You Can’t Retire From Ranching
How is the next generation ever supposed to step up if the current generation can’t step down or at least step aside? The short answer is they can’t. It’s one reason managerial authority on many ranches skips a generation. More calamitous, it’s a major reason why young people don’t stay in ranching and multi-generational ranches […]
What Would You Do With $1,000,000?
In a recent Three Secrets For Increasing Profit® workshop I asked participants how much profit they want to make. It is an important question because you can’t hit a target that doesn’t exist and it’s impossible to build an intelligent plan unless you have measurable goals. But it’s an unfair question too. It’s unfair because […]
Monuments to Tax Avoidance
We have our end of the year tax appointment next Monday. That reminded me of a ranch I visited a few years ago. The owner’s son showed me around. As we pulled out of the yard we passed a big aerator they’d bought to crush sagebrush. If you aren’t familiar with aerators, the drum is […]
Read MoreScraping By
I received the following email from a young rancher last week: Dave, I am a young rancher and have grown my herd to over 100 cows over the last four years. In addition to my own operation I earn additional income working for my Dad on his place. I owe $15,000 of my cattle loan, have […]
Read MoreIt Doesn’t Matter What They Want
Earlier today someone called me asking for advice regarding a bid he was about to make for a property he wanted to rent. The property could support 200 cows from May to October and the term of the lease would be 10 years. He hoped that I would have some knowledge about rents in his […]
The Value of Gain & Grass
Wally Olson is a rancher from Vinita, Oklahoma. He has a profitable cattle trading enterprise based on the Sell/Buy marketing principles popularized by Bud Williams. At the foundation of Wally’s operation is an understanding of the value of grass and the value of gain. Wally is quick to point out that he doesn’t limit his […]
Pay 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 […]
Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later
Abby of Dear Abby, passed away last week. I don’t intend to take her place dispensing relationship advice, but I do get my share of Dear Dave letters. Here’s a Dear Dave inquiry I had last month: Dear Dave, We have a problem. Our ranch manager is a family member but does not have […]
Surgery with a Chainsaw
Ranching For Profit School instructors work with people in the evenings after class to help them apply the tools they learn in the school. A lot of people take advantage of these sessions to project their stock flow, calculate enterprise gross margins and project profit or loss for their ranch. When you throw in the […]
Read MoreYou may own your job if…
In the last ProfitTips I asked you if you owned a business or a job. I offered Robert Kiyosaki’s criteria from his book Cash Flow Quadrant: Could you leave for a year and come back to find your ranch working even better than when you left it? If so, Kiyosaki says you own a business. […]