Unlike most “jobs”, farming is an all-encompassing, often family-run business that necessitates a physically, emotionally and mentally gruelling lifestyle. Living and working with family members every day can be wonderful for some and very challenging for others, particularly as issues regarding income, succession and decision-making have to be well-planned and communicated. Being prepared is vital for a healthy business and a healthy family. Here I discuss just how to best manage these challenges with Tony Catt, Director at Catapult Wealth.

Tip 1: Take Control of Your Time

The first big tip Tony gives to farmers to best manage their business is to take control of their everyday tasks in a disciplined and specific manner. Using a daily or weekly planner, diary or to-do list to write down, schedule and check off tasks, meetings or even phone calls every day can really increase your productivity and save time. If diaries or to-do lists aren’t your thing, Tony highly recommends sitting down for 5 minutes each night and planning out the next day so that you can go to bed with a clear head, knowing exactly what is coming and what your priorities are (our Time Management Course really helps with this!). 

Also, get the most dreaded task out of the way first thing in the morning while you’re feeling energetic! Doing so will mean that even if the rest of your day doesn’t go to plan, you can at least feel a sense of achievement knowing that you have accomplished an important task. Encourage your family to do the same- I guarantee you will see and feel the positive results!

Tip 2: Consider your ‘Why?’

The Australian economy has really changed the landscape for many farming families over the past 18 months. As land values have doubled (in some instances), many farmers question whether they should expand, intensify or invest in their farms, and whether they can and should take on more debt. Tony’s advice here is to really consider the “why” in any of these decisions. What is your purpose in expanding, buying or selling land? What is the strategic intent behind such decisions? 

The banking situation in Australia has really changed over the last 5 years, moving from asset to income-based, so it is now more important than ever to have a profitable farm business, as banks will look at the cash flow of your business more than its value. They will consider how old you are and will stress-test repayments at (currently) 5%. Can you afford that? How does it affect your succession plan; are you leaving your kids with a debt for the next 20 years? If so – again – what is the purpose in doing so? These are all important questions to ask yourself, but to also sit down with your family and talk about, as it will greatly impact them in coming years. Our Farm Financial Framework Course can help you answer these questions, as it is aimed at helping farmers know their numbers and make great decisions using them.

At the moment, we are happily experiencing real optimism in Australia that we haven’t seen for a long time, with a generally good run of seasons and land values increasing significantly. This affects succession planning because the farming community is generally divided into the ‘Top 20% of Farmers’, and the ‘Average Farmers’. The ‘Top 20% of Farmers’ are well funded, run and managed, have good HR practices, access to staff when they want them and are making good money. Therefore, when the farm next door comes up for sale the bank generally approves borrowing. 

The ‘Average Farmers’ have some debt issues, are not as profitable as they should be, aren’t getting the results they want and can’t afford to take over the farm next door or borrow money. They therefore can’t increase in size, but also can’t afford to get any smaller. In this situation many farmers choose to get out and accept a reasonable price to sell. Both outcomes affect succession and can cause trouble within families, particularly when both on and off-farm children are involved.

Tip 3: Different Kids need Different Opportunities

Tony considers it vital for both off and on-farm children to carefully articulate their expectations and feelings around the changing value of the family property and how it will affect them in the future. The opportunities afforded to children through the property will be different for everyone, and it is important to consider this; off-farm children should genuinely ask themselves how the property has helped them to grow their own career and place less focus on exact numbers. For on-farm children who often work to pass on the family legacy, consideration of ‘opportunities foregone’ by remaining on the farm are important. 

For all involved, focussing solely on the money is a road to nowhere and won’t end well. It is difficult for parents to keep succession completely fair and is therefore up to children to communicate what they want long-term and what opportunities the property is affording them. Unlike most other commercial businesses, less than 10% of younger generation farmers and their families buy into the business, so it is incredibly important to know exactly why you are getting into it and how you can get out of it if you need to. Farming can be a much more all-encompassing lifestyle than many anticipate!

Tip 4: Succession Planning = Risk Management

Successful succession planning is therefore more about proactive prevention than anything else. Many people put off succession planning because it feels overwhelming, brings up difficult conversations or reminds us that financial and emotionally-challenging decisions have to be made. Tony believes that succession planning is central to risk management, which is absolutely crucial for farms. 

As unpleasant as it is to think about, we usually assume that people will pass away ‘in chronological order’ and therefore have no plans in place for the future of the farm if this doesn’t occur. Similarly, we don’t always consider, as a family, where older generations will live or how they will be cared for when they decide to stop active work. It is essential to consider what the ramifications are for the business as a whole if someone dies. 

