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 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 MoreEconomic Planning
Dwight Eisenhower said, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Eisenhower might as well have been talking about ranching. Speaking of planning … How is your economic plan coming along for next year? Things are changing rapidly. Costs and returns have taken some dramatic shifts in the past few years. The […]
Read MoreDrought Isn’t a Surprise
If you’re in the ranching business, drought is a normal part of life. David McLean is part of RCS, our sister company in Australia. David refers to planning for the average year as “riding the unicorn”. David says it a bit more colorfully, “Stop riding the bloody unicorn!” Managing your business for the average year […]
Read MoreEconomic Analysis
We recently wrapped up our two day Economics Intensive where alumni of the Ranching for Profit School prepared their economic plan for the coming year. For many of us, if we are left to our own devices, we often put off making an economic plan or get stuck figuring out how to handle a certain […]
Moneyball is a Movie About Ranching
The first time I watched the movie Moneyball, I about came out of my chair thinking, “This movie is about ranching”. The correlations are strong and the lessons from the movie are absolutely appropriate to agricultural businesses. In the movie Moneyball, Billy Beane is the general manager of the Oakland A’s, who have just lost […]
Read MoreMaking Changes with John Marble
John Marble, Ranching for Profit alumnus from Oregon is a not only a rancher, but a thinker, (I consider him a ranching philosopher) and a writer. He wrote the following piece for On Pasture and they kindly allowed me to share it with you. In class we talk about the inventories of grass, money and livestock; but we […]
Read MoreMaybe We Should Keep Those?
Have you ever looked at a group of calves, heifers, cull cows and thought, “Well… maybe we should just keep those?” If you have, you’re not alone. Acting on this type of thinking often leads to complicating the business with a lot of little enterprises which can be bad economically and financially. When you start […]
Read MoreBiggest Mistakes in Grazing Management
Too short a recovery period – When turning into a pasture ask, “Has this pasture recovered from the previous stress (grazing, fire, grasshoppers etc.)?” If not, then you need to lengthen recovery. It is possible for recovery periods to be too long, but too short is more common to see. Too long of a graze […]
Sell/Buy Lessons from Aaron and Tara
ProfitTips is taking a different direction this time. Aaron and Tara Helmick recently shared with me a collection of “Lessons Learned” from the past 4 years as they have been on a journey to transform their business. I met Aaron and Tara at a Ranching for Profit School I taught in Rapid City, SD. Aaron […]
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