Recently, I heard about a couple of banks who were anxious to start lending to dairy operations again. This seems odd, yet fitting, since they both could be described as “Fair Weather Lenders,” who give you an umbrella when the sun is shining and take it away as soon as it starts raining. They were both lenders who had clearly exited the industry during the past three years. In fact, in one bank’s case, they had inflicted lot of “pain” on their borrowers by making changes in their lending terms which, while they may have been beneficial over the long term, certainly were next to impossible to meet in the short term.

As a result, many producers were faced with lower herd values and tighter advance rates against their herd and feed assets, forcing them to be out of compliance. Then came the heartless “workout guys” with their weekly demands for additional reporting and a “plan” for the borrower’s exit strategy, either from the bank or, if necessary, from the dairy industry. When the “Goon Squads” were done with most borrowers in these situations, they were more than happy to leave this lending institution behind and go elsewhere.

The problem with “Fair Weather Lenders” is that, when you need them the most, they won’t be there for you. On the contrary, they will tighten the terms of your current agreement, either by bank-wide fiat or at your next loan renewal or extension. Rather than “riding through the storm” with you, they start making additional demands of you when you can least afford to be without credit. As a result, you get “painted into a corner” with very few options to fall back on. 

If you get approached by marketing people or loan officers from this type of bank, they will be quick to point out that their bank’s prior decision to exit the dairy industry (or any industry, for that matter) was not theirs. Rather, it was mandated from senior officials of the bank, based upon their stock’s performance, shareholder value, trends in the industry or who knows what. All of that may be true, but what is to stop this same thing from happening again during the next industry downturn?

Management guru Peter Drucker, in his book entitled The Daily Drucker stated, “Character is not something one can fool people about… They may forgive a person for a great deal: incompetence, ignorance, insecurity, or bad manners. But they will not forgive a lack of integrity in that person.” Blaming the “people upstairs” is not a very good example of either integrity or positive leadership. I want to know that my Loan Officer is going to be there for me when I need his or her assistance.

What’s the best response to have ready when the Fair Weather Lenders come calling? I suggest that you ask them how many dairy operations they “shut down” from 2009-2013. Also, you can ask them if you can talk to some of their borrowers who they stayed with during the same downturn. If they can’t or won’t answer those two questions for you, your time and efforts would definitely be better spent on managing your operation, because you have probably just met a Fair Weather Lender!

If you would like to learn more about building your banking relationships, check out the section entitled “Help for Dairy Farmers – Dairy Farm Loans” on my website at www.success-strategies.com. I hope you find my articles helpful!

Many of us understand the benefit of establishing a solid set of Goals. These can be for your business, your personal life or any number of other items. I believe they represent one of the most important tasks that you can undertake. Yet, many people set goals every year, but then fail to accomplish them. New Year’s resolutions are an excellent example of this. Why is it that these so often fail to come to fruition?

Actually, I am glad you asked! The reason is that setting your goals is only part of the process. Of equal importance is of knowing your “Why.” Why is this goal important to you? Why does it matter to you? Why do you want to accomplish this specific item?

Let’s look at one example. First, you may have the goal of having your dairy herd average 90 pounds of milk per cow per day. That’s nice, but why does that really matter? Well, you contend that this production level will make you more efficient. Then, I might ask, why do you want to be more efficient?

Somewhat frustrated, you claim that if you can operate more efficiently, you will be more profitable. So, I then ask why you would want to be more profitable. Is it just to acquire more money? Finally, you reply (somewhat out of exasperation at this point) that being more profitable will allow you to take your family on a vacation occasionally, have money set aside for your two children to go to college, and also get you financially prepared to retire sometime in the future.

Aha! I finally got you to focus on what really matters most with your Goal Setting. Of course, the Goals, themselves, are significant. Without them, you will meander, at best, in making any progress. In addition to setting your goals, though, it is essential to understand “Why” you are pursuing this goal.

Without understanding why, it is so easy to get frustrated and give up your pursuit of any goal. However, if you take the time to understand and write out your “Why,” you will be better positioned to “stay the course” and ultimately reach your objective. For example, if the weather turns extremely hot or your feed supply gets damaged due to rain or other weather issues, you may get easily frustrated and give up your goal of hitting the 90 pounds per cow per day goal we discussed above, settling for less. 

