Business

SCI sees “more mortality” than expected. . .What’s behind it?. . .I don’t think this will surprise you

By Funeral Director Daily / November 9, 2022 /

Because I report on them, and partly because I just like learning what is happening, I generally read the “Earnings Call Transcripts” that take place every quarter between the public company death care executives and the financial brokers that cover their companies.  If you’ve never read these they end up being a “give and take”…

Watching the Budget: Health Care costs

By Funeral Director Daily / November 2, 2022 /

It’s November and if you haven’t organized your budget for the 2023 calendar year yet, it is about time to get started.  I always did my final work on the budget when November 1 came around and by the 15th of the month it was set for the coming year. I found the easiest way…

Want to build your brand? Try sponsoring a Death Cafe

By Funeral Director Daily / October 31, 2022 /

I visited Baltimore and attended the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) convention earlier this month.  In earlier blog posts I’ve told you some overriding impressions that I had from that experience. . . and I told you I would be bringing you, in greater detail, some of my thoughts and observations. One of the phenomena…

Is your firm “Fit” for this new economic environment?

By Funeral Director Daily / October 27, 2022 /

If you follow the stock markets and study them, you might have seen an “Open Letter” that Brad Gerstner, a principal at Altimeter Capital, and stockholder in Meta (formerly Facebook) sent to Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week.  You can read the letter here. Gerstner is still a stockholder and apparent fan of…

Tattoo preservation becoming more mainstream

By Funeral Director Daily / October 24, 2022 /

If you haven’t noticed that families are continuing to look for new ways to memorialize their loved ones you haven’t been looking.  For many of us casketed burial with a monument for memorialization may be what we want or columbarium sheltering of cremated remains in a cemetery with memorialization recognition may be what we want. …

The next frontier in death care customer acquisition and retention

By Funeral Director Daily / October 21, 2022 /

Yesterday I teased that today I would introduce you to a company that is, in my opinion, far ahead of the curve in helping to meet today’s, and tomorrow’s consumers where they are in relation to looking at and committing to their death care plans. First of all, I want to tell you a little…

The move to “Pre-Emptive” marketing

By Funeral Director Daily / October 20, 2022 /

When you look to the past of funeral home marketing it is pretty accurate to say that many funeral homes “Got their names out there” and then waited for deaths to happen.  When I started in the business, our industry was as far from “Pre-Emptive” marketing as any industry. . . it’s just the way…

Funeral Director to be honored for role in 1972 Rapid City flood

By Funeral Director Daily / October 19, 2022 /

In the 50th Anniversary year of the 1972 Rapid City Flood, funeral director Ozzie Osheim will be awarded, on October 21,  the Monsignor O’Connell Founders Award of the Catholic Social Services for his humanitarian role helping to care for the 238 who died in the then community of 40,000 people. The Rapid City Flood, according…

The Buzz in Baltimore

By Funeral Director Daily / October 18, 2022 /

If you follow Funeral Director Daily with any regularity you will know that I returned from the 2022 National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) International Convention last week.  This article, titled Back from Baltimore, published last week gave my general impressions on attending my first national convention in over a decade. In today’s article I’m going…

Transcend continues movement of forest into “product”

By Funeral Director Daily / October 17, 2022 /

This article from Fast Company introduces us to a new start-up in the burial and memorialization space, Transcend.  Transcend, the brainchild of founder and CEO Matthew Kochmann, plans to be somewhat like Better Place Forests in that they will be bringing forests and trees into the realm of memorialization. Unlike Better Place Forests, where a…