For example, asking questions such as may be tough, but very necessary:

• What assets can be moved?
• What happens to the bank accounts?
• Where will our cash flow come from?
• How will the business be handed over?
• Who controls the money?
• Who makes decisions about management, debt, land and payments? 

They aren’t always enjoyable questions to work through, but are essential conversations to have as risk management for your business and to ensure you are able to access cash flow if and when a death occurs. Prevention is so much better than a cure when dealing with succession!

Tip 5: Succession Planning: An Attitude more than an Activity

As you can see, central to successful succession and financial planning is communication, and this is why the culture of a family and their farm is so important. Family members need to feel comfortable having difficult conversations and asking questions, and anyone who marries into or joins the family has to be fully aware of how challenging working and living on a farm with family can be. Good emotional intelligence is therefore integral to healthy family communication. This includes a genuine regard for others, selflessness, and perhaps most importantly, the acknowledgement that different people have different ‘truths’ (a more apt word than ‘opinions’ in this sense), and that it is within this lens of understanding and accepting others’ truths that difficult decisions can be made. Succession planning is therefore more of an attitude than an activity. If you enter into it with the goal of creating abundance for your whole family, you are more likely to have a great outcome.

Tip 6: You Can’t Afford NOT to Plan!

Succession planning can clearly feel all-consuming and overwhelming. By addressing it early with an attitude of creating and supporting abundance for future generations you are better able to risk manage the future and ensure the financial stability of your family and farm. Acknowledging that different family members will have different perspectives on certain issues and addressing planning in bite-sized chunks can lead to much better outcomes for everyone involved. 

It is easy to become tangled up in specifics relating to the farm and money, but it is most important to value your family and their relationships above all else. This can be a tricky thing to deal with when you live and work together all year round, however it is definitely possible and worth the effort. Don’t be afraid to seek help in achieving this; an impartial third party that manages, supports and facilitates these processes can make all the difference!

If you are interested in learning more about succession planning, listen to Episode 97, and Episode 46, where we delve into the nuts and bolts of planning even deeper.

By Jeremy “Hutch” Hutchings, Managing Director of Farm Owners Academy. You can listen to Hutch share his thoughts further on Finance, Farming and Families on Episode 97 of The Profitable Farmer podcast.

I’m sure there are more, but I place stress and overwhelm into three main categories:
 

ONE: Things left undone (too many things to do in a short amount of time);
 

TWO: You are constantly chasing the future and never stop to enjoy the moment (high achievers can easily fall into this category because they are never satisfied with what they have);
 

THREE: There is something negative going on in your life that you are yet to accept (i.e. you are rejecting your current reality for what it is).
 

Today, I will share a tool with you for #1 in this list – ‘things left undone’ (too many things to do in a short amount of time).
 

For many of you, Christmas is your busiest time of year.
 

Just the expectation of going into a busy period can create a lot of stress.
 

One year, coming into Christmas, a client I was coaching came into my office – he was feeling very stressed and overwhelmed.
 

He was at a breaking point.
 

He felt utterly overloaded, and this was significantly impacting his relationship and close to causing a divorce.
 

We used our coaching session to work through this simple but effective tool:
 

• Step 1: I asked him to write down everything that he had going on in his life
• Step 2: I asked him to estimate the time needed to complete the tasks he had written down and write this next to each one
• Step 3: I asked him to place a letter next to each item to show the priority
  • A: Needed to be done this week  
  • B: Needed to be done in the next 2 weeks 
  • C: Could be done next month
  • D: Could be done next quarter 
  • E: Could be done next year 
• Step 4: We also went through every task together, and I asked him, “could you delegate this task to someone else to do?”
• Step 5: We then pulled out his calendar and scheduled all of the tasks.
   

By the end of the exercise, my client realised he had actually only had 20 hours of work to do in the current week, and only another 10 hours to do the week after. In other words, there was WAY less going on than he initially thought.
 

He had a HUGE sigh of relief and even laughed at how much he was overreacting to how much he had to do.
 

Here is what he learned:
 

The problem wasn’t the number of things he had to do (in reality). The problem was he was carrying it all in his head without any structure, and the EXPECTATION of what he needed to do was causing him angst.
 

The best thing to do when you are busy is to slow down.
 

It sounds so contradictory, right?
 

You think you need to do more and more, but it’s all about slowing down, writing it all out, and working out a plan to execute it. And if too many tasks fall on you, then you are just not leveraged enough (i.e. it’s most likely time to hire someone).
 

SLOW DOWN TO SPEED UP.
 

Whilst this might not eliminate your stress and overwhelm, it will reduce it dramatically.
 

And you might even find that you can really enjoy the busiest time of your year.
 

