November 2019 - Farm Owners Academy

How to reduce your biggest cost on the farm

Are you wasting time without even knowing it?

Years ago, when I lived in Brisbane, I got up at 4:30 in the morning. I woke up before the sun so I could meet a mate of mine and train with him at the gym.

After six months of doing this, I happened to mention to him the route I took to the gym. He looked at me and said, “Andrew, you’re missing the shortcut! Just take this turn here and it’ll save you a heap of time.”

I tried the new route the next morning and I kid you not, it was 15 minutes quicker. I did some quick math and worked it out, it was like two weeks a year that I was wasting by taking the longer route — plus the extra petrol.

I asked myself, “Why did I never even think to look at my route?!”

It’s because I was on autopilot, because I wasn’t paying attention.

So many farmers do the same thing on their farms…

They keep doing the same things in the same way…because it’s always been done like that…not realising they could save a whole heap of time, energy, and stress if they “took another route.”

This is what the Organise Infrastructure step of the TOP Producers Model is all about.

When you organise your infrastructure and streamline your farm, that leads to a massive labour savings. Labour’s the most expensive cost on the farm so this is an enormous way to save money as well as time and stress.

Why you need to take a step back to analyse your

efficiency

Here’s an important fact about improving efficiency:

You can’t fix a problem in the same environment it’s being created.

Imagine there’s a guy sitting by a river. Suddenly, he sees a kid flailing around in the water, screaming out for help. He jumps in, swims over to the kid, and pulls him out.

Two minutes later, there’s another kid drowning in the river. So he jumps in and pulls that kid out, too.

The cycle continues – the man sees a kid drowning, jumps in, pulls them out.

A woman walks past and he yells out, “Help! These kids are drowning. Get in the river, let’s get busy saving them!”

But instead of diving into the river, the woman says, “No. Something doesn’t feel right and I want to understand what’s going on first.”

She walks upstream and analyses the situation, looking to see what’s causing this problem.

Eventually, she finds a man who’s grabbing kids and throwing them into the river. She stops him…and the whole problem stops with it.

Now, I know that’s a weird example. But you get the idea, right?

If you’re spending all your time pulling kids out of the river, you can’t see what’s causing the issue in the first place.

To optimise your farm, you need the ability to remove yourself out of the busyness and look back and see

Where are we being inefficient?

How could we make things simpler?

What could we invest in to save us time?

That’s what Organise Infrastructure is all about.

3 examples of ways to organise infrastructure

This concept of optimising infrastructure is a bit abstract. So before we go any further, let’s make this real…

To give you an example, here are three ways a sheep farmer could create more efficiency. These might not apply to you (because every farm is different) but use them as a springboard to imagine areas you can organise:

Organise laneways

You’ve got to move sheep around all the time, right? So why not create laneways to make it really efficient for you to move sheep in between paddocks?

Organise the shearing shed

You’ve got to shear the wool off the sheep. How can you make that as efficient as possible so you get the sheep in and get them out quickly?

Organise the yards

You have to put sheep into the yards every 3 months (or more). How can you make that as efficient as possible? What can you do to lay it all out so everything’s simple?

Improving these efficiencies could easily save you 10 hours each week — which works out to 65 x 8-hour workdays each year. Imagine what you could do with 65 extra days!

2 simple ways to improve your inefficiencies

Hopefully you’re starting to see how powerful it is to organise your infrastructure and how much time, money, and stress it will save you.

But how do you actually DO it?

The simplest way is to start paying attention.

As you go about your day, notice everything that you do and ask yourself:

Is this the smartest way I could be doing this?

Consider WHY you’re doing it that way. Is it because it’s truly efficient? If not, explore possible solutions of ways you could do it differently.

Here’s another strategy…

The best way to learn how efficient farmers organise their infrastructure…is by copying efficient farms!

You want to find a farmer that’s doing better than you and copy them. It sounds like cheating but it’s actually a success strategy I learned in business school!

The titans of the business world copy what’s working for others. And you should, too.

