Sometimes I find my inspiration for these writings in the oddest of places. . . Yet, I seem to have this ability to relate things that I see in everyday life to the funeral profession and funeral business.  It happened again this past weekend.

On Friday I received a phone call from a great friend in the funeral home business.  We see most things from the same point of view and we both happen to be college basketball fans.  As you are probably aware the college basketball season was in high gear culminating Sunday and Monday with the Women’s and Men’s Championship games.  And, while not wanting to bore this death care audience let’s just say we talked about all the changes happening not only with the college transfer and renumeration issues but the huge popularity of the women’s games being brought about by emerging national stars Caitlin Clark and Page Bueckers.

It’s interesting and arguable. . .but, the Men’s college game no longer has the stars like the women’s game does. . . Preliminary indications suggest that for the first time ever the national championship game for the Women had more TV viewers than the championship game for the Men.  Yes, “the times they are a -changin”.

We got around to talking about death care, too.  We talked about rising expenses and lower per case revenues and discussed how that is crippling profitability for operators who don’t have a certain scale to their business.  And, we discussed a statement we both had seen that at least one industry expert expects almost 50% of the independent firms to change hands in the next few years. . . . some after over a century of continuous family ownership — like my former firm.  Yes, “the times they are a-changin”.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

We talked about employee issues, the difficulty to procure great professional help and the fact that most of the new employees entering funeral service are now female. . . according to this 2017 Associated Press article, 74% of funeral directors were men at that time, but 65% of the students in mortuary science were female – and I’m guessing the percentage of female students is only growing at this time 7 years later.  As a matter of fact, according to this 2022 article, which quotes the National Funeral Directors Association, it says 79% of today’s students are female.  Yes, “the times they are a-changin”.

Then on Saturday as I was at the local coffee shop reading the Minneapolis paper cover to cover — I call my Saturday mornings “Starbuck Saturdays” because I reward myself for six days of workouts with this behavior — I read that six weekly Minnesota community newspapers were going out of business.  This situation would leave those communties without a local hard-copy news source.  Two of the newspapers had been published for 160 continuous years – that goes back to the days of the Civil War – and one for 140 continuous years.  Yes, “the times they are a-changin”.

It just made me think that we live in a “continually changing world”.   Think of funeral service. . . ten years ago would we have looked at natural organic reduction (human composting) as a threat to some of our market share?  Would we have looked at the high, and increasing, percentage of deaths without some type of service as cutting into our revenue streams?  Would we have thought that many people would prefer to stream a service online rather than be there in person?

It brings me to the point I now take that in simply thinking about how our profession and its services do change, it is probably a very good policy to look within your business unit and try to understand the changes taking place and how you can prosper from them.  And, change and trends happen faster in today’s connected world so it is probably a good idea to take that initiative a couple of times a year and visit with your staff to make sure you are offering the services that your clientele expect and want.

If you want to stay relative with what you are doing for those who suffer loss, I think it is imperative to stay on top of those changes and be proactive.  By the time you are reactive, your competitor may already be serving those families.

The Headline – Bob Dylan:  Bob Dylan was the first American musician to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, based on the lyrics of his songs.

Bob Dylan’s 1964 hit  – “The times they are a-changin“ from YouTube

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