For The Small (Farm) Business Owner

New Year, New Me! And all that jazz.

Seriously, though, I am the current title owner of World's Best Procrastinator. I did wait until 5 days after the New Year to make a post about the New Year, but in my defense, I am currently typing this as I struggle through the dreaded Covid-19. It's definitely given me the time to catch up on blogs, social media, and tracking my finances, and it has definitely made me look myself in the mirror for how I can improve my business from the disaster that was 2021.

Last year, I will admit I was severely unprepared for the actual business side of running my farm. Sounds crazy, but I really didn't expect to have to spend so much of my time sitting behind a computer when I chose a career with animals. I was disillusioned very quickly, however, when my husband casually asked how I was doing in expenses vs profits. "Uh... good?" was the response I believe I gave him. Honestly, "horribly" was the correct response. It's not that I didn't care, I just simply didn't KNOW how to keep on top of the business side of things. I am a very hard worker, but I tend to prefer physical labor over the typing and organizational side of things. It doesn't make me lazy, but I would say that I was naive going into this.

Here's the thing: If you want your farm or small business to be successful, you have to actually run it like a business. Crazy concept, I know, but if no one has told you before, you may need to hear it to rethink your farm concept. Regardless of whether you call yourself a hobby farm, a homestead, a ranch, or a farm, money plays a factor in everything. If you are spending more than you are making, you need to know where that money is going and make a plan to lower your expenses to increase your net profit (Total profit-expenses= net profit). If you are not bringing in enough money to cover your expenses, you, your family, and your animals could suffer.

Please don't misunderstand, I took a business loss last year when all was said and done. You may not be successful at this for the first several years, which is FINE. This does not mean that you will not eventually get to your goals. This simply means you have some problem-solving to do. For example, I noticed last year that my farm fresh eggs did not have a huge demand and was not bringing in nearly enough money. One day, I sat down and thought, "Why? Why are my eggs not selling like hot cakes? They're pretty, they're fresh, and they're priced correctly for my area." All of these factors were incredibly important to consider, and I was checking all of the boxes. But after brainstorming, the reason dawned on me: people in my area are already self-sufficient. Most of my customer base already has chickens. They're getting their own eggs from their own backyard. So how do I address this?

At the same time, I could not keep my goat milk soap on the shelves. I would make a loaf of soap, and it was gone as soon as it was done curing. This was a problem, too, although a good problem to have. If I could not keep up with demand, I was going to lose customers to other businesses in the area. So I have one product that I can't move fast enough, and I have another product that I cannot make quickly enough. I'm sure you have seen a solution to my problems, right? It was time to stop focus on eggs and produce, and make a shift in what my business does for the community. The people in my county love chickens and have chickens, so they don't need eggs. You know what they do need, though? More chickens. So I cut down the numbers of my hens, and began to focus on narrowing down what breeds I have. I selected breeds that are popular for my area, and I sold the rest. I plan on hatching the eggs rather than toting them to the Farmer's Market this year. The checks from selling those chickens told me I was on the right track. They were able to help purchase a registered goat in milk so that I could increase my soap product. Now I'm focusing less time on cleaning and packaging eggs, and spending more time creating and marketing my soap.

Now that I have us sitting firmly in the seat of the reality side of our dreams, my point is this: I needed to do better tracking my income and what I was spending my money on, and how much I was actually spending. I love to bury my head in the sand, but I decided at the end of 2021 that I would no longer sit in the passenger seat of this business. I wasn't going to just let my target audience dictate whether my business makes it or breaks it this year. Instead, I was going to take control and actively work towards my goal.

With that in mind, I have created an Expense Worksheet for all of my subscribers to have for FREE. This worksheet is in Excel format, so you can download it and fill in the sections to best suit your needs to help you become more successful with me this year. There are separate sheets dedicated to each month, as well as a breakdown of what you are spending your money on, all set to fill a pie chart for your yearly expenses. This chart can help you evaluate where the majority of your funds are going and what you can do to address those costs for the next year. I will continue to update this blog with any problem-solving I have done with my issues, and I will be uploading other tools and forms to help keep your farm more organized this year.

I really hope 2022 is the year all of us hard workers begin to see a financial return so we can continue to pursue our dream jobs of working with destructive, fluffy animals, and to keep shoveling that lovely manure... I mean, fertilizer to keep growing that gorgeous produce. Subscribe below!