Business
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…
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…
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…
A really nice article about Leo and Jeff Marshall, the father/son team that has owned and operated the Marshall Funeral Home in Greenville, Michigan since 1967 was published in the Daily News of Montcalm and Ionia Counties of Michigan the other day. You can read the article here. It is a really fine article that…
Great funeral homes and cemeteries don’t just pop up and start making lots of money overnight. Matter of fact, it is very rare that a death care business can open in a new locale served by others and make a profit within the first couple of years. New operations have to be ready to spill…
One of the things that I find interesting about the death care industry is the continuing consolidation and spin-offs that seem to always occur. Get a few funeral directors together and they are always talking about who is acquiring who. I’ve been around long enough to see upstart Prime Succession grow fast and then be…
It was back in April 1977 that I remember losing my father to a sudden heart attack while he was serving at a funeral. As a teenager you remember where you were when you were first told and then the rest of the visitation, funeral, and following time is somewhat forgot except for a few…
In a press release that you can read here it was announced that Service Corporation International will, for the 11th consecutive year, be a major sponsor of the “Donate Life” float at the 130th Tournament of Roses Parade on January 1, 2019, in Pasadena, California. SCI and its brand, Dignity Memorial, will be the sponsor…
If everything goes as expected today, most people are looking for a 0.25% rise in the Federal Funds interest rate as set by the Federal Reserve Board. There has been a lot of talk that the rate, which if raised today for a 4th time this year, has had something to do with the volatility…
Most funeral homes have some type of Holiday Remembrance service for those who have lost loved ones in the past year. Most of these establishments also give out something to take home after the service. . . it may be a plant, a flower, some other type of memento, of even, as is very common,…
