Business
I came across this article last week which describes the work of Victor Sweeney as the single funeral director in the rural Minnesota town of Warren. Sweeney describes what he does and why he loves taking care of people at the time of death. The article also goes into the state of the profession in…
Read More2019 is soon coming to a close and I’ve thought about what has this year taught me in relation to the death care industry. There has been mergers and acquisitions, there has been the legalization of recomposition, there has been the continued growth of the alkaline hydrolysis business and more. However, one of the items…
Read MoreI operated a small town funeral home for about 35 years. Every year I completed budgets and put expectations on the number of death calls the firm would do as well as predicted our market share in the community. I was tough with myself. . . .I had high expectations. Fortunately, I operated in a…
Read MoreRecompose, the public benefits corporation that is moving the process of recomposition (human composting) into the commercial realm recently held a forum at the Feldman Mortuary in Denver, Colorado. The forum was used to introduce the idea of recomposition to the Colorado market and also to announce that two Colorado legislators plan to introduce a…
Read MoreWhen you are the owner of a funeral home you have to have a plan for marketing the business. Most funeral director proprietors think about their advertising, their on-line presence, and their pre-arrangement program as a way to market. What many don’t think about, however, is that the services they provide after the funeral to…
Read MoreIn the last couple of years it seems that we have seen no slow down in the marketplace for the acquisition of large family owned metropolitan death care businesses by the public company, venture backed, or equity partner backed large scale operators in the business. You need think no farther back then last weeks announcement…
Read MoreWe came across this article in the Scotsman that you can read here. It is an interview with Tim Purves who is the Chairman of William Purves Funeral Directors of Scotland. Mr. Purves is the 5th generation family funeral director of the company which was started in 1888 by a craftsman and cabinet maker. The…
Read MoreIt’s been a few years since I’ve actively managed our funeral home, but this recent article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune brought me back to one of the issues that I dealt with in the hiring of employees. That was the issue of non-compete agreements or covenants not to compete. Non-competes have historically been used…
Read MoreAccording to this article in the Kokomo (Indiana) Perspective, the Ellers Mortuary and Cremation Center was acquired by Service Corporation International in 2016. Some feared that the acquisition would cause the Kokomo business, that had been in business since 1924, to lose its personal touch. However, according to General Manager Jaime Handy, “the acquisition has…
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