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When you start out in farming, there is normally a driving force or ambition that is pushing you to take that step: your “why”. In the early days, this is very front of mind and is one of the factors that keeps you moving forward. However, over time, it is easy to lose sight of what you are ‘in it’ for.

Reconnecting with your driving purpose plays a pivotal role in keeping motivated, focused, and ultimately achieving your long-term goals and life objectives.

When the daily life of running your business, and keeping your animals and family happy, starts to consume you it is a good time to hit pause and reconnect with your purpose.

Are you clear on what you’re trying to achieve? What is important to you?  

Over and over, we hear the same reasons from agribusiness owners – here are  six of the most common reasons why people own their own business:

1. Purpose: You have a passion for the industry, whether that comes from a multi-generational story or farming feels like your true calling in life – you have an aspiration, vision, or big idea for your agribusiness and you want to be the one to see it come to fruition.
2. Growth: You are wanting to grow your business, whether that is through stock numbers, land size, or production – you are competitive, ambitious, and driven to continuously strive towards your growth goals.
3. Reward: The gratification aspect: you want to reward yourself for all that you put into your business, and/or you want to be able to reward your employees well.
4. Lifestyle / Wealth Creation: Having freedom of choice for your lifestyle either now, or in the future, is important to you and you see this as a way to achieve the lifestyle that you are aiming for. Whether that means providing a family and community-oriented rural upbringing for your children, providing the next generation with wealth and succession opportunities, or building your wealth for early retirement and future travel, being your own boss is the best way you see of getting there.
5. Sustainability: Reducing environmental impact through your business practices, continuing the cutting edge work that New Zealand farmers are doing to produce some of the lowest emission protein in the world, or focusing on new products or methods of sustainable farming that can be shared with others in the industry to continue improving sustainable farming may be a driving factor for how and why you run your business.
6. Social Good: Contributing to, and being an active part of, your community is important to you – this is often interchangeable with purpose and can mean that you see achieving social good as a bigger picture impact made by your business efforts. Whether that is through donating to charities, local sports teams, or creating employment opportunities, you strive to include this within your business practices.

These six “why’s” create the Velocite Business Purpose Model.

Once you’re clear on your ‘why’, it is then time to turn your mind to the ‘how’.

To enable any of the outcomes mentioned above – as a business owner, you must have enough time to focus on the right areas, generate surplus cash flow to invest where necessary, and be consistently profitable.

You might be wondering how this could be possible when there are already not enough hours in a day?

The expert team at Velocite have developed a process that supports Agribusiness Owners through not only creating a practical plan to achieve their goals supported by a budget that takes into account any anticipated financial impacts for the year, but by also ensuring that there is a robust programme in place throughout the year that includes regular check-ins on performance against the plan, and budget reforecasting if required using industry leading technology.

Note: Dates below are based on a May balance date. While the dates may vary +/- a month, the rhythm generally falls with benchmarking reports being sent every 2 months, when a real-time benchmarking and insights program is incorporated with an annual reforecasting program.

We start off by carrying out a quick review of the season just gone:

• How did actual results compare with targets?
• What were the ‘wins’ or goals you achieved?
• What were the ‘losses’ or learning opportunities that you want to move on from in the next year and what are you going to carry forward to inform your decision making for the coming season?

Then we turn to looking forward, setting goals that support you in achieving your long-term objectives and developing a budget that not only includes your targets but also allows for any enablers (e.g. equipment purchases, process or software implementation, team size increase) that are required to achieve your plan.

This ensures that your plan is feasible and is going to result in a beneficial financial position for your business.

Once your plan and budget are set, we set two further check-ins during which we review actual performance against budget and reforecast your budget as required. This allows any actions required to overcome challenges (such as cashflow shortages), or take advantage of opportunities to be acted on in a proactive rather than reactive manner. It also ensures accountability against your plan – ensuring it is lived and breathed in your business rather than shut away in a bottom drawer until the next 12 months rolls around!

To learn more about our Annual Planning programme visit our service page here.

When our Agribusiness Planning Programme is combined with our real-time benchmarking and insights program, business owners are able to view their performance live in season against an anonymous group of like-for-like farms, compare their cost structure and see further trends and outliers that we can then focus on to improve overall performance.

Get in touch with us to find out more about how we can support you to achieve your business goals and ensure your business is working for you!