Our oldest son invited us recently to see his new apartment.  It’s his third since leaving home.  Instantly, memories of the tour of his first apartment  flashed through my mind.  You may have seen the movie “Animal House” ; the same decorator did his first apartment.
           
However, apartment number two was a significant improvement in the eyes of this parent.  And the optimist in me agreed that it made good sense that the new apartment, number three, would be another upgrade.
 
And it is; it’s a well appointed upper in a great neighborhood.  A handsome horse sculpture on the table sparked this conversation:

   “Where did you find that?”

  “It was purchased from the apartment stager.”

             “Wow! your apartment was professionally staged  to help lease it?”

               ” It helped close the deal.”

If you’ve sold or bought a house recently, you may be familiar with the term “staging”.

It’s the process of removing clutter, adding items to draw attention to features and influencing the visitor’s first impression to be favorable.  You might call staging common sense salesmanship by making the product attractive to all to purchase.

But, common sense is as uncommon with many salespeople as it is with many horsemen.

You may disagree, but years of experience have proven to me that, in general, the public has no imagination.

The public sees the reality, not the potential.

The visit to my son’s apartment made me think about how staging is a practice that can be easily adapted for boarding, lessons and training barns. 

 Is your barn staged for emotionally appealing first impressions?

• Is the farm or ranch roadside sign fresh, professional and landscaped?
• Is the driveway smooth and free of potholes?
• Is it easy to decide where to park?
• Signage to welcome visitors and direct to personnel?
• Swept floors, clean stalls, organized tack room?
• Stalls and doors in good repair?
• Good lighting throughout?
• Uncluttered indoor arena?
• Groomed arena footing?
• Manure management practiced?
• Fences in good repair?
• Farm equipment out of the way in a storage area?

Most of the staging practices are just the application of good horse management practices; they don’t require spending great sums of money.

Do your own first impression evaluation soon with the help of a friend.  Mild bribery works best, so take your friend to enjoy a cup of coffee or a cold beverage and relax at your favorite coffee joint.  After your break, your friend drives you back to the farm and you sit in the passenger seat with a pad of paper for notes.

Pretend you are a visitor or customer and start taking notes about your impressions the second you drive in the driveway and as you park your car, and enter the barn.

Your friend may also offer objective comments as your tour your facility and observe how well your place is staged for favorable impressions.

Study your notes and make a list of the conditions and situations that you can improve.  Do the no-cost and low-cost items first.  Your new, fresh look will inspire you to make the investment in the repair items and improvement projects.

Doug Emerson helps professional horsemen struggling with the business half of the horse business. Find more articles about the horse business like this one at www.ProfitableHorseman.com

During the height of NASA’s space exploration program, the words that I loved to hear right before a launch were “All Systems Are Go”. Launching a rocket is no small feat, even for hundreds of rocket scientists. The rocket launch cycle was held together with a connection of systems like: communication systems, propulsion systems and life support systems. All systems had to be functioning properly for the launch to happen; the consequences of failed systems could result in deaths.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that most small businesses, including horse businesses, are nowhere near as complex as a lunar Apollo mission or a space shuttle trip. But, I’d like you to consider the importance of systems in your horse business for the next few minutes.

Written systems add stability for the day-to-day operations of a business as well as encourage efficiency. Some things that we consider routine and expect everyone to know may still need to have an established system.

As an example, let’s take a look at a simple system for water buckets in stalls. My system would include checking water levels four times daily and refilling if under half full. The system would state that emptying the buckets and refilling whenever they become contaminated with bedding or unwanted hay droppings. Buckets would be scrubbed with a special “water bucket only” brush once a week to remove accumulated residue. Even though you know all of these things are part of good horse health care, your employees and helpers may not. A written system helps eliminate confusion and smooth out the day.

Examples of other parts of your business, such as daily turnout practices, that will benefit from having a written system are:

Stall cleaning and manure handling
Daily feeding times and procedures
Welcoming new customers
Collecting payments from customers: Cash, check and credit cards
Answering the telephone and taking telephone messages and relaying to the proper recipient
Arranging and filing horse registrations and health papers
Reimbursing employees for expenses
Preparing for travel to a horse show
Dealing with sick or injured horses
Checking, changing, removing and storing coolers, sheets and blankets

The above is just a partial list. My point is that every part of your horse business that can be made into a system and placed in writing will be one less opportunity for confusion or opportunity for someone to say those dreaded words, “you never told me that.”

