Word: rayed
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...always. Ray Loewen once invited SCI's founder, Robert Waltrip, aboard, and the two men, both wearing yachtsman's caps, almost came to blows. O'Keefe likewise failed to appreciate the charm. Over a sumptuous dinner, O'Keefe told Loewen he did not want a fight and proposed a number of ways to resolve the dispute. But Loewen, he says, turned the evening into an effort to persuade him to sell his own best funeral homes. At one point, he says, Loewen boasted how he maneuvered John Wright to sell the Wright & Ferguson Funeral Home by threatening to build...
...Keefe soon found himself on English Bay aboard Ray Loewen's yacht, the company's secret weapon in the subtle art of funeral-home acquisition. Traditionally, the funeral industry has been dominated by family-run operations. Even now consolidators own only about 10% of America's 23,000 funeral homes, although these tend to be prime properties in key markets and account for an estimated 20% of the country's funerals. Wooing the owners often involves a good deal of soft salesmanship--chats over coffee and impromptu visits to talk about "succession planning," the industry's euphemism for transferring ownership...
...however, bothered to mention the plan to the Riemanns. They too charged up to Vancouver. David Riemann presented Ray Loewen with a bitter five-page letter in which he questioned Loewen's commitment to "bottoms-up management," Loewen's stated philosophy of delegating authority to regional managers and local funeral directors. Riemann complained that his wife Tammy had been fired by Loewen without notice, then continued, "I have had all responsibility of operations taken from me. I have yet to figure out, or have I ever been told, why I was totally eliminated from any and all operations functions...
...practice, new members of the Loewen family are likely to find they do not have quite as much leeway as bottoms-up management might suggest. The company immediately begins a process that Ray Loewen calls "normalization," or bringing newly acquired homes up to financial expectations. All the comfy perks of a family business--extra cars and dry cleaning--suddenly disappear. And prices rise. Loewen also institutes its "Third Unit Target Merchandising" system in the casket showroom, which capitalizes on the propensity of survivors to avoid the cheapest two caskets and choose the next one up in price...
...Ray Loewen counters that the average Loewen funeral generates only about $300 profit--although this average includes everything from direct cremations to premium traditional services and excludes all cemetery costs. Revenue from existing homes increases only 3% to 5% a year, he says, and he notes that Loewen also spends "huge amounts" to upgrade new additions. "It used to be thought that funerals were a big-ticket item," he says, "but really the dollars aren't that...