Business
Those of you who have followed this publication for any length of time know that I like to hypothesize on what I see are trends in business. And, you’ve also seen my post sometimes in reference to serving on the board of the University of Minnesota. One of my fun things to do now is…
Even before Robert Waltrip bought that second location in Houston in the early 1960’s there were lots of funeral homes that changed hands. And, I’m guessing that over the years about 99% of those business transactions, especially the transferring of a funeral home to a new owner in a small community, went off without a…
Glen Davis drove school bus in his small Minnesota community for 55 years. Starting in 1949 he was still driving and finally retired in 2005. By that time he was driving the grandchildren of those school children he had driven in 1949. And, Glen Davis was like a lot of people small town funeral directors…
I attended a memorial service yesterday. The format of the service has become pretty standard in our community. The service was for a lady/wife/mother of which I know the husband to some extent. I consider him a really nice guy and attended the service because I wanted to let him know that I care and…
It is always sad to see when fire destroys any business, but for us in the funeral business it is heartbreaking to see our colleagues go through something that we hope never happens to us. Over the weekend we learned of February fires that destroyed at least two of our colleagues places of business. This…
Co-operative businesses were once very common place in America. Especially in rural, agricultural America where co-operatives came together with dairy farmers banding together to produce milk products such as cheese and cream for the member farmers, or for area residents to co-operate to bring electricity to far flung farms, or for a mutual benefit society…
An article that you can see here from Choice indicates that Australian funeral market leader InvoCare will back down on an “administrative fee” that is added to all funeral statements. According to the article, InvoCare’s Keiron Humbler, when asked about the removal of this fee commented, “That’s the plan”. Funeral Director Daily first told…
We came across an article recently that introduced new owners at the Hackett-Livingston Funeral Home in Shenandoah, Iowa. The article is interesting to us as it brings up the idea of funeral home brand growth in rural areas. Most people in the death care space will talk about “demographics” as much as they talk about…
An interesting article came out this past weekend from the Metrowest Daily News of suburban Boston. The article, that you can read here, dealt with the changes in funeral service over time for some of the long established funeral homes west of Boston in Worcester, Massachusetts. Some of the funeral homes questioned for the article…
