Business
I’ve noticed with much interest over my career in funeral service that most funeral home owners are really up to date when it comes to market share percentage as compared to the competitor(s) in their market area. They all either watch the local obituaries or have someone else watch and count death numbers on their…
I was visiting on the phone with the CEO of one of the funeral home consolidation companies on Friday when he asked me how long I had been out of direct management of our business. I replied that it is just over seven years and I was happy not to have been there during the…
Many times discretion is warranted. I know that there were lots of times in my life as a funeral director where I didn’t volunteer information. It could have been with an accident victim or some other issue where I thought that the next of kin knowing the answer was worse than them not knowing and…
Back in 1990 I spent about three days north of Vancouver, British Columbia, along the Campbell River fishing for salmon with a group of funeral industry people. One of the days was spent in a small fishing boat with a gentleman about thirty years my senior who had spent almost his entire funeral service career…
If you have followed my writings for any length of time you know that I look to emerging trends to get a “gut feel” on what is going to be happening in the business world. Getting that gut feel doesn’t always lead to making fundamental business decisions, but it does lead me to continue watching…
We started hearing in early January that the omnibus Covid relief bill passed by Congress in December 2020 would have some type of reimbursement for funeral expenses of Covid-19 victims. It was rumored that relief would be administered out of the funding provided to the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA). We’ve now learned in the…
Last week as I was perusing death care articles for future stories an interesting name popped up and I dived in to learn more about what was happening. The name was “Woodstock” and the article pertained to developers trying to maneuver a way to purchase what had now become the last funeral home property in…
For the 33 years that I operated my own funeral home I was a lot like a lot of you out there. I was so busy dealing with families, making sure that funerals were done correctly, and, just basically, operating the business on a day to day basis that long -range planning sometimes went by…
If you are operating a business, such as a funeral home or cemetery, and that business has been around for several years, whether you like it or not, that business has a perception to the public. The good news is that if the business has been around for a length of time, then it is…
