Here are the 4 “must have” prerequisites for becoming a profitable sheep and beef farmer. While there are many other principles and actions necessary to create profit, at least these 4 must be covered to give you the greatest chance of banking some profit for yourselves and your family, from your farming business.
What are they? Read on:
1. You must view your farm as a business, first.
This is as opposed to viewing it as a lifestyle or purely as a farm. By viewing it as a business first, you’re more likely to tune your mind and your thoughts towards creating profit and looking for opportunities to do that. If you don’t view your farm as a business first, then other priorities become important and there is a much lower chance of creating profit.
2. You must use a solid system, geared around creating profit.
That means a systemised process to help you make decisions that are geared towards creating profit. That should involve a set of principles underneath it all that regardless of where you are, who you are or what you’re farming, you can make some really good decisions that will actually bank profit.
To do that consistently, most of us need to change a few habits. To change habits and create new ones, we need a systemised process over time. If we just leave it to ourselves to “wing it,” the results tend to be a bit hit and miss, a bit 50:50, and we may or may not achieve profit. So, we want to give ourselves the greatest chance.
3. You must have the right support to help you get it done
This means having the right team around us, the right help, the right tools and the right systems, that are all geared to helping us achieve what is most important to us. The right team is particularly important because none of us are great at everything!
The second part of Must Have #3, is to actually get it done. This is not about just obtaining a piece of advice and trying to muddle your way through it - it’s about actually banking the profit, having the spare cash in your account so that you’ve got it to use. In other words, it’s done!
4. You must have the right support to help you get it done under any of the conditions that you might face in your sheep and beef farm business
This is not about learning how to farm ewes or bulls or any particular stock class. Nor is it about how to farm in a wet season, or a dry season or under irrigation or on dry land (or some other scenario). There are common principles to create profit underneath all these options that work regardless of the conditions you are under. You might take different actions under different conditions but the key principles that help you come up with those decisions are strong, solid and they apply anywhere.
With my business Growfarm®, my team and I have put a system around these 4 must haves to help farmers actually generate profit, have great businesses and have great lives. I’ve been working with sheep and beef farmers for many years now and it’s been wonderful helping clients take a whole lot of stress out of their lives and businesses, focus more on profit and see that profit flow. They have a lot more confidence and certainty about the future which is just brilliant!
I suggest that you honestly assess your business on these 4 Must Haves. Once done, ask yourself if you truly need some help to get to where you really want to go. If you feel you do, please get in touch - click here to do so. We can arrange a complimentary 60-minute discovery session to see how we may be able to create some great results together.
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I know that many older farmers went into farming because they wanted to do their work their way, and not be like 'businessmen' having to toe someone else's line. But these days farming is a multi-million dollar business, and it needs to be run like a multi-million dollar business, with profit every year to keep it going. Farmers are still blaming the weather, the government, and anything else they can moan about for not making profits. But it is the system and the support that does make it possible to produce profits every year. These Must haves are SO important.
Posted by Sue Edmonds, 14/02/2018 9:18pm (6 years ago)
We have been working with Growfarm for coming up 3 years - it has been an amazing journey and we have still got more exciting times ahead...Do your principles/systems stand up under challenge? Have you got the tools and support to face anything?
As Growfarm clients we have the support of an amazing team of Growfarmer's achieving their goals and securing a profitable future for our sheep and beef farm businesses.
Posted by Melissa Bradley, 14/02/2018 8:47pm (6 years ago)
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