Business
Funeral home owners, cemetery operators, preneed professionals. We’re the experts in the death care profession. We know the business, we understand the clientele, and we know what is good for everybody. Or do we? I’m guessing that is somewhat how the buggy whip manufacturers, horse livery operators, and sales reps in that industry thought of…
The COVID-19 pandemic during the year 2020 and how countries geographic location and national responses to the situation could not be more different than you see in recent publicly owned funeral home companies’ annual reports. We’ve reported on the results of the United States Service Corporation International (SCI) and Carriage Services both in the last…
I recently read an interesting article, authored by funeral industry veteran Doug Gober, in the Memorial Business Journal published for members by the National Funeral Directors Association. Gober, who’s been around the profession for a long time gave an interesting sequence of events beginning with when money flowed into the profession from the public companies.…
I’ve been an entrepreneur and have started some businesses outside of the death care realm. I think one of the things that happens to every entrepreneur who starts a business that is new and unique is that they open their doors for business and then wonder if anybody will purchase their goods and/or services. No…
Where a person dies does have an effect on funeral home operations. One simple effect you can see is that of two person removal teams to homes rather than a one-person removal being done at a hospital or nursing home where there is always facility staff help if needed. This recent article from the Associated…
Sometimes it is difficult to take a public stand on an issue. You might feel strong one way or another, but you know that taking a public stance could possibly hinder the amount of business that you do. It is pretty evident in America right now that if you flew a Trump 2020 flag in…
Today we celebrate President’s Day 2021 in the United States. We’ve just been through an election. . .and an impeachment hearing. There is no doubt that the American president, whomever it is at the time, is the centerpiece of the most media attention of any human being on the planet during his time in office.…
Many of the decisions that have been made over the years in business have been made by “gut feel”. Lots of business people, including those in the funeral business, have made lots of money by following their hunches. I was a little bit like that as in the 1980’s I didn’t have a lot of…
We touched on the subject last week when we did an article questioning how some in authority view funeral directors and other death care professionals in light of large financial fines for a service going over the allotted number of allowed mourners in Great Britain and the death care professionals in Ohio trying to be…
Operating a funeral home and/or crematory operation as a business is an expensive proposition to start when you think of the fixed costs that it will take. It’s not like starting a lawn care service where you need some basic equipment and wait for the phone to ring to put it to use. In the…