Who are the top-performing farmers in your area? Almost always, they’re using the latest technologies and efficiencies and innovations. So visit those farms, watch what they’re doing, and see how you can apply those lessons to your farm.

Inside the Platinum Mastermind, we share the top-performing farmers and tell our members to go visit their farms. They learn so much by studying what the leaders are doing. That’s why it’s such a powerful program, because we have 150 farmers all sharing their best ideas with each other.

So here’s your challenge…

For the next week on the farm, constantly question everything you’re doing through this lens of efficiency.

When you start a new task, ask yourself:

Is this the smartest way to do this?

What other technologies are out there that could make my job easier?

What am I missing?

You’ll be surprised what you realise when you take a step back and start paying attention to your efficiencies!

Have a FOA consultant analyse your inefficiencies & help

you improve them

When you’re working in your farm every day, it’s very hard to take a step back and see where you can organise infrastructure.

That’s why the Platinum Mastermind Program includes a farm tour! You get a fresh outside perspective to dissect your whole farm, discover where you’re being inefficient, and give you proven solutions from top farmers to increase your efficiency and organise your infrastructure.

It’s invaluable insight and it’s all included when you join the Platinum Mastermind program.

Click here to learn more about the Platinum Mastermind.

To scale or not to scale…. that is the question

Too many farmers push themselves to always keep growing simply because they think it’s what they “should” do.

Do you agree?

There are benefits to growing your team and scaling your farm (and we’ll talk more about that in a minute.) But there are also other options that could be just as profitable and enjoyable…and they’re worth considering, too.

At this point in the TOP Producers Model, you’ve already gone through the first five steps to:

Tune In to what you really want
Take Stock of your key financial figures
Take Control of the 6 pillars of your farming business
Objectively Measure your farm’s key performance indicators, for continued improvement
Organise Infrastructure for higher efficiency and lower labour costs on your farm

You’ve just done a tonne of work growing your current farm to operate at peak efficiency.

Which is why it’s so important to pause for a minute and reassess what your next steps should be.

We have farmers in our Platinum Mastermind who choose to stay small and never continue through the TOP Producers Model to the Propel phase, and they’re very happy doing that! We have other farmers who choose to sell their farms for a great price and move on to pursue different work they love.

The key is…they CHOOSE. They check in with themselves to get clear on what they really want next. They don’t live on autopilot and grow for growth’s sake.

And you won’t either, if you pause and Open Up.

Is scaling right for you? Here’s how to tell…

You’ve just put in a ton of work to grow your farm to peak efficiency. This is the time to be true to yourself and make the right decision for you and your family.

So let’s take a breath and re-evaluate your goals based on where you’re at now in the journey.

After all, you don’t want to build the wrong business by chasing the wrong things.

So let me ask you…

At this point in your business — now that you’ve gone through the Transform and Optimise steps in the model — what are your goals?

Revisit your vision from the Tune In step. Does it feel as good as it did at the start of the TOP Producers Model? If not, what needs to change?

Recreate your vision at this new point in your journey. That’s what will carry you through the rest of the process and make it clear what to do next.

At this point, you really have three main options:

Keep your farm the same size
Scale your farm and grow into a larger operation
Walk away from the farm

There are no wrong answers! So give yourself permission to really get honest about which option is most in line with your goals.

And let’s explore what each option could look like for you…

Happily choosing to stay small

The first five steps of the TOP Producers Model might be all you need!

John Symons is a sheep farmer who came to Greg when he was on the verge of bankruptcy and shutting his 550-hectare farm. He went through an early version of the TOP Producers Model to save his farm and turn things around.

Today, John’s had a complete transformation. He pays himself $140K per year and his farm makes $250K profit.

Now that he’s taken control of his farm, he loves the work — being on the land and getting his hands dirty. He works 60-70 hours a week but he’s happy doing it because he’s doing something he loves. He’s so passionate about running such a successful block of land and is very happy with his small operation.

John’s also invested enough money off the farm to have financial freedom.

