“Building a Winning Team” – Management and Marketing for Farm Couples
National Extension Risk Management
Education Conference
Bret Oelke and Bill Craig
April 1. 2009

 This program, designed for farm couples, has been offered for three years in cooperation with the
Minnesota Farm Bureau, Minnesota Corn Growers and other sponsors. The target audience has been young farmers and ranchers who want to improve their farm management and crop and livestock marketing skills. Program partisipants also expressed interest in wanting to include their spouses in more active roles in those areas. The program consists of five sessions which will be summarized for attendees. We will also provide evaluation results from past partisipants.

Objectives for today
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 Provide you with an overview of the program and its target audience
Review end of session evaluation results
Encourage the development and delivery of similar programs in your state

Why this type of program is important
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Fantastic opportunities are ahead
Incredible risks are ahead as well
Skills in marketing and management will increase your odds of long term success
Gain a competitive advantage
Improve management and markting and have better business relationships between family members and with those who they do business with

Why was the program developed
 Marketing and management groups and Annie’s Project participants and alumni requested a couples program on marketing and farm management.

Program development and delivery
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Marketing and management group material and tools used as a base
Annie’s Project format used as a guide
Designed specifically for a couples audience, primarily young farmers
Include communication segments

Building a Winning Team Objectives
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Improve Business Communication
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Internally
Externally
Enhance Marketing Skills
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Identify or develop marketing philosophy
Market and purchase planning
Expand Management Expertise
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Understand how to utilize farm records
Recognize skill areas
Explore areas for outsourcing or in-sourcing
Build a “Winning Team”

Session One
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Introductions
Overview of Program
Marketing and
Management
Resources
Understanding Markets

Session Two
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Session One Review
The Language of Marketing
 Marketing Terms
 How to Read and Utilize Marketing Resources

Session Three
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Session Three Review
Keeping Track and Utilizing Your Records
Communicating with your spouse and other family members

Session Four
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Session Three Review
Building Supplier and Buyer Relationships
Planning for Marketing
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Cost of production
Developing marketing plans
Developing Better Relationships with
Landlords
 Defending and expanding your land base

Session Five
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Session Four Review
Assembling your “Winning Team”
 Internal and external members
Group Directed Discussion
Evaluation

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What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
What topics (not covered) do you feel should be included in this program?
What would you change about the program?
I was surprised by…………………
I changed my mind about………………..
I now understand………………..
I plan to……………………………

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Other comments:
Would you recommend this type of program to others?
Is there a better (or different) way that this type of program could be delivered?
What kind of follow up, if any, would you like to see as a result of your participation in this program?
Over 50 couples completed the program in three multi session and one weekend version of the program .

Evaluation Summaries
Female participants
1. What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
 General knowledge increased for me – we’re busy and with everything else going on with family, my husband and I don’t always have time to talk about this.
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Spouses attending together .
Finding all the different websites. Suggestions for the land rental contracts. Learning the terminology.
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Knowing where our partner stands in what they know and what they do.
Landlord rental agreements.

Evaluation Summaries
Female participants
1. What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
 Resource – website addresses for “free” information for farm information.
 Learning how important it is to not only work the farm together (in the field) but (in the office) as well!
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Bret’s observations and experiences.
 Getting the website information. Getting more familiar with the terms. Being able to understand more and therefore better communication with my husband.

Evaluation Summaries
Female participants
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What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
Learning how to read commodity exchange information when using my computer.
Having a better understanding of what actually goes into marketing and management on the farm. I never realized the factors that are all involved and the time and research farmers need to do – wow!
The vocabulary! Just a review and new vocabulary. The understanding of what was/is being talked about.
The websites and how to get around in the sites

Evaluation Summaries
Female participants
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What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
I know my husband enjoyed the program and was able to pick up some pointers – he loved to pick
Bret’s brain for marketing tips.
All the websites you gave us was (is) very useful.
Reminding me how much I don’t like marketing! Understanding what’s going on and all the number crunching is more stress than I care for.

Evaluation Summaries
Female participants
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What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
I think there is value in having husbands and wives together to talk about what issues are facing farmers and what it takes to be successful. Team work! Listening and spending time with other couples going through the same things.
Having the handout to go along with the slides.

Evaluation Summaries
Female participants
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What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
An understanding of how vast marketing is and a small understanding of what/how marketing occurs.
When my husband sat down with me outside of the class to explain everything at a slower pace and in words that made sense. The class did help give me more interest in our operation and learning more about it. I also appreciated the discussions regarding communications and interpersonal relationships

Evaluation Summaries
Female participants
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What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
Nice to go over terms and explanation of marketing info. Good use of examples throughout class.
Breaking down terminology with marketing.
Reading charts and understanding what they mean. I am not involved in the “hands-on” part of our operation but have an interest in learning

Evaluation Summaries
Female participants
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What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
Marketing plan discussion.
Understanding how to calculate (and realize) your cost of production to apply to a marketing plan .
Learning how to read markets and learning about calls and puts

Evaluation Summaries
Male participants
1. What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
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The last meeting for rent agreements.
Websites.
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Sharing the information with my spouse and friends as a group.
Flexible cash rent information.
It was all very good in every aspect.

Evaluation Summaries
Male participants
1. What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
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Education is important. Wife needs to help with overwhelming tasks.
The last session.
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To develop a written marketing plan and stick to it.
Showing us the resources that we can use to find information i.e. websites, etc
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I liked the comprehensive approach to the whole subject. The most useful part was the discussion involving managing risk.
Rethinking the marketing plan.

Evaluation Summaries
Male participants
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What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
The best part of this program is when I listened to the other people carefully I learned that you can learn from everyone.
Bret Oelke – Bret’s knowledge and persistence on marketing plans and advice is second to none!
Being able to bring my wife up to speed on marketing. Great being able to learn with others in age bracket.
A good refresher from college marketing class.
Better than my 300 level ag marketing courses.

Evaluation Summaries
Male participants
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What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
Bret’s “URL’s.” I have used a lot of his web address gathering information. Better yet. Put them on a CD for faster use.
The group gathering to discuss different ideas and options. The ability to find out many different resources available to all of the groups.
The terms in the marketing terms presentation

Evaluation Summaries
Male participants
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What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
Giving my wife information that would have created guide the “conversation” if I would have tried to inform her.
The interaction with the group. Everyone sharing ideas about what works for them. Also, the
Internet tools and websites we discussed.
Free email information.
I believe a very simple snapshot of something that really will work for me is make small, increment sales.

Evaluation Summaries
Male participants
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What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
The marketing stuff.
It gave a good introduction into parts of marketing that I didn’t understand and got me thinking on how to improve upon it.
How to calculate cost of production, setup marketing plans, evaluate financial records, making networking connections .

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Evaluation Summaries
Male participants
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What do you feel was the most useful part of the program?
I feel this program brings a couple closer together getting away from everyday routine.
Networking with other couples and bringing forth a lot of good discussion topics about the business.
Financial analysis and how it applies to my farm and what a banker might look for and enterprise analysis .
Everything was useful
The budget planning – landlord relationships – farm communication

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 oelke002@umn.edu
218.770.2428
 craig030@umn.edu