On the contrary, though, if you understand why you are pursuing this goal and the long term implications of actually reaching it, you are far more likely to do whatever it takes to reach your long term objectives. Knowing your “Why” will provide you with the motivation necessary, as the Boy Scouts state, to “Improvise, adapt and overcome!”

Build a solid foundation under your Goals, by knowing your “Why!” I think you will be glad you did. To learn more about Goal Setting and related topics for your business, check out the articles on the home page of my website at www.success-strategies.com. I hope you find them helpful!

Previously, I have used the following quote from General Eric Shinseki of the U.S. Army to make an important point: 

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”                                             

We are in a constantly changing industry environment where decisions we made five years ago are not necessarily as effective as they previously were. It is time for each of us to take back the reins of the decision making process and adopt a more proactive approach moving forward. Management consultant Peter Drucker stated that, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

Yes, you’re saying, but how can I do that, given the dairy industry’s severe downturn the past five years, and “under the present circumstances?” I’ll tell you how – Get out from under those circumstances. Change your thinking. Alter your approach. It has been said that if you keep on doing what you have been doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve been getting… I contend that is just simply not true. In some cases, it can cause you to go backward! So, what do we need to do?

Embrace change as you encounter it. Of course, we all like the familiarity of our normal day-to-day processes. At times, I am guilty of this, too. However, when things are changing as rapidly as they are in the dairy industry today, we run the risk of getting “run over” if we simply stand still. Yet, you are thinking that you just finished restructuring your bank debt and are getting most of your Vendor Payables caught up (hopefully). Can’t you stop and take a break? Do so at your own risk. Here is a list of items that I’d like you to think about: 

1.)    Where do you really want to be in five years? In ten years? How can you get there? What will it take to succeed in reaching those goals?

2.)    Who will take over your business when you are gone? Do you have a plan already in place? If not, why not develop one? Several years ago, I witnessed a sad but true situation where one person controlled all aspects of his business operation and, frankly, made all of the decisions. One day, at the ripe old age of 42, this person was killed in an unfortunate auto accident. The result was absolute chaos around his business. No one else was trained to make effective decisions, and there was no succession plan in place. It was a financial nightmare for his family. It all could have been avoided with a minimal amount of planning.

3.)    Have you implemented a “Milk Marketing Plan” yet? Are you using Put Options to establish a floor under your milk price? Likewise, are you working closely with your Nutritionist and others to lock in the best prices on feed at all times, not just now because they have been so high? Do you truly know your Break-even Points on milk price and feed cost? You need to know these!

4.)    As outlined above, have a plan on everything you do. Can you be assured of always making the correct decisions? Of course not. However, your odds of success will be greatly improved if you think about and develop your own plan for your business, particularly in comparison to letting the industry or others decide for you.

Former Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis, upon being hired to lead a team that had win-loss records of 5-7 and 6-6 the prior two seasons and hearing the players complain about the school’s administration, replied as follows:

“Quit blaming everyone but yourselves for the reason there was a coaching change. There was a coaching change because you’re 6-6 and last year you were 5-7. There was a coaching change because you guys didn’t live up to the expectations around Notre Dame… Why don’t you just look in the mirror? Maybe the reason why you were 5-7 and 6-6 is that you’ve played crummy. Just maybe.”

“He certainly got their full attention. He claimed that you could have heard a pin drop. His message had come through loud and clear: ‘No excuses!’”

                        Charlie Weis in his book No Excuses

Let’s follow Charlie’s advice and realize that, as an industry and as individual participants, we have not always played by the best laid game plan. Reset your course today and join me in accepting “No excuses!”

Do you ever find yourself having difficulty being optimistic? I think we all do at times. Of course, not when we are getting in excess of $20 per cwt for our milk, but how about when milk prices are far less positive, as they were from 2009-2012? You might want to save this article for those times… What is the real problem with this? Don’t you have a right to be pessimistic during those times? 

Author Steve Chandler, in his book entitled 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself, states: “Motivation comes from thought. Every act we take is preceded by a thought that inspires that act. And when we quit thinking, we lose the motivation to act. We eventually slip into pessimism, and the pessimism leads to even less thinking.” The real problem lies with our inability to snap out of this mode and thus focus on the challenge we are facing.

