Farming Business Planning
Why do you need a Farming Business Plan?
A business plan helps you gain clarity around values, purpose and vision. Clarity provides motivation and effectiveness. Without clarity a business is in danger of achieving the default result, rather than the optimum result.
If you cannot answer YES to all of these questions, then you may need help to design a Farming Business Plan, to get the best result for YOU out of your business.
- Are you getting the best out of your farming business?
- Do you have a clear vision of your future?
- Is your Business running at full capacity?
- Is your Business sustainable?
- Is your Business fully grown?
- Are you comfortable with and do you understand the risks within your Farming Business?
- Do you control your Business? (Or does your Business control you?)
- Do you spend enough time working on your Farming Business?
- Do you have enough time?
- Do you focus on things you can influence rather things you cannot control?
- Are your day to day activities driven more by things that are important rather things that are urgent?
- Are you getting the best use out of technology?
If you cannot answer yes to those questions, what are you going to do about it? If you choose to do nothing, you will end up with the default result, which will be well below your potential.
A business plan will help provide successful governance and is an increasingly important aspect of any business. When you consider that most rural businesses either have, or want to have, multi million dollars of turnover and capital, then an up to date business plan must be an important part of that business's governance.
What is a Business Plan?
A business plan should be a "living" document, detailing:
what is important to you,
your current reality,
your vision and
how to bridge the gap.
It should culminate in a series of goals, and the plan to best allow you to achieve those goals.
One of the key ingredients to any plan is the on-going monitoring and review. The current reality and vision will constantly change, therefore so should your plan.
How it works.
Farm Plan will not write a business plan for you. Farm Plan's role is to facilitate a series of meetings with your Governance team. Typically in most rural business the governance team is still a husband and wife team.
Farm Plan will lead you through a 3 phase, 10 step process, which will culminate in you forming your own Business Plan.
Our Process
We will facilitate you through a 3 phase, 10 step process, to help you form your own Business Plan.
Discovery
Discovery is an in-depth process to discover what is really important to you. Without completing the Discovery, you are in danger of jumping straight to the solution, before the situation has been defined.
The phases within the discovery are:
Plan
The Plan involves setting the goals, and developing to your plan to help you achieve your goals.
The phases with the Plan are:
Action
Action is putting the plan into progress. A vital component of the Action is the monitoring and the review of your progress towards your goals.
The phases within Action are:
Refer to each individual page for each of the ten steps.
Why Farm Plan Ltd and what you can expect
When you're looking for help with writing your own farming business plan, we've got the process that will help you come up with the plan that is YOUR PLAN. If it is your plan, you will buy into it. So we do not come with solutions. We facilitate the process.
Part of it is having the discipline to STOP what you are doing, sitting down with the owners of the business (typically Husband and Wife) and talking about the WHAT, WHY AND HOW. Farm Plan Ltd's role is to ask the right question, and challenge you.
You can be assured of some interesting discussions.
Then once the plan is in place, the next discipline is to constantly monitor your progress and review your goals and plan.
It will take a series of at least four meetings, generally held around your kitchen table, to help you design your Business Plan. It will be priced on an agreed fixed cost. From there, follow up meetings will be held as agreed and as appropriate.