Invest the time into making systems for your horse business. The benefit of having simple, smooth and synchronized systems is that they provide the GO for a system for more profit in your horse business.

Doug Emerson helps professional horsemen struggling with the business half of the horse business. Find more articles about the horse business like this one at www.ProfitableHorseman.com

From the  Horseman’s Dictionary:
Broke (brok)-
1. a well trained horse
2. A chronic financial condition of a professional horseman who has too many slow paying clients
 
Even during good economic times, some clients are not responsible about making timely payments for board, training and lessons.  During tougher times like these, even more clients can be slooooooow about paying your bill and use a tight economy as a shaky excuse.
 
The truth is not everyone has lost his job and sources of income.  Granted, IRA’s and 401-K’s have taken substantial investment battle damage and property values have dipped in certain areas of the country, but most people are working at the same jobs collecting the same pay checks and unless they need to sell their houses tomorrow, haven’t lost equity.  The price of fuel has temporarily halved and food prices have stabilized.
 
Fear has replaced confidence and cast a cloud searching for a silver lining over the world economy.  But, for most of your clients, even though they may be fearful and second guessing their commitments to horses, their ability to pay has not been affected.
 
So, if you are offered lame excuses for slow pay and no pay, do not accept them.
 
Here are some tips for collecting receivables: 

If the board or training bill is due on the first of the month, then be adamant that you get paid on or before the first.
Be firm about late fees.  I know that some of your clients are “friends” but would a true friend put financial strain on your business by not paying promptly?
A face to face conversation about unpaid bills is best.  A telephone call is next in successful results.  A mailed late notice or e-mail is marginally effective.
When asking for payment for a delinquent account, be polite but firm.  After hearing excuses for late payment simply say, “Yes. Will you be paying me today?  If not in full, how much will you be paying today and when will you pay the rest?
Don’t worry about alienating customers who do not pay on time. If they don’t want to pay, they can move to your competitors and not pay them.
 
You may lose some clients with a tighter payment policy.  But, you’ll replace them with clients who understand your expectations and respect you as a business owner.  They are the best clients in the world and as long as you deliver excellent service, they’ll continue to appreciate and support you.

About the Author: Doug Emerson helps professional horsemen struggling with the business half of the horse business. Find more articles about the horse business like this one at www.ProfitableHorseman.com

I like to call the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve Reflections Week. There are pauses in the regular work schedule to tie up the loose ends of the year, relax a little and do some reflecting on what has happened in the past twelve months.

Your mind’s eye, given the right timing and environment, will replay the movie of 2009 for you to see what happened during the year. You may want to look at your written goals for the year and see how you did with the job of completion.

If you are like me, you probably have a list of completed and incomplete projects. If you accomplished everything on your goal list, Congratulations! I suspect your perfect achievement record came about because you never sleep or you didn’t get very brave with your goal setting and picked easy goals. Neither option is a good choice.

If your reflections on 2009 reveal you want to get more important things done in your business in 2010, consider making a small investment in a time management device used for centuries. No, you won’t have to invest in an antique tool.

The device I’m talking about is the full year at a glance wall calendar. You’ve seen this type of calendar before. It’s one big sheet, lacking pretty photographs, made out of plain paper or paper laminated to plastic. It shows the 12 months and 365 precious days of 2010. If you haven’t gotten yours yet, go get one in the next few days or order it online. I want you to use one of these huge full year calendars in 2010. Because, for 2010 to be your best year yet, you need to be thinking in terms of an entire year; not tomorrow, next week or next month. You need to know what’s going to happen this year.

Hang it on your office wall or in a conspicuous place for you and everyone who has a connection with you, to see any time. Here are the planning steps for you and your new full year calendar:

1. Choose your days off and mark them first. Remember, boss, the only person who gives a business owner a day off is the business owner.
2. Decide on dates for all events that you are responsible for creating and planning. Clinics, camps, horse shows, events, rodeos, trail rides, demonstrations, seminars.
3. Next, pencil in club meetings, dinner meetings, trade shows and seminars, auctions and sales you won’t be organizing but will be attending If you have a regular schedule for farrier and veterinary visits, mark those days as well.
4. If your employees will be away or off on certain days, code those days too.
5. Record all family gatherings, birthday, weddings, graduations. Your personal life and business life are inseparable.
6. Make note of any other significant events scheduled for 2007 on your wall calendar.

The purpose of this exercise is to nurture peace of mind for you as the business owner as you “brain dump” dates and times. Creation of a full year planning calendar is a decluttering process which frees your personal RAM for solving other problems.

