“Building a Winning Team” – Management and Marketing for Farm Couples

advertisement

“Building a Winning Team” – Management and Marketing for Farm Couples

National Extension Risk Management

Education Conference

Bret Oelke and Bill Craig

April 1. 2009

Overview of Presentation

 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

 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

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

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

Improve Business Communication

Internally

Externally

Enhance Marketing Skills

Identify or develop marketing philosophy

Market and purchase planning

Expand Management Expertise

Understand how to utilize farm records

Recognize skill areas

Explore areas for outsourcing or in-sourcing

Build a “Winning Team”

Session One

Introductions

Overview of Program

Marketing and

Management

Resources

Understanding Markets

Session Two

Session One Review

The Language of Marketing

 Marketing Terms

 How to Read and Utilize Marketing Resources

Session Three

Session Three Review

Keeping Track and Utilizing Your Records

Communicating with your spouse and other family members

Session Four

Session Three Review

Building Supplier and Buyer Relationships

Planning for Marketing

Cost of production

Developing marketing plans

Developing Better Relationships with

Landlords

 Defending and expanding your land base

Session Five

Session Four Review

Assembling your “Winning Team”

 Internal and external members

Group Directed Discussion

Evaluation

Evaluation Questions

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……………………………

Evaluation Questions

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.

Spouses attending together .

Finding all the different websites. Suggestions for the land rental contracts. Learning the terminology.

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!

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

1.

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

1.

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

1.

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

1.

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

1.

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

1.

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?

The last meeting for rent agreements.

Websites.

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?

Education is important. Wife needs to help with overwhelming tasks.

The last session.

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

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

1.

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

1.

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

1.

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

1.

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 .

Evaluation Summaries

Male participants

1.

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

Thanks – Let’s keep in touch

If you want to learn more contact:

Bret Oelke:

 oelke002@umn.edu

218.770.2428

Bill Craig:

 craig030@umn.edu

Download