being a small business owner/employer

[dooleysm]

We never 'finished' the mowing. It was just a constant loop around the cemetery. They had probably 20 of these mowers going 8 hours a day. In May (leading up to the 'big' day in the cemetery business, Memorial Day) they ran at least 10 hours/day, including Saturdays. They had a similarly sized string trimmer crew, along with 3-4 larger tractors and zero-turns on the memorial lawn sections and empty sections.

We also had 1 full time guy tamping and top-dressing, another full time guy setting stones and foundations, a full time guy removing flowers and downed tree limbs, 4 guys on 'graveside' (digging/filling and setup/teardown), and several others. Since they 'heyday' when I worked there they have contracted out most of the mowing and some other tasks. When I was working there in the 90's they had about 18 full time guys and another 50-60 seasonal. This was just the grounds crew and didn't include administration, sales, security, or funeral home employees. It was and is quite an operation.

 

[dooleysm]

My cousin, on the other hand, just has himself and 1 or maybe 2 other guys for all the cemeteries where he does work.

 

[Gravdigr]

Were you mowing Arlington? Seriously that cemetery must be huge. Me and 2 guys mow and trim our 17 acres of cemetery with 2 mowers and 3 trimmers. I found 1 good commercial zero turn mower is worth 3 tractor mowers in time and money savings. I'm selling off our fleet of 4 small riding tractor mowers keeping 1 extra on hand in case a mower goes down.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Gravdigr, you stated that you had many repeat customers. I would like to know, how does one become a repeat customer in the grave business?

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Gravdigr, you stated that you had many repeat customers. I would like to know, how does one become a repeat customer in the grave business?

I was thinking the same thing, and there are slow and busy times of the year for people dying? I'm sure that there are things here that we must not understand.

 

[MossRoad]

I was thinking the same thing, and there are slow and busy times of the year for people dying? I'm sure that there are things here that we must not understand.

Same family buys his services for their loved ones for generations. Our family has used the same funeral home and monument works for decades.

 

[Gravdigr]

Same family buys his services for their loved ones for generations. Our family has used the same funeral home and monument works for decades.

Exactly. I have sold 5+ headstones to 1 family before. They buy one and are so pleased they start buying more for family members that either never got a headstone or their headstone was old marble and needed replaced.

Or you get a family that buys 1 gravespace for a loved one, then come back later and buy a couple 4 grave lots for the rest of the family. Good customer service is rewarded, something I could never get through to my old boss.

Actually there are slow and busy times for people dying. We get a more deaths in the dead of summer from the heat. And winter gets bad because unfortunatly a lot of older folks on fixed incomes cannot afford to heat their homes so they keep the thermostat at 60 and often die of pnumonia There are also more suicides around thanksgiving and xmas.

But I think the busy time you were referring to was the other post mentioning may. May is memorial day. Memorial day to a cemetery is like xmas to wal-mart. All the work that piled up over winter that couldn't be done due to weather, cleaning up, settling, and seeding graves...pouring foundations and resetting any headstones that got moved, plus manufacturing any headstones bought over the winter as it's too costly to heat the building to do them in winter, and the normal mowing and trimming.

 

[dmccarty]

We get a more deaths in the dead of summer from the heat.

Pun intended?

I never realized how much work goes into a cemetary. Course most of them around here are small church or even family plots. Seen a few get overgrown which bothers me. Our county went out and found every cemetary they could so they can keep track of them. In our years of looking for proprety to buy we ran into a few that had a small cemetary. One was interesting. The headstones all local stone. Looked like sandstone and very thin. The people were buried in the early 1700's. The lettering was very shallow and some of the letters were backwords. Unfortunately a neighbors cattle had gotten amoungst the stones and broken some.

Another plot had a fairly large cemetary. 20-30 graves. Very sad to see how many of the graves had babies and small children. The cemetary was in the best part of the land for sale. I would bet the land is still available. Course the "neighbors" would be quiet.

I had a family member who lived right next to a nice cemetary in FLA. The back yard fence was the cemetary. I can still remember the rifle shots from the burials of serviceman who had died in Viet Nam. Cuz and I used to walk through the cemetary picking up 30'06 from M1s.

Later,
Dan

 

[dooleysm]

Were you mowing Arlington? Seriously that cemetery must be huge. Me and 2 guys mow and trim our 17 acres of cemetery with 2 mowers and 3 trimmers. I found 1 good commercial zero turn mower is worth 3 tractor mowers in time and money savings. I'm selling off our fleet of 4 small riding tractor mowers keeping 1 extra on hand in case a mower goes down.

I don't remember for sure, but I think it was bigger than Arlington, 550 acres:

Crown Hill Cemetery and Funeral Home Serving The Indianapolis Indiana Area - cremations, cemetery, caskets, vaults, urns