Working Backwards
One of Stephen Covey’s seven habits of highly successful people is to “start with the end in mind.” We use this a lot at our Ranching for Profit School, particularly during the evening coaching sessions when students are preparing their economic numbers. The Ranching for Profit economic model breaks down a business into gross margins […]
Read MoreSell/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 […]
Read MoreManaging For What You Want
In Cash Flow Quadrant, Robert Kiyosaki explains that there are four ways to make money. You can be an employee (E), working for someone else for a salary. Alternatively, you can be self-employed (S), a business owner (B) or an investor (I). If you compare the E and S quadrants to the B and I […]
When Assets Become Liabilities
Look up the definition of asset in Webster and it’ll tell you an asset is “anything owned that has value.” But Webster has it wrong. If I put a down payment on a ranch, financing the balance, the full value of the land shows up in the asset column of my balance sheet, but I […]
Scraping 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 MoreWorking For Your Money
When I was a kid if I asked my parents for money they would usually come up with some extra chores for me to do or suggest that I see if one of our neighbors needed some help with something. The lesson I learned is the lesson that most of us learn growing up: You […]
You 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. […]