July 23, 2026
Published by 
Axel Jean-Francois on July 23, 2026
Axel Jean-Francois on July 23, 2026The Real Picture, Part 3: The Price of Certainty Two buyers walk into the same funeral home. Same building, same equipment, same call volume, same staff. One offers six times earnings. The other offers seven and a half. The owner does the only reasonable thing a person can do with a gap that size. He asks his CPA what he’s missing. Nothing, usually. The earnings are the earnings, and the financial statements are the financial statements. What’s different isn’t the business. It’s the buyer standing in front of it. By now you’ve read two articles on how to actually read this business. The balance sheet tells you whether it has room to breathe. The income statement tells you how it earns, and whether that engine is sound or borrowed against a good year that won’t repeat. Neither one, on its […]
June 25, 2026
Published by Axel Jean-Francois on June 25, 2026
Axel Jean-Francois on June 25, 2026A few months ago we sat down with the balance sheet of a single-location funeral home we’ll call “Holloway Family Funeral Home”. By every measure that matters, it was healthy. Cash sitting well over 150 percent of plan. A current ratio north of six. Debt flat, untouched, exactly where it was the year before. If you read Part 1 of this series, you know what that means. Holloway had the foundation. The chassis was solid. They had room to breathe, room to make a decision instead of being forced into one. Then we looked at the income statement, and the illusion broke. The Collision The plan called for around 160 calls in the quarter. Holloway came in around 110. That’s not a miss you shrug off. It collided directly with the one line item that can ruin an owner’s sleep. […]
May 28, 2026
Published by Axel Jean-Francois on May 28, 2026
Axel Jean-Francois on May 28, 2026The Real Picture, Part 1: What Your Balance Sheet Is Actually Telling You Most funeral home owners can tell you what they made last year. Revenue, expenses, what was left over. Ask them about their balance sheet and the answer is usually some version of: “My accountant handles that.” That’s not a knock. The income statement is intuitive. Money in, money out, here’s what’s left. It’s a film. The balance sheet feels like accounting furniture. Something the bank asks for. Something filed away after tax season. But the balance sheet isn’t furniture. It’s the theater. You can have a sold-out show every night, but if the foundation is cracking and the rafters are rotting, the profit is an illusion. Everything your income statement reflects sits on top of it. And if what’s underneath is weak, none of the performance above […]
March 24, 2026
Published by Axel Jean-Francois on March 24, 2026
Axel Jean-Francois on March 24, 2026“Robert Crane” never set out to build a funeral home empire. He started in the preneed business selling pre-arranged funeral contracts across a handful of Midwestern states in the late 1980s. It was honest work. It paid. And over time, it put him in rooms with the kind of people who would matter later: independent funeral home owners in small towns across the region. He was good with people. The owners liked him. He remembered their kids’ names, showed up to their community events, and never oversold. When one of those owners passed away unexpectedly in 1997, his widow called Robert before she called an attorney. He bought the funeral home that month. Then it happened again. And again. An owner retiring with no succession plan. A family that didn’t want the business. A handshake at a dinner that turned […]
January 27, 2026
Published by Axel Jean-Francois on January 27, 2026
Axel Jean-Francois on January 27, 2026Based on mainstream 2026 forecasts, here’s what funeral professionals need to watch. Interest Rates and Business Borrowing in 2026 Let’s start with the big, invisible hand everyone’s felt but no one invited: the Federal Reserve. The Fed controls short-term interest rates by setting the “federal funds rate,” basically what banks charge each other to borrow money overnight. It’s not thrilling—but it drives everything from mortgage rates to commercial loans to your credit card APR. In 2026, that rate is projected by major banks and federal agencies to hover around 3.5–3.75%, down from the 2023 highs, but still miles above the near-zero era of the 2010s. For funeral homes, that means: higher payments on expansion loans, pricier lines of credit, and less room for error if calls dip. On a $1 million, 10‑year note, even a couple of percentage points equals […]