death care
StoneMor, Inc., the Pennsylvania based consolidator and operator of cemeteries and funeral homes, has had a busy April. We’ve seen Moody’s upgrade their credit rating, we’ve seen insider trading purchases of the stock, and we’ve seen an announcement of refinanced debt. That and more leads a press release from Moody’s to state, “. . .…
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Former Vice-President Walter Mondale died Monday night at age 93. Being a Minnesotan like Mondale put me into a reminiscing mood and I thought of the 1970’s when Mondale was our state’s U.S. Senator and elected with President Jimmy Carter as Vice-President in 1976. It also reminded me of a lesson from my dad about…
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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…
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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…
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There has been a lot of talk at the federal level about creating a limit to liability law for those essential businesses that had to operate over the timeline of the Covid-19 pandemic while knowledge of the virus was becoming better and better every day. The thought process has been that businesses should not be…
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If you have been a funeral director and did prep room work for any length of time you are aware that there are some situations where you will question that you can get the deceased back to an acceptable level of appearance for a casketed viewing. I will be honest and tell you that while…
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It is the middle of April and time for us to bring you a list of the top read stories on Funeral Director Daily over the past 30 days. We know many of you are too busy to check in every day and this new feature lets you take a binge look at what you…
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We told you yesterday that Carriage Services CEO and Chairman Mel Payne had published a lengthy Letter to Shareholders in early April. In that letter, that you can access here, he painted what we call a somewhat aspirational future for Carriage Services, after first pointing out how they got to where they are today. Today,…
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I get plenty of commentary and critiques on my opinions in Funeral Director Daily. Most of them are justified and most of them are constructive in their suggestions. Funeral Director Daily recently did an article on marketing and social media — you can find that article here. Shortly after publishing that article I received an…
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Earlier this month Carriage Services CEO and Chairman Mel Payne put out a lengthy shareholder letter. We found it a great read, not only to catch up with what is happening with Carriage Services, but as an aspirational blueprint, that if followed could lead to success in almost all funeral homes. Payne even points out…
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