Frye: Where will your time be spent best today?

We all know about the role of the farm’s leader and all the different “hats” he can wear during a single day. That’s because the areas of responsibility that the leader touches are quite varied.

When you’re the leader, it can sometimes be tough to know how and where to spend the workday. This is in terms of where the leader’s time is best spent — not spending time only “putting out fires,” so to speak, the urgent issues that can pop up, but also where your time is most valuable.

Time Tables

The question “Where will your time be spent best today?” can be a very tricky one for farm leaders. It’s almost impossible to answer unless you have already gotten very clear about this first: Where is your farm headed in the future?

Without knowing where you want your farm to be headed in the future, you can’t really know where your time leading and managing the operation will be best spent today. It’s too difficult to make that type of evaluation without a vision of the future to hold it up against.

Have you spent some time with other leaders in your operation, your spouse, your advisers — or a combination of all of them — to talk about what the future of your operation will be?

Do you as the leader or leadership team know the larger vision and what you’re going to do on a day-to-day basis to get there, step by step?

Breaking It Down

The step-by-step part is really important. Most people, when faced with uncertainty about the future, tend to do nothing.

Until the action plan is broken down in bite-sized, day-to-day pieces, it’s very difficult for people to be able to take action toward the future goals in meaningful ways each day.

As the farm leader, first make sure that you and your leadership team — whether that’s you and your spouse, or a larger team of people — are on the same page about what you all want the farm’s future to be like in the next five to 10 years.

Then you can work to break that down in goals for the next five years, the next year, month and so on. You want to “bite-size” it down to the level of day-to-day goals and communicate those steps to the other people in your operation.

Doing this will help everyone, including yourself, be able to answer the question: Where will my time be best spent today?

The answer will vary depending on each person’s role in the operation, but each person’s answer should come back to the larger goals of where the farm is headed in the future.

Market Goals

How does your farm’s marketing plan fit in with the future goals for your operation? That’s important, because marketing is one of the top business drivers impacting the level of success that the farm operation can experience.

Here’s something I want to share with you about marketing. One of the most powerful things you can do when it comes to your farm’s marketing plans is to focus on what you can control and to let go of what you can’t control.

When it comes to the markets, there’s obviously a lot that’s not within any farmer’s direct control. But what is in your control?

You have the choice to learn about the markets: what makes them move, and why, and about the different tools that are available to manage your farm’s risks in the market.

Under Control

Choosing to focus on what you can control about how the markets — such as your response to them and management of your marketing plan — can help take out some of the emotional roller-coaster feelings around marketing grain.

Farmers have found that working with our market advisers has helped ease their minds. The advisers help farmer clients with planning and execution around marketing decisions and help keep them up to speed on the current rapidly-changing grain market situation — and how it impacts their operation.

Get a free two-week trial of our marketing information service, MarketView Basic, at www.waterstreetconsulting.com. Your free trial includes regular audio and video updates, technical analysis, recommendations and more.

Or, learn more about our market adviser programs and offerings at www.waterstreetconsulting.com.