I’ve been involved with funeral service businesses my entire working life. Over 100 years ago, in 1913, my great-grandfather, William R. Egan, had the entrepreneurial drive to start a new enterprise – to be the local undertaker in Victoria, BC. After graduating from high school and with that family connection running deep, I followed in his footsteps.
What I didn’t know at the time was that the original meaning of undertaker – “one who takes the risk and management of business; an entrepreneur” – would end up describing my career as much as the modern definition would. For four decades, I’ve worn both hats: the funeral professional and the entrepreneur trying to figure out what comes next for an industry in constant change.
Here’s how that journey has unfolded.
Timeline
1986 – Started at McCall Bros. Funeral Directors
I joined McCall Bros. Funeral Directors Ltd. in Victoria, BC – a high-volume, family-owned firm operating in what was then (and still is) the highest cremation market in North America. Six months later, I began my apprenticeship to become a licensed funeral director and embalmer. Over the years that followed, I would arrange more than 1,000 at-need calls and embalm over 500 deceased persons, learning the operational and emotional realities of the profession from the inside out.
1996 – Launched the Pre-Need Department at McCall Bros.
I built and led McCall Bros.’ first formal pre-need program from the ground up – handling the marketing, the print and broadcast media, the live presentations, and the one-on-one sales. The program eventually grew to a high seven-figure backlog worth $7.5M. For three consecutive years I ranked in the Top 10 in North America for sales of NSM’s Monumental Life Plan, and one year I was named #1 Salesperson – all while operating in the highest cremation market on the continent, which meant the most contracts signed and the lowest averages.
1996 – Built McCall Bros.’ First Website
The same year I launched pre-need, I led the development of McCall Bros.’ first website – and every subsequent version that followed. It was the start of what would become a parallel career in funeral marketing technology.
Early 2000s – Pioneered Google-Friendly Online Obituaries
After discovering that the obituaries on most funeral home websites were invisible to Google, I designed and launched a custom plugin that made them fully indexable. Around the same time, I created the “How would you want to honor your loved one’s life?” arrangement strategy to address the rising “no service by request” trend, and developed the “No Hidden Fee Guarantee” concept to build trust with price shoppers – both of which became widely adopted approaches in the industry.
2004 – Founded Funeral Futurist
I had been receiving steady requests from funeral professionals across the U.S. and eastern Canada for help facing the same challenges we’d already worked through in Victoria. With my Bachelor of Commerce in Entrepreneurial Management from Royal Roads University in hand, I launched Funeral Futurist as a strategic consulting and digital marketing practice – built around thought leadership and results-focused solutions for funeral homes navigating an industry in transition.
2006 – Launched Funeral Gurus
I launched Funeral Gurus as my education and podcasting brand – a platform for sharing what was working, interviewing the people doing it, and turning everything I was learning in the field into something the broader industry could use.
2012 – Launched Funeral Boardroom
Funeral Boardroom was created to serve a different need: a private mastermind and high-level consulting environment for serious operators who wanted candid, peer-level strategy conversations and direct access to senior advisors. Funeral Boardroom remains active today.
2015 – First in the Industry to Launch Mobile-Responsive Websites
With Google’s Mobilegeddon algorithm update on the horizon – which would penalize sites that weren’t mobile-friendly – I became the first website developer in funeral service to build and offer fully mobile-responsive sites, replacing the outdated mobile-version-of-desktop approach that most providers were still using.
2017 – Spun Out Funeral Results Marketing
I separated the web development and digital marketing operations from Funeral Futurist into a standalone agency: Funeral Results Marketing. With a team of eight remote staff across Canada, the U.S., and the Philippines, FRM grew into a full-service digital marketing operation. The agency built a library of 173 standard operating procedures, managed a Google Ads portfolio that delivered a 9.84% click-through rate and 14% return on ad spend across $6.7M in collective ad spend, and pioneered the “get paid first” model for online cremation arrangements – a counterintuitive change to the order of steps that significantly increased completion rates.
2020 – Created the Website-Assisted Funeral Arrangement Process
When COVID hit in March 2020 and arrangers couldn’t meet families in person, I created the Website-Assisted Funeral Arrangement process – a system that allowed arrangers to complete full arrangements with client families without using Zoom. One client who implemented it told me he’d never go back to the old way of doing things.
2020 – Sold Funeral Results Marketing to Johnson Consulting Group
Later that year, I sold Funeral Results Marketing to Jake Johnson of Johnson Consulting Group – one of the funeral profession’s leading M&A firms. I stayed on as a minority partner and continued in a small operational role with parts of the FRM business for two years, while also gaining a first-hand education in the acquisition process from one of the best in the business.
2022 – Returned to McCall Gardens to Lead Pre-Need
I rejoined McCall Gardens Funeral and Cremation Services (the modern incarnation of McCall Bros.) to once again run the pre-need department and lead pre-need sales – bringing nearly four decades of arrangement, embalming, marketing, and sales experience back to the firm where my career began.
2022 – Began Deep Work on AI, Automation & Workflow Design for Funeral Service
While running pre-need at McCall Gardens, I immersed myself in how AI, automation, and workflow design could be applied to the unique demands of funeral service – especially in marketing, lead response, and family follow-up. This wasn’t a casual interest; it was a multi-year build that would eventually become the operational backbone of a relaunched Funeral Futurist.
2023 – Funeral Results Marketing Changes Hands Again
Jake Johnson sold the web development assets of Funeral Results Marketing to Curtis Funk of Tukios. The shift would set the stage for an unexpected next chapter.
2024 – Returned to Digital Marketing for Funeral Homes
Curtis Funk reached out and asked if I’d be willing to take back some of the original FRM clients. I agreed – and that conversation reactivated Funeral Futurist as a full digital marketing agency. Today, Funeral Futurist offers website development, digital marketing services, and AI and automation integration through our funeral-focused Funeral Clients CRM.
2024–Present – Building the AI & Automation Stack for Funeral Service
The work I started in 2022 has matured into a complete AI and automation practice purpose-built for funeral homes:
- Pre-Need, At-Need, and Aftercare Workflows – fully automated, funeral-specific sequences that handle the right communication at the right moment across the entire family lifecycle, so nothing falls through the cracks during the most important conversations a firm will ever have.
- “Win Calls Faster” – our framework for what the broader marketing world calls Speed to Lead. We renamed it because no one in funeral service uses sales-floor language, and the term needed to make sense to the people actually doing the work. Every minute matters when a family is making the call, and “Win Calls Faster” is built around that reality.
- AI Chat & Voice Agents for Funeral Homes – purpose-built conversational agents that respond to families in the right tone, capture the right information, and route the right opportunities to the right person, around the clock.
- AI-Assisted Content & Media Development – production support for funeral homes that need consistent, high-quality content but don’t have in-house marketing staff, including written content, obituary support, social media, and visual media.
Today – Funeral Futurist
Funeral Futurist now combines four decades of in-the-trenches funeral experience with a modern digital marketing, AI, and automation stack – built specifically for independently owned funeral homes that want to compete and win in a market that doesn’t sit still. If that sounds like your firm, I’d like to talk with you.
