Succession Assets vs Management
Succession. When the word succession is used in agriculture circles most think of who gets what and when. Typically when any industry group hosts a panel on succession, they include a lawyer, an accountant, a young and old rancher; all talking about passing down the assets. When you run an agriculture business, succession is much […]
Read MoreWhat 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 […]
Succession Success
Most people assume that the biggest estate planning fights involve “Who will own what?” It’s been my experience that, “Who will run what?” is often an even bigger issue. “Who will own what?” is usually a question of perceived fairness. To heirs, “Who will run what?” is a question of respect. As part of a […]
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 […]
Home 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. […]
Fool Me Once
Life isn’t a fairytale. Sometimes regardless of how good our idea is, how well we listen, how well we prepare and plan, we still run into a brick wall of resistance. Sometimes we don’t all live happily ever after. I’ve had more than one ProfitTips reader write me to ask, “What now?” The answer is […]