And again, I think that correlates with a lot of other discretionary retailers out there that are seeing a little bit of a stall when you think about that consumer that may or may not be dipping into their savings a little harder, may or may not have the same access to credit, particularly not at attractive rates. So that’s where we are. And I think as far as margins, I think you asked about, Scott. Our margins continue to grow. I think we’ve been operating in this kind of mid-30% range. And I think we’ll continue to expect those to push up slightly year-over-year when you think about 2024. I think it’s 33% to 35% range, somewhere in there.
Scott Schneeberger: Thanks. One last one for me. Just on digital investment, the CapEx, a little bit lower this year than last. Just if you could — maybe, Eric, speak to what these investments have been and the benefits you may have garnered? And are we — is that going to start to wane? Has the brunt of that occurred? And just curious how — what you’re realizing regarding the benefit on the tail end? Thanks.
Eric Tanzberger: Scott, we’ve said all along that we’re huge believers in digital investments, especially customer-facing technology. We’ve also been making some investments that are not customer-facing technology that are going to help us become better, more effective and more efficient at our funeral homes and cemeteries. So what you really saw us is really push that through the last couple of years. And that’s what pushed that digital CapEx up into the $50 million, $60 million range. I think this $35 million range, it could have been flow, but I think it’s a better number. As we move forward, you’re always offsetting that with what do the funeral homes and cemeteries need from a maintenance capital perspective because that’s going to come first.
And what do the cemeteries need from a semi-development CapEx perspective because our great sales force, that Tom just mentioned, needs inventory to sell. So that will always come first. But I do think that this is both a combination of some noncustomer, make us more efficient CapEx in terms of systems and processes that probably will wane a little bit as we move forward, and that will be replaced with better customer-facing technology and digital investments that way. But I think it’s going to end up being around this $30 million to $40 million as we move forward.
Scott Schneeberger: Got it. Thank you both.
Operator: The next question comes from Joanna Gajuk of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Joanna Gajuk: Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions here. So I guess first the follow-up on some numbers. So G&A this quarter, higher. How should we think about the ’24 G&A progression? Is this $45 million kind of elevated number, so it’s going to come down?
Eric Tanzberger: Yes. I think $45 million is a little elevated. It’s what I was trying to imply in the conference call remarks, Joanna. We had some movement, obviously, in the share price during the last few months of the year. And that adjusts more of the long-term compensation plans which are based on total shareholder return or TCR versus a peer group. And so we had to catch up some accruals, so to speak, are related to those in the fourth quarter, and that made the G&A, which normally should be $38 million to $40 million-ish a quarter into that mid-40s for the particular fourth quarter. But absent any other new information, I think from a framework perspective, we still like the, call it, $37 million to $38 million to $40 million a quarter for the corporate G&A expense.
Joanna Gajuk: Thank you. And another follow-up, I guess, on the preneed cemetery results production rates of this quarter, Q4, much better than expectations and you’re talking about growing, I guess, for ’24, for the full year, low single-digits. So I just want to make sure that I understand here. So was there any sort of transactions that were pulled forward so to speak from Q1 into Q4? Or is that kind of still the look for the year maybe seems conservative based on that growth that you experienced in Q4?
Thomas Ryan: Yeah. I think it’s so hard to predict, Joanna. I think all we’re noticing is that a lot of our lead sources come from activity. So when you have less activity on the funeral home side and the burials and the cemeteries, it can put some pressure on the number of leads that you have to generate and give to our sales force. So we’re just acknowledging the fact that if we believe there’s a little bit still of a pull-forward effect that it may have a somewhat dampening effect on that lead source. Having said that, the rates that we’re closing at are going up. We’re getting leads a big growth in digital leads that are very different, not coming off that traffic in the funeral homes and cemeteries. So again, I want to be optimistic.
It’s very possible that we could have a very strong preneed cemetery sales. I think we’re just acknowledging the fact that traditionally to come from this activity and we expect that activity to be slightly down. We feel great about the sales force. We feel great about our digital lead growth, and we’ve got inventory in the cemeteries to sell. So we’re optimistic about ’24 and even more so as we get into ’25 and ’26.
Joanna Gajuk: And I guess on a different topic, we’re still waiting, I guess, to hear from the FTC on those potential changes to the funeral rule. And I guess on that front, can you kind of give us a sense of over the last years how, I guess, your locations have been faring when it comes to compliance with those requirement of the funeral rule? On average, how many locations are non-compliant? And has there been a trend where you’re seeing fewer or more of a time of these locations non-compliant? And I guess there’s been some discussion around some other elements of the funeral rule when it comes to the fines and the training that’s required. So do you expect any changes to those other elements of the funeral that could potentially also happen because I guess the base the base case assumption is that going to be about the only price requirement, but would you expect other changes to that funeral rule? Thank you.
