The Dip
Seth Godin, author of The Dip, describes the period of time after a change has been made when the results are worse before they begin to improve. Participants of the Ranching for Profit School often envision going home to make a few changes to their business which will automatically have outstanding results and everything will […]
Read MoreThe Value of a Day
What value does your business need to produce every day? Are you focusing on the right things to achieve this? At the Ranching for Profit School we teach participants how to structure the economic information of their business into a format that is meaningful for making effective business decisions. Over the past few months I’ve […]
Read MoreGetting It Right or Getting It Fast
A young rancher attended his first Executive Link meeting a few weeks after completing a Ranching for Profit School. He showed his EL board the long to-do list he created at the end of the school and worried that there wasn’t enough time to get everything done that he needed to do. “I’m constantly putting […]
Sustainability: What’s In A Name?
Maybe it’s just semantics, but I think the words we choose are important. 40 years ago, when I was in college, “sustainable agriculture” was a revolutionary concept. Forward-thinking universities created Sustainable Agriculture Departments. Most farm and ranch kids enrolled in the Animal Science or Crop Science programs while the hippies enrolled in Sustainable Agriculture. But […]
A True Story About A Real Manager
About 15 years ago I met an absentee owner who was responsible for a family ranch that was losing money. It had lost between $200,000-$300,000 year after year for a long time. Over those years she’d made several threats to the two managers that if things didn’t turn around, the family would have to sell […]
If Someone Is Doing It, It’s Possible
I often hear people joke, “Ranching for profit? That’s an oxymoron.” I get frustrated hearing it, but I don’t blame anyone for thinking it. There is a lot of evidence to support the “ranching isn’t profitable” paradigm. These days ranches are valued more for the scenery than for livestock production. In fact, looking at a […]
What is Sweat Worth?
Most family ranches are subsidized with free, or underpaid, family labor. Sometimes the difference between what family members get and what it would cost to hire someone else to do the work they do is made up with the promise or expectation of sweat equity. But sweat is not a recognized form of currency and […]
What Are You Worth?
I often ask audiences at schools and workshops if anyone pays themselves what it would cost to replace themselves. Very few hands go up and those that do are usually attached to the arms of Ranching For Profit School grads. Many justify not paying themselves a fair wage claiming that their ranch isn’t profitable enough […]
Records 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 MoreLow Hanging Fruit
Someone called me asking if I was available to do some consulting. I explained that even though our name is Ranch Management Consultants, we actually do very little consulting. After folks have been to the Ranching For Profit School they may need some coaching, but they usually don’t need consulting. When we consult, we only […]