Although he could move on to the Propel stage at this point, John’s very content where he is. He doesn’t need more and doesn’t have a desire to grow. He just wants to perfect his block and he likes the challenge of constantly improving what he’s got.

…So that’s what he’s doing! And he’s doing really, really well.

You might be really satisfied with your farm and want to stay at this level forever. That’s entirely okay! The Propel phase is like a bonus; it’s not mandatory for you to go on that larger growth journey.

If you’re happy and passionate about farming, you may want to stay here. The skills we’ve provided thus far with the TOP Producers Model are enough for you to do very well without continuing on the journey. You can make a lot of money, feel very rewarded, do what you love, work the hours you want, take holidays — it’s all possible!

However, here’s one thing to consider:

If you’re the sole income earner…

What happens if something happens to you? What if you get sick or injured or can’t work on the farm anymore?

That’s the risk of not going on and scaling your business — you will always have to be the one to do the work that makes money.

That’s not to say you should scale! But I want to be honest with you that there is a bit of risk in choosing not to scale.

There’s no right or wrong answer. But it’s worth considering so you can make the right choice for you.

Scaling and growing the operation

Let’s do a quick gut check:

When you read John’s story in the section above, how did you feel?

Would you be satisfied with his situation? Did it sound like music to your ears?

Or are you someone who wants to buy out the neighbours? Are you on a journey to grow?

We have a in our Platinum Mastermind community who knew he wanted more and chose to grow his farm. He carried on with the TOP Producers Model and now manages a team of 15 people. He has 5K hectares, so it’s 10x bigger than John’s farm. He’s running his operation on a significantly bigger scale, looking after significantly more sheep.

He’s making more money, which is great…but he also carries significantly more risk with the possibility of losing more money than John. One’s not right and one’s wrong — it’s an entirely different journey!

The next level of growth involves an entirely new set of skills. The skills to become a top 5% farmer won’t take you to the next level. You need to learn how to train and manage a team, increase your scale and your systems, and procure assets. This is all about investing in better systems and people to help you maximise your business.

If you decide to grow, you’ll also step into the role of business owner, rather than farmer. You won’t be out on the land anymore; you’ll be in the office running the business. This is really important to consider!

Here are a few questions to help you decide if you want to move on to the Propel phase:

Are you more passionate about farming…or are you more drawn to being an entrepreneur?
Do you want the journey of scaling up and building a profitable empire?
Are you comfortable about the risk that comes with that?

Choosing to walk away from the farm

When we present this third option to our Platinum Mastermind farmers, we can feel a shift in the air.

People are afraid to even consider this option. But it’s so important to think about because leaving the farm may be the best path for you.

Often farmers can get trapped. They keep working because they don’t know what else they would do if they left. Or maybe they’re afraid of being the one to jump ship. Maybe their dad owned the farm and his dad before him…and they don’t want to be the one to walk away.

But the reality is that some farmers aren’t happy with what they’re doing. They put so much pressure on themselves to be great and prove their dad wrong and it’s making them miserable.

We spoke with a wellness coach recently and she said about 50% of the farmers she speaks to struggle with depression. Suicide is also far too common among farmers. It can be a lonely industry and suicide is an epidemic in our industry that’s not spoken about enough.

RELATED PODCAST: Are You Really Okay?

So as you’re Opening Up, it’s important to ask yourself:

Are you really fulfilled with farming? Do you really love your farm?

For John, yes. For many other farmers yes. But for another of our farmers, David…no.

We’ve spoken about David before on the blog — all about how he doubled his profits and halved his hours by working through the first five stages of the TOP Producers Model.

David loves farming…but there were challenging family dynamics on the farm that were making it unfulfilling for him.

He couldn’t find alignment, and when he stopped to Open Up and think about what he wanted next…he realised he doesn’t want to waste his life playing by someone else’s values and rules. So he decided to leave the family farm.

It was one of the most courageous decisions I think anyone could make. He’s walked away from this “mapped-out career” and beautiful block but he knew he couldn’t live like that, being controlled by someone else.

