since 2004 when the company reported 6.6 million pagers in use,…

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