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JULY 2014
FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS
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With certifications as a Laughter Leader, Funeral Celebrant, Grief
Services Provider and Grief Management Specialist, Nancy Weil is
uniquely qualified to bring new perspectives and new ways to help
clients heal from the pain of grief as well as reduce stress for profes-
sionals in the industry.
As director of aftercare at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Buffalo, NY,
Nancy has developed one of the most comprehensive aftercare pro-
grams of any cemetery in the country in order to support families fol-
lowing the death of a loved one. A professional public speaker, Nancy
is available to speak to your staff, association or conference, bringing
her passionate interest in the healing qualities and therapeutic bene-
fits of laughter across the country. Her new book, If Stress Doesn’t Kill
You, Your Family Might, filled with tools that work to reduce stress,
can be found through her website,
You can contact Nancy at nancyw@mountcalvarycemetery.com or
vi
By Nancy Weil
Luxury Problem
The phone won’t stop ringing. You have eight new
death calls. You just added another burial to an al-
ready busy day. Stop whining and start rejoicing, for
you are experiencing what I call a “luxury problem.”
Success is something to be embraced, busyness cel-
ebrated, for there are many of your colleagues who
wish that they would be so overwhelmed with clients
that they could complain as well.
Let me start with a definition:
Luxury Problem
(
noun
) An occurrence when business is so good that
you worry about keeping up with it all.
Now some of you may be thinking, “Who would
ever complain about that?” I can tell you from expe-
rience that many in this industry do. I hear how busy
they are and how they don’t have time to wrap up
from one family before another is walking in the door.
I listen as they whine about the hours, the workload or
the juggling of tasks.
Isn’t this what the goal of business is? Perhaps that is why
I cringe whenever I hear grumbling about the unending
phone calls, the service requests logged or the never end-
ing genealogy searches sent in (well, I admit that I may be
guilty of grumbling about this from time to time). If it gets
too quiet, worry. Worry a lot. When the phones don’t ring
and the people don’t come, that is when you should be
questioning the viability of your business.
We are in a service industry and taking care of people is
our focus. Whether it is an at-need call or helping some-
one select a marker design, we must be there for them.
No matter if it is a complaint about grass not neatly
trimmed or taking time to officiate at a funeral service,
we must be there for them. In cases where people are
su-
per friendly and in those circumstances when they are
grouches, we still must be there for them. There are no
surprises when you enter this industry that you will be
dealing with people in all of their various moods. We
are present at their most emotional and heart wrenching
moments, we are there for them when they face their
own immortality and we are there for them when they
begin to heal from the grief and embrace life once again.
Each day unfolds with no pre-set plan as we adapt to
each call, each client and each hiccup in the day. Wheth-
er it is a water spigot run over by a cemetery visitor, yet
another day of rain falling so hard that services must be
moved inside or a delay in the start time of a funeral due
to a relative getting lost on their way, we adapt. If we
are inflexible, then we get stressed and it shows in how
Changing
Lives
Through
Laughter
we address each person we serve that day. It shows
in how we interact with our co-workers and it shows
in how we unwind at the end of our very long day.
Traditionally the summer season is busy as fami-
lies visit from out-of-town, funerals postponed due
to snow are finally scheduled and people tend once
again to their relative’s gravesites. Warm days lead to
hours filled with people to serve and clients to satisfy.
Phones ring, funerals schedule and complaints pile
up – business as usual…more to do than time to get
it all done and that is what I call a “luxury problem.”
ing the first buyer in our in-
dustry to close on the large
number of SCI divestitures
resulting from their acquisi-
tion of
Stewart Enterpris-
es
, and we achieved that goal
through a team effort by a
group of high performance
4E Leaders.
“This high quality group
of operating businesses in-
cludes the following:
Gar-
den of Memories Funer-
al Home and Cemetery
,
Metairie, LA;
Schoen Fu-
neral Home
, New Orleans,
LA;
Greenwood Funeral
Home
, New Orleans, LA;
Tharp-Sontheimer-Tharp
Funeral
Home
, Metairie,
LA;
Everly Community
Funeral Care
, Falls Church,
VA; and
Everly-Wheatley
Funeral Home
, Alexandria,
VA.
“The four businesses in
New Orleans and two in
Virginia now provide Car-
riage strong franchises from
which we can build a track
record of success and rep-
utation in two large, de-
mographically
attractive
strategic markets. We did
extensive due diligence on
many of the packages of
properties in other markets
that were being divested
and these two we have since
confirmed are the ‘pick of
the litter’ as to the quality
of the properties and the
people necessary to com-
pete successfully for market
share by simply being the
best in these markets at pro-
viding high value funeral
and cemetery sales and ser-
vice to client families.”
Carriage Services is a
leading provider of death-
care services and merchan-
dise in the United States.
Carriage operates 167 fu-
neral homes in 27 states
and 32 cemeteries in 11
.
Sheldon-Kukuchka
Funeral Home takes
delivery of a 2014
Federal Cadillac Hearse
Carriage Services, Inc. announces Closing
Acquisitions from SCI
HOUSTON,TX—
Carriage
Services, Inc
. (NYSE: CSV)
(the “Company”) recently
announced it has closed on
its acquisitions from
Service
Corporation International
.
Mel Payne
, Chief Execu-
tive Officer, stated, “We are
excited and very proud to
announce that we closed the
acquisition of six businesses
in New Orleans and Alexan-
dria, Virginia from SCI pur-
suant to a Consent Decree
Application approved by the
FTC. We had a goal of be-
TUNKHANNOCK,PA—
Parks Superior
congratulates
Sheldon-Kukuchka Funeral Home
in Tunkhannock,
PA who received keys to their new 2014 Federal Cadillac
XTS Heritage Hearse. Pictured left to right:
Gabe Shel-
don
,
Burnie Sheldon
,
John O’Donnell
, salesman,
Tom
Kukuchka
, and
Caleb Sheldon
. The Sheldon-Kukuchka
Funeral Home has been serving local families since 1959.