The benefits of the full year calendar for all to see are:

• Creates personal commitment by you and limits the temptation for procrastination
• Allows your staff and clients the opportunity to know what to expect from you and to build respect for your valuable and precious “free time”.
• Paints a full picture of the year to emphasize the limited amount of time you have available to do the work in your horse business that creates income: lessons, training, boarding, sales.

You can make 2010 your best year yet after reflecting on 2009 and projecting the new year of 2010 on a full view planning calendar. Get Planning.

 Doug Emerson helps professional horsemen struggling with the business half of the horse business. Find more articles about the horse business like this one at www.ProfitableHorseman.com

You probably hear a lot about systems in conversations.  Often in reference to money making systems like: internet marketing , horse betting , stock investment  and multi level marketing.  Usually complicated, these types of systems have a degree of success directly in proportion to the business owner’s effort to understand and follow the system.

But, not all systems are complicated. In your home, you might have a system for doing the dishes, or folding laundry or feeding the dog.  You have them because they simplify your life by helping you doing things efficiently without reinventing the process each time. 

I had lunch recently with Mike, the owner of a roofing company and Frank, a retired roofer and estimator.  We talked about their experience with systems and the crews that work for them.  While the business of roofing and the business of horses are very dissimilar, they have common ground as far as the need to accomplish a lot of physical work during the day. There are no cubicle jobs in either business.

Both businesses involve material handling.  For example, roofers tear off worn out roofing materials and install new roofing.  Horse businesses remove manure and bedding and replace with fresh bedding.  Both businesses involve physical labor, hand tools and machinery.  Both businesses employ experienced and inexperienced help.

Mike and Frank agree that without a system for work, productivity falls and profit falls even quicker.  A foreman who leads a crew with a system and expectations for time requirements, is essential for company profitability.  When crews know the way to do a job and the time allotted for completion, they perform.

Well, duh, that’s just common sense you may think.

Common sense yes, common practice?   NO.

You know what I mean if you have visited horse businesses where the help operates behind schedule, doesn’t have the right equipment and tools and thinks that any motion, including backward, indicates work is being done.  You may have this problem at your own business.

I’d like you to consider the importance of systems in your horse business.   Written systems add stability for the day-to-day operations of a business as well as encourage efficiency. Some things that we consider routine and expect everyone to know may still need to have an established system.

As an example, let’s take a look at a simple system for water buckets in stalls. My system includes checking water levels four times daily and refilling if under half full. The system demands emptying the buckets and refilling whenever they become contaminated with bedding or unwanted hay droppings. Buckets are to be scrubbed with a special “water bucket only” brush once a week to remove accumulated residue.

Even though you know all of these things are part of good horse health care, your employees and helpers may not. A written system helps eliminate confusion and smooth out the day.
Examples of other parts of your business that will benefit from having a written system are:

1. Stall cleaning and manure handling
2. Daily feeding times and procedures
3. Welcoming new customers
4. Collecting payments from customers: Cash, check and credit cards
5. Answering the telephone and taking telephone messages and relaying to the proper recipient
6. Arranging and filing horse registrations and health papers
7. Reimbursing employees for expenses
8. Preparing for travel to a horse show
9. Dealing with sick or injured horses
10. Checking, changing, removing and storing coolers, sheets and blankets

My point is that every part of your horse business that can be made into a system and placed in writing will be one less opportunity for confusion or opportunity for someone to say those dreaded words, “you never told me that.”

Invest the time into making systems for your horse business. The benefit of having simple, smooth and synchronized systems is happier employees, less stress for you and more profit.

Doug Emerson helps professional horsemen struggling with the business half of the horse business. Find more articles about the horse business like this one at www.ProfitableHorseman.com

My son has been shopping on line for a used pick up truck.  He’s narrowed down his selection to make, model, year and mileage.  There are plenty of online resources for establishing values of used  vehicles.  You probably use these resources as price guides, too.  With printed guides, price is well defined within a range of evaluation factors.  It’s fast and EASY. Best of all, it educates buyers not familiar with values and makes negotiation comfortable.

If establishing prices in your horse business is a struggle, you’re not alone. Often, professional horsemen are selling to customers not fully educated on current value.

Horse trainers, from colt starters to show-ring ready finishers, have no blue book reference guide for easy pricing. 

Breeders who are selling weanlings, yearlings and two-year olds can only rely on historical sale prices to support their personal assessment of the present value of a young horse.

