Assets, Liabilities and Opportunities
In a discussion about succession and estate planning at the Ranching For Generations course earlier this year, a woman told me that she believed “we should leave our kids opportunities rather than things.” I think she’s right. Unfortunately, we often mistake things, for opportunities. The classic example is leaving the ranch to your children so […]
Read MoreTwo Mornings to Change Your Business
If you’ve been through the Ranching For Profit School you recognize the importance of working ON the business (WOTB). If blocking out time for WOTB is challenging for you, you aren’t alone. Scheduling adequate time to work on the businesses is often THE most difficult challenge RFP graduates face when they get home. The problem […]
Read MoreGoing Long
You’ve probably heard the expression, “Go big or go home.” But there is another time-tested strategy that has a higher success rate: “Go long.” It wasn’t just water that carved the Grand Canyon, cold temperatures that led to the last ice age, or a smart investing strategy that made Warren Buffett wealthy. In each case […]
Healthy Land, Happy Families and Profitable Businesses: Stan Parsons’ Legacy
Hazel Parsons emailed me last Wednesday that her husband, Stan, died earlier that day from Covid-19 related pneumonia. I sat staring at the email, absorbing the news and trying to imagine what my life would have been like had I not met Stan. I first heard of Stan Parsons when I was an undergrad […]
Read MoreRecords Are A Waste Of Time
Some people think that records are THE key to managerial success. Not me. I think most records are a waste of time. Records give us data. We need information. It takes analysis to turn data into useful information. The problem is we spend 90% or more of our time collecting the data and only […]
Read MoreIrresistible Change
I reviewed articles in Harvard Business Review, Forbes and Fast Company on resistance to change. The articles laid out the 12 reasons, the 10 factors and the 5 keys to resistance. The more I read, the more convinced I am that they have it ALL wrong! I encounter my fair share of people who are […]
Read MoreScraping By
I received the following email from a young rancher last week: Dave, I am a young rancher and have grown my herd to over 100 cows over the last four years. In addition to my own operation I earn additional income working for my Dad on his place. I owe $15,000 of my cattle loan, have […]
Read MoreTwo Mornings A Week
Several weeks ago I included a WOTB quiz in a ProfitTips column in which readers could score the extent to which they work ON their businesses. Click here to read that column. The column was picked up by some other publications and wound up generating conversations on several other popular blogs. Most of the people making comments said that […]
Read MoreBoundaries
I have an advantage over most of the people who come through the Ranching for Profit school. I have boundaries. The RMC office is about a mile and a half from my home. Every day, unless the weather is miserable, I walk to work. Then at the end of the day I walk home. When […]
Read MoreThe WOTB Test
Most people blame things beyond our control like the weather, government regulation, low commodity prices and increasing costs for their failure to make a healthy profit. These are the things most often discussed at producer meetings and in the coffee shop. These are also things we can do little about. Making them the scapegoats for […]
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