Business
When you get to be my age you have many of your friends’ parents passing away. One of the things I’ve noticed about that is when the 2nd parent dies the family almost always uses the same funeral home that they used for the first death. That’s not surprising — it’s what…
Read MoreI live in America which is a representative democracy with the freedom for individuals to attain through education, hard work, creative enterprise, investment, and sometimes just plain luck the ability to gain and collect more resources than others. To that same end, the country offers no guarantee that your work and life will end…
Read MoreIf you have worked in the death care profession for any length of time you will have noticed several changes that have taken place. And, as I’ve done some research on what seems to be taking place, sometimes the choices of the consumer public seem contradictory to me. . . . although there…
Read MoreA recent article in Smart Business Pittsburgh magazine featured the Death Care conglomerate Matthews International. Matthews is known in Death Care from Matthews Memorialization which includes the ability to supply to funeral homes and cemeteries products such as caskets, cremation equipment, and cemetery markers among a host of products. The article, which you can…
Read MoreThis article from CBS News began with this sentence, “In offices across the country, the sneakers-with-a-suit look is becoming increasingly common. Now, even the hallowed halls of U.S. Congress are embracing the trend.” And, if you go to that article you will find a short CBS video news story about members of the United States…
Read MorePart of my daily routine is to get a run (or some tell me it is a jog. . . or even a slog) in early in the morning. However, even before I do that I log onto my computer to check to see if Funeral Director Daily was distributed overnight as expected. I…
Read MoreAs you know there are always issues going on in our nation’s capital of Washington, DC. And, some of those issues will touch on the business of Death Care. Today from my latest observations, some things I’ve researched, and some of the things I took in at the recent National Funeral Directors Association…
Read MoreI recently ran across this article from Changing America that is titled, “What’s the fastest food drive-thru? It isn’t Chick-fil-A”. It’s a very interesting article that may be able to give us some sense to how we should view our customers in the death care realm. It’s interesting to note that in…
Read MoreMorgan Stanley equity analyst Simeon Gutman recently made this comment in this white paper from Morgan Stanley, “Americans are increasingly attached to their pets, which is clearly shown in survey results, and thus pet spending is a priority. Consumers are less willing to cut pet spending even when real personal disposable income declines.” …
Read MoreThose of us who walked the convention halls at NFDA in Las Vegas recently heard lots of reasons why many in the death care profession were not too optimistic about the immediate future of our businesses. There was lots of talk about inflation causing rising expenses and interest rates taking a bigger chunk…
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