What you’re about to read, you can find in hundreds of internet postings. Strategic planning or business planning is well documented with many examples. But what I’ll attempt to do here is to simplify strategic planning with a focus on the small farm or homestead. If your animals are more than pets, then you should definitely consider a strategic plan.
First, what is strategic planning? Simply stated, it means writing down all the thoughts in your head about why you do what you do, what you are doing now, where you want to be in the future, how you are going to get there, and who is going to help you get there. These and related thoughts are what keep you up at night. Writing it down is the planning before the action, or the look before the leap.
Here are a couple of points about planning:
1. This is not a solo exercise. Strategic planning needs to involve every adult in the household. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get much help from your partner; your plans will impact them.
2. It hurts your brain! You’d think that writing down what’s in your head would be simple, but it is not. The first time we made a strategic plan, it took the better part of 3 evenings. We both thought we knew what the other was thinking, but we were wrong. The plan put us both on the same track.
3. It’s important, but you might only look at it once or twice per year. So why do it? Because the process of getting thoughts out of your head and onto paper is more important than the plan itself. You might only look at it halfway through the year or at the end of the year to see if you accomplished your goals and to modify next year’s plan. But having it on paper means you were able to express your thoughts and wishes into a unified plan. Write it down instead of hoping for a miracle.
So what does a strategic plan look like? Here’s an outline with comments, divided into “strongly suggested” sections, and “optional” sections that you may or may not want to include. Let’s get started…
STRONGLY SUGGESTED SECTIONS
- Summary. Talk about history; where did you come from, what motivated you to have a farm, and where you are today.
- Mission. This small section might be the hardest to write. What is your vision? Why do you get up every morning? If someone asked you to describe your farm in a sentence or two, what would you say? And what makes you different? Everything you say or do after this should align with your mission. For instance, do you sell eggs? Perhaps your mission is to sell the highest quality eggs in your area. Or to be the go-to farm for blue or dark brown eggs.
Why is this section so difficult? Let’s say you say that your mission is to raise chickens to sell eggs to people in the local community and make a small profit. Sounds good. Then you want to buy a lot of fancy chickens because look so pretty. But pretty chickens tend to lay less and lay smaller eggs. And after 3 years, your chickens are only laying half of what they used to, and no eggs in the winter. But they eat the same amount. And you don’t want to kill them to make room for new layers because you want them to live out their natural lives on the farm, and you’d never be able to kill anything.
You weren’t honest with your mission. You should have said your mission was to “Raise pretty chickens as pets, and try to sell their tiny eggs, even if it means selling at a huge financial loss.”
So be honest with yourself, and carefully consider each word in this section. Then operate the farm by making decisions using your mission as a guide.
- Business Overview. Write down what you do, your contact information, what facilities you have, how you are established, who is in charge, products you sell, services you provide, etc.
- Goals and Plans. What do you want to do in the coming year? Do you want to double your flock? Build a new coop? Increase internet presence? List the goal, and next to it, list how you are going to do it. Are you going to get a website? Register on Google? Make roadside signs? Hire a helper(s)? Are these goals doable? Then answer this: Do these goals match the mission? If not, then your mission is too narrow, or your goals are good broad.
- Task List. From your Goals and Plans, list the tasks you’ll need to take, like building 3 cages or clearing land or buying certain supplies. List the timeframe for completing each task. For instance, if you will be selling processed meat chickens, when will you place the order for chicks and when will they be delivered? Who will process them?
- Pricing. What will you charge for products and services? How did you arrive at these prices? Do you know how much it costs to produce a dozen eggs? How do your prices compare to others near you? Let’s say local farm eggs sell for $4 per dozen, but you’re 20 miles further away from the city. Will people drive an hour round trip and pay the same price? Consider your location when determining prices.
- Customers. Who are you selling to? Where do you find them or how will they find you?
- Management Team. List who is involved in daily operations and who gets to make major decisions. Just a family run farm? Give yourselves titles.
- Marketing. Consider a combination of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, a website. Consider branding. Do you have a logo? Should you have business cards or apparel like shirts or hats? Are you good at social media? Can you convey cogent thoughts in a post and spell correctly? If not, who can? People usually see your marketing before they meet you, and will make judgements about your farm based on it. If your postings are confusing with a lot of errors, they’re likely to keep searching or scroll on past.
- Financial Projections. Put a value on the investments, purchases, and sales you hope to make. If you hope to make a profit, that might not happen for a couple of years while you make capital investments like building supplies and equipment. Can you predict how long it will be before you start making a profit, if that is your goal? Evaluate how you did at the end of the year.
OPTIONAL SECTIONS
- Customer Service. How will you interface with customers (phone, internet, face-to-face) and who will do this. What is your planned response time?
- Licenses, Permits & Regulations. If you need these, when and how will you get them? Do you want to sell at a Farmer’s Market? Perhaps you’ll need insurance, or licenses to sell off the farm.
- Risk Management. What risks can you identify, and how will you mitigate them? Do you need a safety plan or sanitation plan? If you don’t have a detailed plan, you should at least discuss it with others at the farm.
- Environmental Issues. Are you potentially violating any regulations? Who should you check with and how will you be compliant?
- Quality Control. Who is in charge of fresh or sanitary food? How will you label them? If you sell eggs, are you making sure that the oldest eggs are being sold first? What standards to you use to reject and destroy eggs?
- Market Trends. Is there a market for what you want to do? Is that market growing? How will a pandemic or other health crisis affect your sales? Are you able to explain to customers how your products are different than the grocery store or other farms?
- Strategic Partners. Are you partnered with any other people, businesses, or farms? How will you work together to promote each other? For instance, will someone allow your honey to be sold in their store?
- Distribution. Where are you selling and how will it get there? What supplies do you need to box and label products?
- Competitive Advantage. What makes you competitive? What makes you different than everyone else? Can you express that difference?
- Historical Performance. How have you grown over time? How did you measure it? Did you meet the goals or projections that you set for the farm?
Does your brain hurt yet? It should. Planning is not easy. There’s a reason why most businesses are out of business within a year. There’s very little money in farming, and without having a plan, you might run out of money long before you hoped. Make a plan, and let it guide the decisions you make about your farm.