Dairy Success Tips
Even More Ways to Achieve Financial Success
Dairy Farm Loans
Tips and Advice
Every year I help dairy farmers just like you find tens of thousands of dollars in savings. I even focus exclusively on ways to help dairy producers manage their dairy farm loans and deal more effectively with lenders, including proven methods for cutting through all the red tape that gets between you and your dairy lender.
Ask John Ellsworth of Success Strategies
John’s dairy industry service spans 25-years in strategic planning, debt restructuring, and cash flow management. John knows farm finances and what your bank expects.
Call John at 209-988-8960 or Send him an email:
What? A Crisis? How Can That Be?August 5, 2026 - 8:10 am
Have You Heard of the 5 F’s?July 27, 2026 - 2:29 pm
Wow! What Will Happen Next?July 8, 2026 - 9:11 pm
What’s Your Communication Level?June 24, 2026 - 8:21 am
What? We Have No Money?June 10, 2026 - 8:34 am
100 Ways to Motivate Youself – Useful Lessons on a Dairy Farm
Author Steve Chandler, in his book, 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself, says, “Whatever type of problem you are facing, the most self-motivated exercise I know of is to immediately say to yourself, ‘I am the problem.’ Because once you see yourself as the problem, you can see yourself as the solution. When we see ourselves as victims of our problems, we lose the power to solve them. We shut down creativity when we declare the source of the trouble to be outside of us. However, once we say, ‘I am the problem,’ there is great power that shifts from the outside to the inside. Now we can become the solution.” This is equally true on your dairy farm and throughout the dairy industry.
Take a Lesson from Jeb Bush
Dairy farmers have a solid business lesson to learn from a recent article in the Wall Street Journal written by Jeb Bush, governor of Florida, in which he discussed his state’s efforts to reform education and how difficult the process really has been. He stated, “The reality of reform is vastly different from the theory, and change is a lot harder than it looks. But there are a few rules for real reform that makes it possible.” I realized many of the same rules apply to making certain we have our dairy operations “reformed,” especially after prosperous years like 2007 and 2008.
Achieving Success on Your Dairy Farm Loan
Given the difficult state of the dairy industry, lenders might, in some situations, be taking longer to make their credit decisions. Is this truly a tough year? YES!!! Is it the end of the world? Hardly. Is your dairy farm loan renewal taking longer than usual this year? Perhaps, but so are the renewals of many other dairy farms.
A Reality Check
It’s time for a reality check. Maybe I’ve missed something. I’ve been in the dairy industry for almost 40 years. I got my first job in it when I was in my early teens. Now, I think I’ve seen it all. A program for banks called TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) now being in need of a new name: TRAP! Let me tell you why I’m so ticked off.
Control Your Production Costs
One of my favorite business quotes is Jack Welch’s: “Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it were.” I recently read an article in Inc. magazine written by Adam Hanft that was entitled, “The Risk of Doing Nothing.”
Good Times Require Discipline, Too!
I recently finished reading a book on leadership entitled Team Secrets of the Navy Seals written by an anonymous author who actually continues to serve as one of our U.S. Navy Seals and hence wishes not to reveal his identity. One of the most significant lessons expressed in the book revolves around our need for constant evaluation of “… whether you can afford to work with a ‘leadership challenge’ or whether it makes more sense to find a replacement” for that employee. The author goes on to say that “If the weak Team member is truly a good person, try to find another job for them. Do not keep them on for fear of hurting their feelings. It will hurt both them and your Team.”
Making the Best of Major Decisions
There is an epidemic going around America today. Thousands of people have a genuine challenge with simply making a decision. I’ve been thinking about this issue and have concluded that there are likely many reasons for this problem. At the risk of sounding like Dr. Phil, here are a few of the ones I came up with. Perhaps, you can think of some others and thereby help yourself to be more decisive going forward.
New Requirements for Industry Leadership
In their book Confronting Reality, authors Larry Bossily and Pam Charda discuss how any business expecting to stay around in the new environment must raise the bar for leadership. They state, “Two leadership qualities have become absolutely indispensable today, and they aren’t on the usual lists. The first is business acumen, more commonly called business savvy. The second is a need to know—or, to put it another way, a refusal to take anything for granted, an insatiable curiosity about what’s new and different.”