Cattle Profits and Taxes
During the Ranching for Profit School, we introduce three issues involving money: economics, finance, and income taxes. We spend most of our time on economics (generating value and keeping profit) then some time on finance (cash flow and investment), and less time on income taxes. The reason for that order is based on the overall […]
Read MoreAccess to Cash Creates Opportunities
This fall it has been energizing to engage with hundreds of ranch business owners from across North America through the Executive Link Program we lead, as they tackle tough challenges and exciting opportunities in their businesses. At our fall Executive Link (EL) meeting we do a ½ day continuing education program. This time John Haskell […]
Read MorePredicting Drought
What would the value be in your operation if you could predict drought? I know we can’t predict the weather, but we can keep track of monthly rainfall. Rainfall is going to be a darn good predictor of forage growth. In addition to rainfall, we can also keep track of monthly livestock head counts and […]
Read MoreThink Beyond Profit
Congratulations! You’ve just come through record cattle prices, you took Dallas’ last ProfitTips to heart, and now you’re sitting on a pile of money and wondering “what now?” There are many negative paradigms surrounding money, not only within agriculture, but within our society. Those paradigms have limited our ability to discuss money freely and openly. […]
Read MoreRFP Successes
The Ranching for Profit School is sometimes called the “MBA of Ranching” or referred to as “better than college.” The RFP School has an amazing curriculum that can have enormous impacts on the alumni and their ranches, but I don’t like those comparisons. Here’s why: you will hear and interpret things differently in each stage […]
Read MoreToo Many Options
We’ve always heard that having options is a good thing. Having options gives us the freedom to choose what is best for us. However, having too many options can feel chaotic and be crippling. When we have so many options, we actually tend to choose nothing. We look at the minor gain to our businesses as not worth […]
Read MoreAssets, 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 MoreRepairs Save Money?
Preventative maintenance on the ranch is easy to overlook, and it can be costly. Costly in dollars to actually fix whatever needs fixed whether it is fence and corrals, water tanks, or the farm machinery. As well as costly in finding the time which is nearly impossible; but why hire someone to do something that […]
Read MoreBenchmarks are Overrated
At the Ranching for Profit School, we teach people how to use benchmarks to identify deadwood in their businesses which allows them to find focus areas for managerial leverage. When we finish teaching the benchmark section participants are excited to run their numbers in the RFP format and compare them to the RMC Benchmarks to […]
Read MoreIs Opportunity Interest, Real Interest?
An opportunity cost is the lost benefit of choosing a different option. The opportunity cost of going to college is losing out on four years of wages; the true cost is tuition plus lost wages. At the Ranching for Profit School, we include opportunity interest as a cost on owned livestock herds, because there is […]
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