If you’re feeling the same, if you don’t truly enjoy farming or have difficult family dynamics or you simply want to do something else with your life…I want to tell that it’s all okay. You don’t have to stay on the farm.

In reality, you would probably do extraordinarily well if you choose to sell your farm at the moment. In the current market, most of our clients could sell their farms and never work a day in their lives.

Or even if you chose, like David, to walk away…there are still so many options for you.

I know it might feel scary to walk away. But you only get one shot at life. Isn’t it much scarier to live your whole life only doing what you think other people expect of you?

I want to support you in choosing what’s right FOR YOU. And that might be leaving the farm…and that’s okay.

We have about a 50-50 split of our members who decide to go on the journey through the Propel phase. The rest choose to stay small or leave the farming industry.

The most important takeaway is that there’s truly no wrong path!

Give yourself permission to follow your heart and your gut. Only YOU can make this choice.

In the end, the only wrong decision is not taking the time to Open Up and decide what’s best for you.

Want to talk this out with a coach (for free)?

Have a yarn with David.

He walked away from his family’s farm — after doubling his income and halving his hours — because he knew it wasn’t what he truly wanted. So he’s been through it!

If you might be in the same boat and want to have a chat about it, you can sign up for a free call with David by clicking here.

6 steps to take you from family farm to well-run business

If you ask me, it’s an absolute waste of time…

…to try and manage things you can’t control.

No matter how hard you work, you’ll never be able to control the weather, your family’s actions, or interest rates at the bank. So I’d rather help you focus your limited energy on the things you CAN control.

When you take control of your farm…

● You’ll become the master of your time

● You’ll feel great about the money the farm is making

● You’ll get all the important work done AND feel fulfilled at the end of the day

I know this might feel like a vague concept. “What do you mean by ‘take control’, Andrew? How do I do it? What exactly do I need to take control of?”

So let’s make this real…

Inside this blog post, I’ll walk you through the 6 key areas you, as the business owner, must take control of if you want higher profits and more freedom. You’ll learn what to do and how to do it to go from chaos to control in these areas.

This comes from Step 3 of our Top Producers Model which is all about Taking Control.

Once you get a handle on these 6 areas, your farm will run like a well-oiled machine

CLARITY: Decide on the big vision for your business

The biggest challenge I see farmers face is procrastination…

Which I believe stems from lack of clarity.

Vision is a clear picture of where you’re going and WHY you’re going that way.

When you create a vision that’s compelling, it’s like a magnet. It instantly creates movement in that direction.

If I set a vision to become a professional golfer in 10 years’ time, suddenly my actions will change, right? I’ll start doing things like:

hiring a coach
saving up for new clubs
watching golf videos on YouTube

See how the simple act of creating a vision improved my clarity and changed my behaviour almost immediately?

I’m a big fan of setting a 10-year vision that’s a bit bigger than you think you can achieve. Set something that’s a little bit scary! That will push you and create more positive movement than a smaller goal.

Your vision has to enrol and inspire you as the leader, so you can enrol and inspire the team to get onboard the bus! Put your 10-year vision somewhere where everyone can see it daily to motivate the team and remind you where you’re going together.

Because it creates so much movement, I would put creating a clear 10-year vision down to the #1 most critical thing you can do if you want to move forward and create a profitable business. Don’t overlook it!

ACTION: Fulfil the big vision

Someone might go off and spend hours coming up with this beautiful 10-year vision. But without Action, it remains a dream…and you remain stuck.

That’s because you can’t manifest your big vision if you don’t have a system to get stuff done.

That system starts by breaking down your big 10-year vision into 3 smaller chunks:

What should your farm look like in 3 years, to be on track to that 10-year vision?
What do you need to achieve in the next 12 months to hit that 3-year picture?
What do you need to accomplish over the next 90 days to stay on track with your 12-month goals?

See how that works? We’re winding back the clock to make it crystal clear what you need to do over the next 90 days (we call this a “quarter” in the business world) to eventually make your 10-year vision a reality.

So work backward to decide on your 90-day goals…and then ONLY focus on those goals for the next 90 days. Make sure every action you take, every job you do, is related to one of those 90-day goals.