Riding Instructors, with decades of experience resulting in hundreds of accomplished students, struggle with establishing their value over less experienced instructors.

No doubt that you’ve found naming your price is a challenge at times. (maybe all the time)  It may be because of the following reasons:

• You are uncomfortable talking about, you know, shhh . . money.
• You worry that the customer may object to the fee and you won’t know what to say.
• You feel you don’t have the experience or correct qualifications to charge that kind of fee.
• You have a fear of rejection over price.
• You think your fees are too high compared to your perceived competition.

Don’t feel like you are only person challenged with naming your price. Everyone has tripped over naming the price at one time or another. And everyone includes me.

So here are some tips for getting through the money talk with your customers:

1. Have a pricing strategy. Know what the competition charges. Raise your fee if you have more to offer.

2. Make a “Standard Fees and Prices Sheet.” Start with a single sheet of paper. At the top, print your business name and directly underneath print “Standard Fees and Prices.” Then list all of the services and products you offer and the fee you ought to charge. Congratulations. You now can say, “My standard fee for a private one hour lesson is____, My standard fee for trucking horses is____, My standard fee for schooling at a horse show is___”

Once you have standard fees on your price sheet, it will be much more professional than saying, “How does one hundred bucks sound, is that fair?”

3. Talk with your customer or prospect about what her expectations are before quoting your fee. Suggest to the customer that before you talk about money, the two of you should see if you can deliver what she needs. This allows you to more fully understand what the customer wants and needs. Then, charge appropriately.

Answering the question, How much do you charge for . . .? without knowing the details can be a nightmare.

4. Be confident. Deliver the price, and then stop talking. That means don’t talk even if there is a long uncomfortable period of “dead air”. As the seasoned salesperson knows, he who speaks first, loses.

5. Avoid discounts, they just lead to more negotiation. Instead, offer different levels of service if possible.

These tips will help you get through the money talk easily and cause your customers to respect you even more for being the professional that you are.

If the money talk and your standard fees scare off some prospects, don’t be discouraged. Be thankful that those prospects were quickly culled allowing you to concentrate on your real customers.

Doug Emerson helps professional horsemen struggling with the business half of the horse business. Find more articles about the horse business like this one at www.ProfitableHorseman.com

Our tractor mounted grader blade gets used for many jobs around the farm including: arena leveler, snow pusher and a substitute bulldozer.  It performs very well at the first two jobs.  As for dozer work, let’s just say it’s a good thing for me there is no Society for the Prevention of Machine Abuse.

It’s not intended for use as heavy earth moving equipment and my over confidence in its structural strength has sent it to the repair wizard several times.

After the most recent repair, I treated the well used blade to a fresh coat of paint. The result was Wow! The old blade looked better than ever and once again rusty, tired iron looked very close to factory fresh.

It got me thinking about the magic of a paint job.  The effort only took about thirty minutes from start to finish and the paint was already on the garage shelf waiting to be put in service. 

The project was Low labor cost, low material cost, high result. It’s the equation all business owners search for.

You may want to give your business an end of year paint job.  I don’t mean literally paint everything, I mean do things that improve appearance and business image.  You can freshen up the first impression of your business just like my rusty grader blade and its new coat of paint.

Here are some ideas for you to consider:

• Put a Welcome sign outside and inside your barn
• Restock your business card supply
• Add an exterior light to dark parking areas
• Invest in hose racks
• Fill the pot holes in the driveway
• Clean out the truck and horse trailer
• Change your daily uniform to look like a pro all the time, every day
• Buy extra brooms for compulsive sweepers to help keep the aisle neat
• Set a deadline for completion of stall cleaning each day
• Post candid photos of your customers and their horses on a bulletin board
• Put clocks in strategic places to encourage timeliness
• Schedule a cobweb removal blitz hour
• Invest in a few more water bucket scrubbing brushes
• Keep the wheelbarrow tires filled with air and the axles oiled
• Get the dust under control in the indoor
• Hand write appreciation notes on your invoices
• Hang a whiteboard and write a daily inspirational quote
• Oil those squeaky hinges, barn door tracks and sticky snaps
• Clean the indoor arena viewing area glass
• Number or name the paddocks and pastures
• Paint the lavatory
• Clean out ditches and get the water moving away from pastures and buildings

 You get the idea. 

 Low cost, high impact, lasting impression.

 Just like a fresh paint job.

 What can you freshen up with your business today?

Doug Emerson helps professional horsemen struggling with the business half of the horse business. Find more articles about the horse business like this one at www.ProfitableHorseman.com