Funeral Director Daily

2023: The Year of the Ancillary Sale

By Funeral Director Daily / January 2, 2023 /

Last Friday I printed a story about five trends or happenings that I saw in calendar year 2022 and how they will relate to Death Care as we move into the future. I’ve not been shy about saying two things are happening and will continue to happen. Those two things are an increase in…

The consumer choice for cremation is not always financial

By Funeral Director Daily / August 31, 2022 /

Over the years I’ve heard from many consumers that their choice for a cremation disposition had nothing to do with price. Even though I heard that often, and believed the people that told me that, as a funeral professional it was always hard to fathom when it seemed that everywhere you turned you saw cremations…

The Segmentation of an Industry

By Funeral Director Daily / November 8, 2021 /

I recently read this article from The Irish Catholic where Joseph Behan of Hibernian Funerals explained that Covid-19 has changed many things about death care in Ireland. For instance, he told of the “Tell us Once” format where instead of notifying the post office, the credit union, your bank and others of your death there…

Playing the “What if” game

By Funeral Director Daily / October 27, 2020 /

If you want to stay ahead of the curve in whatever you are doing I would suggest to play the “What if” game every once in a while just to see where you are standing. The “What if” game can be played in all lines of business and is, in my opinion, a great exercise…

Weekend edition: A little heavy on cemetery and virtual funeral news. . .but some weekend reading for you

By Funeral Director Daily / August 7, 2020 /

This weekend edition of Funeral Director Daily leads off with a great story you can access here. It is a story written by Isabella Jibilian for Business Insider. Jibilian describes herself as a graduate student who sought out management at Fernwood Cemetery so she could write about the high cost of real estate which, down…

Is “Old Fashioned” the new technology

By Funeral Director Daily / June 8, 2020 /

A couple of non-death care profession articles that I read this weekend really made me think of the death care profession and where we are moving. Just to make the record straight before I get into where we might be moving, I want to point out that I think all businesses are perpetually “moving” to…

Twin Cities Catholic Cemeteries to offer Natural Burial Option

By Funeral Director Daily / May 24, 2018 /

In an article that you can read here the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul) Catholic Cemetery group is in the process of preparing to offer natural, or green burials, as an option as early as this fall. The group has announced that it is readying a portion of one of its cemeteries, Resurrection Cemetery in Mendota…

The Growing Anatomical Bequest Movement

By Funeral Director Daily / January 16, 2018 /

Not so many years ago major medical schools were the only ones who used donated cadavers in the classroom labs. I can remember helping some very socially conscious folks in getting their bodies accepted, prior to death, at the University of Minnesota Medical School and at the University of North Dakota Medical School. The schools…