Robbo

This week I wanted to share a message that our CEO Sam Johnsson sent out to our Platinum Mastermind members in a monthly newsletter.

With some having their best year ever and others wiped out from floods, I think it’s a great reminder of how fragile farming is.

“It is at times like this that I am reminded just how varied the conditions are that we face in Australia.

In talking with many of you across our community, some are lining up for their best production years ever, whilst others are dealing with a myriad of challenges.

For those of you in the thick of rising flood waters, lost production and uncertainty at the moment, we want you to know that we are here for you.

As we have been doing for the past seven years, the Farm Owners Academy community and team are here to help in whatever way we can, so please reach out if you need anything or if you can lend a hand to someone in need if you can see that it will benefit them, reach out to them.

Reflecting on the conditions this year, it is hard to feel good about the words of the great Trevor Hendy.

“The conditions are always perfect…”

It’s hard to contemplate perfect conditions when half (or all) of your farm is underwater, and it’s unclear what is next.

The reality is that there is power in Trevor’s words.

That power sits with you!

What it really means is that regardless of the conditions we face in business, all we can do is our best in the circumstances that are in front of us.

No person can change what they have no control over.

Those that take a negative approach and allow their environment to distract them will inevitably disadvantage themselves both consciously and unconsciously.

Whatever your situation is this year, please remember – it will not last. So I encourage you to (as much as possible for you at the time) stay above the line (i.e. take responsibility, don’t get caught in playing the victim), focus on what you can control and do your best given your circumstances.

If that means making the most of an incredible season, then make sure you take all the steps in your control to absolutely nail it.

If that means going into damage control, protecting your assets as best as possible and helping those around you to do the same, then that is winning for you this year.
One thing that has amazed me about our members who were impacted by the bushfires in 2020 is just how quickly it can turn around.

Those who remained above the line were able to return to (or significantly exceed) their previous business performance in less than 18 months.”

Sam Johnsson,
CEO, Farm Owners Academy 

After two years of coaching, I had 13 clients.  
 
I thought I was doing really well and wasn’t thinking about growing – I was in a comfort zone. 
 
I knew time management was one of the most important skills I could learn, so I paid for a time management course. 
 
One of the first things we did was document everything we did in a day. This included both personal and business, from waking up to going to bed! 
 
We did this every single day for two weeks. 
 
We then added everything up. 
 
I was shocked to find that I was spending 13 hours a week just driving (to and from my clients)!! 
 
It didn’t occur to me how much time I spent in a car. 
 
The course instructor showed me that this equated to about three months every year – just sitting in Sydney traffic, visiting clients. 
 
It was then that I decided I would stop visiting clients in person – they could either visit me, or we moved to phone coaching. 
 
A couple of clients were unhappy about this, so they left. The rest didn’t have an issue, and most selected phone coaching to respect their time. 
 
The extra time I had now created, plus the extra energy I gained from not driving around, allowed me to bring on another ten new clients.   
  
One decision almost doubled my business. 
  
Most things we do are done unconsciously. We don’t even really know we are doing them.  
 
It takes conscious effort to get brutally honest about how we spend (or invest) our time. 
  
I was coaching a landscape gardener at the time, and also got him to measure his time. He was also spending 10 hours per week driving around dropping off deliveries.  
 
In his case, I helped him outsource this task. As a result, I was able to show him there were a number of much higher-value things he could be focusing on to grow his business. 
  
It cost him $300 a week to pay for a delivery driver, but the 10 hours he found went into strategic decision-making that added another $250k in profit to his business that year! 
  
The first step is to find time and then use this time to work on something with a higher value. 
  
We are really excited to launch a 14-Day Time Management Course designed to help farm business owners and your team. 
   
You will get all of our time management templates (including our ‘Ultimate Organiser’) to help get you really organised – and it comes with 14 days of training designed to help you beat procrastination, get organised and prioritise your time for growing your business.  
 
Each day consists of short, bite-sized chunks (5 to 30 minutes) but will help you understand what you need to change – and you have the option to either watch the training videos or listen to the audio while you work. 
 
We are so confident that we can help you find 10 hours a week that if we can’t, we will refund you and give you $100 for wasting your time. 
  
Click Here: To Register For The Time Management Course

We look forward to helping you get back time to spend on what’s important to you.

Robbo

Imagine working 70 hours every week, only to get to the end of the year and realise you are losing money after paying the interest on your loan (while interest rates were 2%)! 
 
Many business owners do this (not just farmers).   
 
They are so busy working that they don’t even know how much money they are making until they get their profit and loss statements from the accountant (and sadly, these are not even correct as they are rigged to minimise tax and thus not an accurate picture of your business performance). 
 
One of our clients (we will protect their identity and refer to them as Bill and Jack) was in this position.

