Principles Not Practices
Most of your neighbors think in terms of practices. Should I feed this or that? Should we run this type of cattle or those other ones? Do we calve in this pasture or the one over there? It is easy to understand why we spend so much time talking about practices. Everywhere you turn someone […]
How Much Can You Afford To Spend On Feed?
A midwestern University specialist recently wrote a column for a leading beef industry magazine claiming that winter feeding is the biggest expense in most cow/calf enterprises. That may be true in most cow/calf enterprises, but I doubt it’s true for any of the most profitable cow/calf enterprises. The specialist offered suggestions to “reduce feed costs […]
5 Keys to Quality Cattle
A popular industry magazine found its way to my desk this week. An article that described five essential “wisdoms” for producing quality cattle piqued my curiosity. According to the author, the first key is “Be fanatic about animal health.” Key number two is “Pay the extra money for a good bull and build a reputation for […]
Game Changer?
Income – costs = profit, right? The answer is “sort of.” It’s a little more complicated than that because we need to adjust for inventory changes, consider non-cash costs like depreciation and non-cash income like retained heifer calves. But over the long haul, for the most part, income – costs = profit. The obvious conclusion […]
Low 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 […]
The 3 Secrets For Increasing Profit™
There are three, and only three, ways to increase profit in any business. Stan Parsons called them The 3 Secrets For Increasing Profit™ and introduced them to Ranching For Profit students in 1980. Lately I’ve seen more and more articles by industry pundits that incorporate the 3 secrets in articles and conference proceedings. They rarely […]
Read MoreThe Profit Tree
There are only three things anyone, anywhere in any business can do to increase profit: Decrease the overhead costs Improve the gross margin per unit Increase the turnover (the number of units) Only one of these three things is the most important at any particular time. If high overheads are the problem, increasing production […]
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