Business

A First for Memphis

By Funeral Director Daily / February 18, 2019 /

After Life Mortuary Services opened last October and according to this article from the Memphis Commercial Appeal it is believed to be the first Memphis mortuary service to be owned and operated by black women.  According to co-owner Dana Taylor, “It’s probably because it’s been a male-dominant field, and it’s been that way for years. …

What do you see on the Horizon?

By Funeral Director Daily / February 13, 2019 /

The other day a funeral service professional asked me, “What do you see on the horizon for funeral service?”  Since I have not put out any predictions for over a year I thought I would just give an answer on what comes to mind first for me.  Instead of a long, thought out answer sometimes…

What are your alternative plans?

By Funeral Director Daily / February 11, 2019 /

A recent fire in a Canadian funeral home has caused the funeral home’s operating license to be suspended due to the fact that the building is no longer suitable to operate a funeral business out of.  You can read a short article here about this situation in Nova Scotia. According to the article the licensing…

Finding the Right Managment

By Funeral Director Daily / February 5, 2019 /

I came into the funeral business somewhat reluctantly at age 19 when my father suddenly passed away and mom needed someone who would be interested in carrying on the family business.  I’ve said many times, the Lord knew what he was doing, because as I reluctantly got involved I learned I was pretty good at…

Own the Message

By Funeral Director Daily / February 1, 2019 /

I happened to see this article from the Wise County Messenger the other day.  There is nothing wrong with the article and sometimes news gets out like this.  However, it reminded me that when you are in business, and especially personal service businesses like the death care industry, you want to really “own” the message that…

How do you hold on to Heritage Families?

By Funeral Director Daily / January 28, 2019 /

All businesses that want to grow and prosper need to acquire new customers.  That is a pretty simple concept.  But one thing I’m always amazed at is how so many times business take for granted the customers that they have already acquired. Think about that for a moment. . . . if you can continue…

Foundation Partners adds Arizona Firm

By Funeral Director Daily / January 17, 2019 /

Earlier in January it was announced that Foundation Partners Group had acquired the Angel Valley Funeral Home & Old Pueblo Crematory in Tucson, Arizona.  According to a press release from Foundation Partners that you can read here, Mike and Dee Dee Orcutt had owned the business for about ten years prior to this change of…

Being Efficient versus Cost Cutting

By Funeral Director Daily / January 15, 2019 /

So many things about business fundamentals cross over from one industry to another.  I’m writing this article on Sunday and thinking about a meeting I will have tomorrow in the role I play as Chairman of the Finance and Operations Committee of a Big Ten university.  We are working on the budget and tomorrow I’m…

Know your vendors. . . an update. . . .perspective

By Funeral Director Daily / January 10, 2019 /

Today I was looking through some ideas and came upon three subjects that, while not all open for in-depth stories and opinions, I thought were interesting enough in their own right to just mention and let you take a look yourself if you wanted to delve deeper into the subject matter. The first item that…

Thinking outside the box

By Funeral Director Daily / January 9, 2019 /

Sometimes what seems like the obvious isn’t always the best.  Yesterday we wrote about trying to bring the volume of your services number to a larger number and how that could help by reducing your costs per service.  One way we suggested doing that was by an acquisition in the same geographic area of your…