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.

“How do I make more money on my farm?”

 

That’s got to be the top question farmers ask us.

 

It’s up there with…

How do I get more time off?

How can I increase yields?

and…

How can I strike a deal with the weather gods for great rainfall this season?

 

Whether you dream of buying more land, going on an extra holiday, or paying for a great boarding school for your kids, more money is definitely a good thing.

 

Here’s what I want you to know:

 

More profitability does NOT mean working more hours!

 

Most farmers think that making more money is impossible, because they’re already working as hard as they can. But the truth is, it’s not about how many hours you work — it’s about WHAT you’re working on during those hours. That determines how profitable you are.

 

Keep reading for 7 simple-but-powerful ways to make more profit on your farm…without working any more hours.

 

 

Stop working on the $25/hour jobs

 

It might sound counterintuitive…

 

But the fastest way to become more profitable on your farm is to stop doing the work.

 

Let me explain…

 

A mentor of mine once said, “You won’t get rich cleaning the house.”

 

Yes, the house needs to be cleaned. And yes, taking care of your home is an important job. But you’re not going to get rich doing it.

 

Here’s the reality:

 

80% of the work on a farm is technical work that’s valued between $20-$30/hour.

 

These are the jobs like fencing, driving the tractor, crutching and drenching, branding cattle, and cleaning.

 

These jobs are important and need to get done. But they’re never going to make you rich…no matter how great you are at them.

 

Related: Why doing the technical work on your farm is costing you a lot of profit

 

When you stop spending time on the low-income jobs, you free yourself up for the $500/hour work. (More on this in a minute.)

 

If you think you can’t afford to hire help or that you need to do it all yourself, I hear you. But stick with me. I think you’ll start to see why you can’t afford not to hire someone, if you want to run a highly profitable farm…

 

 

Make time for the big-money tasks

 

Most farmers are so busy with the low-level technical jobs on the farm, they simply have no time or energy for the high-level work, like: 

• Strategic planning
• Creating systems for efficiency
• Looking for opportunities
• Negotiating
• Creating new markets
• Marketing and direct selling
• Training your team
• Working on genetics
• Optimising your farm for efficiency

 

This is the $500/hour work.

 

Let’s look at a really simple example of how this plays out…

 

You could work 40 hours a week doing $25/hour tasks, to make $1000.

or…

You could hire a farmhand to do those 40 hours of work for a cost of $1000.

 

You now have capacity to work on $500/hour tasks.

 

Imagine what would happen if you spend just a few hours every week moving from $25/hour to $500/hour work. You could easily make an extra $475 every week, just by trading ONE hour of $25/hour jobs for $500/hour work!

 

Top farm owners spend 80% of their time on $500/hour tasks.

 

Make that your goal and focus on small steps every week to get there.

 

 

Create a strategic business plan

 

Let’s pretend it’s your anniversary next month and you want to plan a surprise holiday for your wife.

 

You make a plan of everything that needs to be done, like: 

• Pick dates for the trip
• Choose location
• Book flights
• Make hotel reservations
• Research great things to do and places to eat in the area

And because of that planning, you enjoy a lovely trip together, soaking up the sun and getting some much-needed relaxation.

 

Related: How Tim and Cheryl are working with Farm Owners Academy to create a freedom farm

 

When it comes to holidays, most of us are good at making plans. But very few farmers have strategic business plans for their farms.

 

The top 20% of farm owners plan their days, months, and years.

 

They decide on their goals — the BIG ones, like where they want the farm to be 10 years from now — and then work backwards to map out what they need to do to achieve them.

 

This process of starting with the end in mind and mapping everything back to today is called strategic planning.

 

Top farm owners create strategic business plans and update them every quarter, or 90 days. It’s a way to keep the forward momentum moving…and eliminate the daily decisions that waste so much time.

 

We created a strategic planning tool called the Farm Operating System (FOS). It helps you break down your 10-year goals and map them back to what you need to do in the next 90-days to keep you on track.

 

Click here to download your strategic planning template for free

Track your numbers

Peter Drucker, the founder of modern business management, said:

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”

That’s why tracking your numbers is a key part of the Take Control Program… and all the growth work we do with farmers.

If you want to do things like:

• Make higher profit per item
• Reduce overhead costs
• Speed up growing cycles
• Increase crop yields

…You have to start by tracking your numbers.

 

A pilot uses a series of dials in their cockpit to help them make informed decisions. Tracking your farm’s numbers is like checking in with your dials to make profitable decisions.

 

If you don’t track your numbers, you could be wasting time and energy on an area on your farm that just isn’t profitable — instead of maximising the returns on a highly profitable area of the farm.

 

Profitable farmers make decisions based on data. Not gut feelings, not wild guesses, but tangible proof.

 

 

Decide…fast

 

The latest numbers flying around the internet estimate that an adult makes about 35,000 decisions every day.

 

When you’re ineffective at making decisions, you waste time. You have too many things going on in your mind, which causes you to procrastinate, because you’re not sure what to do.

 

But not all decisions are created equal.

 

There are three main types of decisions:

• Major: life-changing decisions (e.g. marriage, buying a new farm)
• Medium: cost a bit of money and time (e.g. hiring a team member, buying a new tractor)
• Minor: largely irrelevant (e.g. what colour your logo should be)

 

Profitable farm owners only invest their time in the major and medium decisions. They do their research, they look at the data, they ask for advice from mentors and business leaders they respect. And then they make informed decisions.

 

For minor ones? They make fast decisions and stick with those decisions once made.

 

…Then they get back to working on the $500/hour tasks and making things happen.

 

 

Master negotiation skills

 

Profit = Revenue – Costs

 

One way to make higher profits is to increase revenue (or sales). Another is to reduce costs.

 

That’s where negotiation comes in.

 

Negotiating to reduce costs or increase margins is a very effective strategy to maximise profits. With just one phone call, you can add hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to your bottom line each month. But most farmers never even try!

 

Here are a few things you can negotiate:

• Better prices for goods you purchase
• Better prices for goods you sell
• Better margins if you use agents
• More hours or outputs out of your team members
• Better deals from your off farm investments
  

Don’t be afraid to start the negotiation conversation. There is almost always room for a better price, if you ask. But if you don’t ask, you’ll never get it. 

 

Not comfortable negotiating? No problem. It’s a skill that can be learned. Click here for a great template and training on how to negotiate.

 

 

Operate like a business owner, NOT a farmer

 

Lindsay Fox (who runs Fox Trucks and has a personal net worth of $2.91 billion) got into the trucking business because his father was a truck driver.

 

When Lindsay was asked, “So, are you like your father?”

 

He replied, “No. Dad drove a truck. I owned my first one and got someone else to drive it.”

 

This sums up the difference between a farmer and a farm business owner.

 

Business owners act like the manager of a sports team — managing the players, developing the skills, and creating the strategies to win games.

 

A business owner operates at a different level, doing things like: 

• Designing great systems to run their farms
• Hiring and training and leading great people
• Tracking the important numbers
• Creating a strategic business plan
• Making informed decisions to lead the farm forward
• Looking for new opportunities (buying land, negotiating better terms, leasing land, etc.)  

The top 20% of farmers look at themselves as business owners. That mindset shift is what leads to such high levels of success for their farms.

 

Related: The 8 Mistakes that keep farmers broke

 

If this list of 7 things feels overwhelming, remember, you don’t have to tackle everything at once.

 

Pick just ONE of these strategies to test out on your farm and watch as your profits increase week by week.