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 […]
Who Will Own What?
There are two big pieces to the estate planning puzzle: who will run what (management succession) and who will own what (the transfer of assets). In my last ProfitTips article I called management succession the more difficult of the two because it involves judging the competency of people you love and holding them accountable to […]
Getting Everyone on the Same Page
University of Wyoming Extension agent and Ranching For Profit School instructor, Dallas Mount, recently led a management succession workshop in Baggs, Wyoming. Dallas is a gifted, innovative teacher, and I was flattered when he asked me to participate in the program. Dallas did a great job of distilling successful succession into five core areas. Getting […]
Coming Home to Work
If you have a family ranch, whether you know it or not, you have a family employment policy. At least your kids think you do. In the absence of a formal, written policy, kids often grow up with the expectation that regardless of their education, experience or talent, there will be a role for them […]
A Great Place To Raise A Family
I occasionally lead workshops I call Hard Work and Harmony: Effective Relationships In Family Businesses. In it I like to ask participants to explain to the person next to them, why they ranch. Some say they love being their own boss, or love working outdoors and with livestock. Almost all of them say something about […]
What Does Mom Want?
We use a process at RMC to help families and business teams create a shared vision and a plan to achieve it. We start by asking a very basic question: What do you want? Each participant answers individually by writing several short statements describing how they’d like things to be in three to five years. Once […]
The Great American Tragedy
In an earlier ProfitTips column I wrote about a young couple who, after attending a Ranching For Profit School, came home to meet a brick wall of resistance from the folks. The couple wrote, “They were very upset when we showed them the numbers and compared them to the RFP benchmarks. We proposed several […]
Read MoreHome On The Range?
Many of us hope and fear that the next generation will want to be part of the family business. We hope because we feel validated that we must have done something right when our kids want to follow in our footsteps. Many of us see it as our role to create opportunities for our kids. […]
Two Legacies
Legacy is a powerful concept. Perhaps that is because we see our legacy as a form of immortality. In some families it has survived generations now long gone. Many people I work with feel a deep obligation to carry on the family’s legacy. A family’s legacy can be rich with meaning and a powerful source […]
Read MorePay The Damn Taxes
In The Ultimate Legacy, Dr. Don Jonovic says that the most critical issues in an estate plan are: Who will run what? Who will own what? How will you make sure you have the capacity to pay the taxes so that the first two things can actually happen? The transfer of authority can be […]