One of the ways we practice Action here at Farm Owners Academy is through a weekly meeting to make sure we’re staying true to our 90-day goals. I actually get quite derailed if someone starts talking about something outside those goals for the quarter. It’s like, “Hang on, it’s not on the plan! So we’re not going to focus on it.”

I keep my 90-day goals open in front of me every day. I know that if I focus on those 90-day goals, I don’t even have to worry about the 12-month goals — they’ll take care of themselves if I work the 90-day plan.

If you’re serious about taking Action on your farm…

We have a free webinar that will help!

Action is the essence, the backbone of our webinar 3 Steps to a Highly Profitable Farm. (I feel it’s the most valuable part of the whole training, if I’m honest.)

This webinar will help you articulate your Clarity Action Plan so you can set your 90-day goals and take massive motion towards your 10-year vision.

Click here to join the webinar (It’s free!)

People: Because teamwork makes the dream work

I know that’s a cringey saying…but it’s true! You can’t achieve your 10-year vision by yourself.

Once you have clarity and you know what needs to get done over the next 90 days, you also need to build the right team to help you. You can’t do it alone.

Often farmers will hire the first person they meet at the pub. This person doesn’t fit your company culture and you end up getting frustrated with them and spend all of your time fixing their issues.

In the end, you think you’re the only person that can do the job right so you sack them and go back to doing it all yourself.

That’s where taking control of your people comes in. It involves:

Finding the right people for your farm (I promise, they’re out there!)
Leading your team and motivating them to succeed
Managing people and making things run smoothly

Taking control of people is challenging! That’s why there’s a whole module on this inside the Take Control program that shows you how to find great staff, write job roles, and manage and lead your team. Click here to learn more about Take Control.

Process: Build a business that can run without you

A successful business owner knows they need to create processes for their people to follow. Otherwise, they’ll keep being the only person who can do the jobs on the farm.

Processes also improve the quality of the work that’s being done. When your team has a system to follow, there are fewer mistakes, there are fewer issues for the farmer, and things start getting done the way you want them to.

Don’t get overwhelmed here…

There are only really 3-7 core processes that you need to worry about. You don’t need to create a 250-page operations manual!

Just pick the 3-7 tasks you do all the time and ask yourself…

How can I take this out of my head and break it down into steps?

You can either write down the steps in a Word document or film a video of you doing the task. Boom — you just created your first process!

Documenting your processes is helpful for your team members…and it’s also helpful for you to get that knowledge out of your head.

Every year, we host a two-day in-person workshop called the TOP Producers Workshop. I’d never host that event without a checklist! It removes mistakes and makes me more productive because I don’t need to keep anything in my head — it’s all on the checklist.

We have a whole module on processes inside Take Control. You’ll learn which processes you need, how to break them down into steps, and how to get your team to follow them. Click here to learn more about Take Control.

Data: The key for continuous improvement

Imagine playing sport without keeping score…

You’d never do that, right? But so many farm owners don’t “keep score” by tracking their data on the farm!

It’s important to make sure you’re measuring what you’re doing. Data allows you to make decisions objectively, rather than basing them on emotion. And most importantly…what gets measured improves.

The data component is about implementing what we taught back in Take Stock and ensuring you:

Benchmark
Create regular profit and loss statements
Maintain regular balance sheet statements
Check in with your cash flow regularly
Understand the RESULTS that are coming from your actions

Having objective data (and checking in with it regularly) helps you make smarter decisions as a business owner.

Did you know we have a course called Farm Financial Framework that teaches you everything you need to know about your farm’s financials and how to make profitable decisions based on the data? It also comes with a customised mini-benchmark report so you can clearly see where you need to improve. Email us at [email protected] for more information.

Issues: Because no farm is perfect

What business doesn’t experience issues?

None! Problems crop up in every business, no matter how well it’s doing. But the key is having a system in place to address those issues.