Chandler gives an excellent example that we all can probably relate to. A pessimist decided to clean his garage one Saturday morning. However, when he looked into the garage, he was immediately overwhelmed and cried, “’No one could clean this garage in one day!’ At that point the pessimist slams the garage door shut and goes back inside to do something else.” For a pessimist, it is either perfection or nothing.

The optimist, however, after looking at his garage, continues his thinking. “’Okay, so I can’t clean the whole garage,’ he says. ‘What could I do that would make a difference?’ He looks for awhile, and thinks things over. Finally, it occurs to him that he could break the garage down into four sections and do just one section today.” Over a period of four weeks he will get the entire task completed. Sounds like a solid plan!

Don’t we all have a neighbor for whom everything always seems to go right? Could it be his thinking process? Consider one decision that you are presently being faced with. Be sure to remind yourself that there is, indeed, an answer to your challenges. Perhaps you are concerned about finding the financing you need to expand your business. Can you break it down into sections, just like cleaning the garage? Here is an example for you.

1.)    Establish an outline of your particular business plans and what you want to do.

2.)    What do you think you will need in terms of financing for capital expenditures and/or working capital for your operational needs?

3.)    Does this project have a positive payback in your specific operation or is it just “what everyone’s doing?” Run some cash flow projections on the idea. Just as three times milking does not work at every dairy, the same may be true for the idea you are considering.

4.)    Are you prepared to go to one or more banks and present your ideas? Have you fully outlined all aspects of your plan and made certain that your financial reports are up to date? If not, talk to your accountant about getting updated accrual financial statements for your business. Lenders love to see them because it provides them with a much clearer picture of what is actually taking place in your business. You should want these, too, to make sure your costs are in line with the rest of the industry.

These four steps should serve as a guideline of how to approach your business hurdles, whatever they are. Remember, when you face a business challenge, stay optimistic so you remain open to all possibilities. The primary reason to remain optimistic, as I said earlier, is that there is an answer. You just haven’t discovered it yet. Author Steve Chandler adds the following advice:

“If you catch yourself brooding, worrying and thinking pessimistically about an issue, the first step is to recognize your thoughts as being pessimistic. Not wrong or untrue – just pessimistic. And if you are going to get the most out of your bio-computer (the brain), you must acknowledge that pessimistic thoughts are less effective… If you really want to open your life and motivate yourself to succeed, become an optimistic thinker.”

The next time you are faced with an important decision within your business, why not give this process a try?

Has your operation returned to a state of positive cash flow yet? As I watch my Clients’ cash flows in 2013, I am observing that most of them have started to achieve positive cash flows in their business at this point. For the few who have not, they are getting closer to a breakeven level.

Once again, I ask you to consider if you have hit your breakeven point yet. Perhaps, more significantly, if not, what is keeping you from getting there? With feed costs dropping by 30% or more these past two months and milk prices at relatively sound levels, you should be seeing some progress. If you aren’t, take a closer look at two major cost areas.

First, make certain that your non-feed costs have not become out of line. Some key areas to look at include Supplies and Labor. For some reason, these two items can often get out of alignment whenever milk prices increase. Here is my theory: When milk prices climb, some producers begin to think that they can probably afford to get that “one extra guy” their employees have been asking for. Unfortunately, along with an extra employee comes additional Workers’ Compensation, Taxes, Benefits, and possibly Health Insurance!

On the supplies front, it always seems that when milk prices climb, the cost of these items also jumps dramatically. I am not blaming the companies selling you these supplies. It simply becomes more important than ever to watch these costs in an effort to keep them from getting out of control.

The best way to keep these items under control is to complete an annual budget and then compare your year-to-date results against the budget to see how you are actually doing. Then, as a follow-up, look closely at what is either helping or hurting your bottom line. Is it something you can change? If so, just do it!

The second item to check is your cost of servicing debt in your business. If you are spending over $1.00/cwt on Interest Expense, take a close look at why that is the case. Is your herd or feed debt too high because you have too many heifers in your herd? Are there other assets you could sell to reduce the debt load on your lines of credit or other short term loans?

Occasionally, I see people who know they have an issue with their cash flows but who seem unwilling to change anything. Don’t worry about offending your salesmen. They will be happier with slightly less of your business than having none of it because you were forced to sell out. And, remember, your bankers are watching your performance more than ever today. Why not leave them with a positive impression? Think about it.