Here is a snapshot of their reality back in 2014: 

• They ran 3000 hectares of land (farming sheep and crops);  
• 45% equity; 
• Their total wealth at this point (value of all assets less liabilities) was $1.8 million; 
• Their revenue was over $2 million;  
• After paying interest to the bank, their real profit (business profit) was showing a loss of close to $100k. 

 
Bill and Jack were frustrated, but fortunately, they had a great team surrounding them (they are in our Platinum Mastermind Program), all willing to help. 
 
With a few tough decisions (and a hunger to be a top 20% farmer), they turned their business around. 
 
Here is a snapshot of their business in the 2021 financial year… just 7 years later. 
 

• A huge turnaround in the first 3 years, when they began to use their numbers to make informed business decisions to improve their business (rather than just winging it and working harder). 
• They had to make a couple of tough decisions, but they have never looked back since doing this. 
• Business profit is now $900k per year (after paying interest, and 6 figure wages to the owners). 
• Wealth has grown from $1.8 million to just shy of $9 million. 
• They employ a great team to help do a lot of the work freeing them up to focus on what they love. 
• They have achieved their 10-year goals in just 6 years! 

There are a few takeaways from this case study:
 

• This is the power of benchmarking, but also having skilled business minds help you interpret the results to make great business decisions. 
• Working harder is not the key here. Bill and Jack were working 70 hours a week and still not seeing success. They needed help to change direction instead of motivation to speed up. 
• The cost of NOT getting help here was extradentary. They had no idea what they needed to do, so they engaged and trusted the feedback from skilled people who could help (in this case, Farm Owners Academy’s Platinum Mastermind Program). 
• These decisions led to a growth of $7.2 million in wealth in just 7 years ($1 million per year) and a growth of $900k in profit after paying interest (imagine having an extra $75k in your bank account every month after paying wages or $16,666 every week!) 
• This is what separates an average farmer from a Top 20% farmer. It’s actually millions of dollars difference every year. 

Because we benchmark all of our clients yearly, we see results like this all the time. 

There really is a HUGE difference between being an average farmer and a Top 20% farmer. 
 
Have a great week, 
 
Robbo 
 

P.S. for a short time, we are offering a complimentary ‘Strategic Roadmap Session’ to help you create a winning plan to get you from where you are currently at to where you want to be. With the 3 additional bonuses, it is valued at over $2,000, and it will give you the chance to test drive how coaching works. Click here to book a call whilst it’s available.

When I first started coaching, I was responsible for everything – all the administration, finance and, of course, coaching clients.   

The problem was I really hated the administration and the finance (bookwork) part of the business. 

Two years into my business coaching journey, I went to a business course. The teacher who ran the course said, ‘if you are doing work you don’t like, then you are giving off negative energy, so you are smarter to hire someone else to do this even if you think you can’t afford it.’ 

At the time, I was in considerable debt and wasn’t making much money. 

But I bit the bullet, and I hired a bookkeeper. I also employed someone for a day a week to do my admin. I really couldn’t afford to do this. 

But the most amazing thing happened. 

Once I let go of tasks I didn’t enjoy, I started enjoying work more. 

Because I was happier and had more time, I brought on new clients. After a while, my administration assistant (who I called my personal assistant) was working for me for four days per week.  

Then, I also hired a salesperson to help me as well, and I realised I had my first little team, including; 

1. A finder (salesperson) 
2. A minder (me looking after the clients) and 
3. A grinder (someone to do all of the administration) 

With this team in place, I could coach three times as many clients without extra effort. I was finally making some good money. 

It wasn’t long until I put my first coach on. Just two years later, I had a team of 13 coaches and a total team size of 25 (including an experienced operations manager running the show).   

I ended up selling that company. But, I was lucky to learn the concept that having a team of people allowed me to get to a goal ten times sooner than trying to do it all on my own. 

Even at Farm Owners Academy, many of you wouldn’t know this, but we have an incredible resource working from the Philippines called John.  

John helps Farm Owners Academy in so many ways and even ensures this blog post is uploaded, sent out and added to the website.   

All I need to do is write it. 

John runs all our IT, manages our websites, creates a lot of our web pages and many other things. He is amazing, and it would be hard to run our business without him. 

A great question for you to ask: ‘could you achieve more and even be happier if you bit the bullet and hired some help to do some jobs that you don’t like?’ 

Maybe even start with a bookkeeper for a few hours each month? 

Or maybe an administrator to help you two days per week? 

You could even hire someone from the Philippines for under $250 a week (full-time) to do both of these jobs for you. 

Do what you do best, then delegate and outsource the rest. 

Have a great day, 

Robbo