What a lot of farmers do is wing it and resolve the issues when they arise. This causes them to get derailed, to lose focus, and to be at the mercy of whatever issues pop up (something you can’t control.)

Inside Take Control, we teach compartmentalising — a way to handle issues without getting distracted from your 90-day goals.

When an issue crops up, ask yourself:

Does this need to be addressed right now?
Can it wait until the weekly meeting?
Or can we park this for now and discuss it at the quarterly or annual planning meeting?

This makes life a lot easier. It doesn’t mean you don’t deal with the issue…but it means you can make some things wait. That helps you keep momentum and traction where it should be: on your 90-day goals.

Having a system to work through your issues without derailing your traction allows the farm to keep moving forward.

Those are the 6 areas you, as the business owner, must take control of if you want higher profits and more freedom.

…Did you notice the key phrase in that last sentence?

It’s not profits or freedom.

It’s business owner.

There’s a massive difference between a farmer and a business owner of a farming company. A business owner takes control of his business; a farmer lets it control him.

Are you ready to start acting like the owner of your farm? Start by taking control of these 6 areas.

Look, I’ll be honest. There’s only so much I can teach in a

blog post…

If you want the proven system to Take Control of your farm, our 10-week mentoring program is the perfect next step.

Inside Take Control, you’ll learn to master these 6 key areas so you can step up and become the business owner your farm needs for higher profits, better efficiency, and more freedom.

We’ve helped over 160 farm owners Take Control…and we’d love to help you, too.

Click here to learn more and join Take Control.

Decision making – wing it or win it?

When most farmers make decisions, they wing it.

They don’t have any tools or systems to help them decide whether something is a good financial decision or a bad one.

…Which leads to bad decisions that cause big problems like:

Unnecessary spending
Constrained progress (when it comes to profit)
Major financial pressure

But here’s the good news:

All it takes to turn the tables and is a solid decision-making process. And that’s where the Objectively Measure step comes in.

This is step 4 of the TOP Producers Model, which helps farmers Transform, Optimise, and Propel their farms.

Really, in a nutshell, Objectively Measure is all about bringing reality to your decision-making in the best interest of the business.

When you use this 3-part decision-making system, you can confidently choose things that will truly help you achieve your financial goals. And with every new decision, you’ll become a much more intentional business owner.

Part 1: Choose your farm’s KPIs

To make smart business decisions, you first need to decide on your KPIs.

KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator, and it’s a figure used to evaluate the success of meeting a goal.

Let’s pretend you have a goal to become a professional golfer over the next 10 years. How could you measure whether you’re on track to achieve it?

Simply saying, “Yeah, I feel like I’m making progress,” isn’t a very effective strategy. You need objective data to PROVE it.

One KPI could be your average handicap. Every year, you’d need this to decrease to show improvement.

Another KPI could be your world ranking. Seeing an increase year on year would tell you that you’re moving towards your goal.

A third KPI could be how many yards you can hit a golf ball, and you’d hope that would increase over time.

See how all of those KPIs track objective data, rather than subjective feelings? That’s key!

It’s important to define your KPIs because “success” means different things to different people.

So what KPIs should you track on the farm?

We’ve got the answer inside the FREE Ultimate Farming Enterprise Cheat Sheet! Inside, we summarise the 10 KPIs and targets that will help you continually improve profits on your farm. Click here for your free download!

Part 2: Remove emotion and use LOGIC to make decisions

Many decisions in farming are based on emotion.

“This lease land feels right to lease!” or “This header seems awesome to help me get the job done!” or “Yes, I feel like I need this new $500,000 tractor today!”

Whilst emotional decisions might feel nice to make in the moment, they can cost you a lot of profit.

(I can practically hear Greg talking about this at the TOP Producers Event…“That one emotional decision to buy the $500,000 tractor just eroded your entire profit for the next three years!”)

It’s easy to get caught up and make emotional decisions. Natural, even! That’s why you need a set of tools to counteract that tendency and help you arrive at LOGICAL business decisions.

Always analyse your options from a logical point of view to make sure the numbers add up and are leading you towards improving your ROI. Don’t let feelings make decisions for you!

