Articles

How to Develop Habits that Support Proactive Preneed

In Atomic Habits, James Clear shares the story of Trent Dyrsmid, a rookie stockbroker who used a simple habit to bring in more than $5 million in his first year at the firm – and that was in 1993 d...
By Danielle Burmeister, Homesteaders VP-Marketing Communications
In Articles
Thursday, May 4, 2023

8 Remarkable Graves with Incredible Back Stories

Have you ever wandered through a cemetery, spotted a beautiful headstone and pondered about the life that may have inspired it? If you have, you are not alone.Cemeteries inspire a natural curiosity...
By Jessica Farren
In Articles
Thursday, May 4, 2023

Inspiration Funds: A Strategy to Increase Preneed Sales

Two things are practically a given in our industry these days: More families are choosing non-traditional services to celebrate the lives of loved ones and they want peace of mind by having arrange...
By Bill Williams
In Articles
Thursday, May 4, 2023

Royal Treatment - The Hearse of Winsor

When the seven-decade reign of Queen Elizabeth II ended at Balmoral Castle on September 8th, 2022 - how fitting since her mother’s ancestry made Her Majesty the most-Scottish British monarch since ...
By Gregg D. Merksamer
In Articles
Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Glass-Front Niches: Helping Families Tell the Full Story of Their Loved One’s Life

Coming out of the Covid 19 pandemic, cremation rates everywhere are at an all-time high increasing the demand for cremation memorialization as many consumers have a clearer view of the value of per...
By Matthews Memorialization
In Articles
Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Why Do People Make Tributes to Other People?

Tributes are a special way to honor the life of someone living or deceased. They help those who hear the tribute to recognize the unique contributions the person made to the world around them. Thes...
By John Yopp
In Articles
Wednesday, April 12, 2023

10 Fascinating Chapters in Funeral History You Didn’t Learn in Mortuary School

There is a treasure trove of truly captivating and sur prising stories buried within the footnotes of death care’s past. Over the years, I have had an opportunity to learn quite a lot of fascinatin...
By Jessica Farren
In Articles
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
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Previous Posts

The Evolution of Obituaries and What That Means for Your Website

Today, Families Expect More from an Obituary How many of us can picture our parents or grandparents flipping to the obituaries section of the newspaper looking for names they recognized?  Ge...

10 Fascinating Chapters in Funeral History You Didn’t Learn in Mortuary School

There is a treasure trove of truly captivating and sur prising stories buried within the footnotes of death care’s past. Over the years, I have had an opportunity to learn quite a lot of fascinatin...

The Future of the Profession - Is It Really Very Different From the Past?

The funeral profession has been around, in a variety of fashions, since time immemorial. What’s the best route to ensure this essential service remains a thriving business into the future? Do nothi...

Embracing Hospice: Benefits of Optimizing Palliative Care

I have no idea what compels someone to become a funeral director, but I simply haven’t dreamt of being anything else. I choose every day to comfort the brokenhearted, to see others at their weakest...

Education in 2023

“Education” is our feature for this special issue of Southern Funeral Directors Magazine. The funeral profession already has a shortage of licensed funeral directors and embalmers and the much disc...

The Basics of Personnel Records

Most funeral home owners know that they should have a personnel file for each of their employees, but fewer know exactly what should be in those files and fewer still understand that they should be...

When Did Burial Vaults First Start Being Used? The History of Burial Vaults

On the surface, the question “When did burial vaults first start being used?” seems pretty cut-and-dried. Based on the definition that a burial vault is a container that encloses a casket to help p...