Our clients Cheryl and Tim are unbelievable at this. They’re so good at making decisions to maximise profitability and they never buy emotionally. That’s why they’ve been making 40% profit for 20 years…because they make such logical decisions!

It’s hard to explain it all inside one little blog post but if you want to go deeper on this, we teach a whole suite of decision-making tools inside the Platinum Mastermind program.

For now, remember this…

Before you make a big money decision (and I class anything over $10K as “big”) pause, take a breath, and look at the KPIs and your goals.

Will that new purchase help improve your KPIs? Do the financial figures make sense?

Then — and only then! — should you move forward with an investment.

Part 3: Continually monitor your KPIs with a benchmark

Don’t track one figure (like profit) and use that to generalise across the board. You want to track different KPIs to analyse from different angles.

Let’s use an example…

Pretend I have a goal of feeding my son Oscar healthy food on a budget. Let’s choose some KPIs to tell me whether I’m on track with that goal.

We’ll start with cost per meal — I want to keep each meal under $3.

Last week, the average cost per meal was $2.50. Am I successful?

Well, we don’t know yet! Because cost is only one factor — we need to weigh up the other KPIs…

I also want Oscar to have 5 servings of fruit and veggies per day. Last week, he only had an average of 3.5 servings. So even though the cost KPI was on track, the fruit and veggies KPI wasn’t.

That clearly tells me where I need to focus next: on finding low-cost ways to get more fruits and veggies into Oscar’s diet.

So the following week, I try adding in a few different foods. I have an average cost per meal of $2.75 and that Oscar’s up to 5 servings of fruit and veggies per day — which is great!

But then I notice another KPI (the grams of sugar Oscar eats per day) is way over target.

I realise that the applesauce I started feeding him, while it contains a serving of fruit, also has quite a bit of sugar in it.

So my next challenge is finding a low-sugar applesauce.

Now, I know this is a simplistic example. But do you see how that works?

Every decision affects your KPIs in different ways. That’s why you need to look at things from many different angles.

This is where benchmarking comes in…

A benchmark is a report that analyses your business’s performance in loads of different areas.

Here’s a sample page from one of our Platinum Mastermind member’s benchmark report, to give you an idea:

In this example, you can see we’re comparing the member’s actual KPIs with their target in a load of areas. This helps us see where they’re doing well (the dials in green) …and where they’re doing not-so-well (red and orange) and need to focus on improving.

The data inside the benchmark helps you answer two key questions:

How is my business performing, compared to the KPIs of a successful farm business?
What changes do I need to make, on reviewing this data, to improve my numbers?

That’s why tracking your individual KPIs through benchmarking is such a game-changer.

Just like with Oscar’s healthy eating example, it makes it clear and unemotional to decide where to focus your efforts to improve. It gives you hard data to create a strategic plan and work on improving year on year.

That’s how our client John Symons was able to grow his profit year in year out over a long period of time…

Watch his case study of how FOA helped him in our reviews – https://site.farmownersacademy.com/reviews/

As a business owner, you’ll need to make decisions all year long. There’s no denying that!

To make the smartest ones you can, you simply need to:

Choose the KPIs to measure success
Make decisions logically (not emotionally)
Continually track your KPIs through a benchmark report

There’s no more emotion at play and you can now rely on actual data to improve and grow.

As I always say, what gets measured gets improved. And what’s objectively measured gets improved so much faster!

Get your own custom benchmark report

When you join the Platinum Mastermind program, you’ll not only get your own custom benchmark report to objectively break down your performance and compare it to a successful farm. You’ll also get personalised consulting to make a strategic plan to improve upon it.

When you’re part of the Platinum Mastermind, there’s no winging it. You’ll learn our suite of monitoring systems and tools that clearly tell you when you’re going off course.

You’ll get incredible insight and strategic planning PLUS a coach holding you accountable to making the changes you commit to. That’s why it’s such a game-changer…and why our members achieve such incredible success.

Click here to learn more about the Platinum Mastermind program.