This is the second and concluding part of this article. The first part appeared here, yesterday (9th October 2013).
Here’s Why I Suggest You Start Your Farm Business SMALL, While You’re Still In Paid Employment:
I believe in the smart use of money. People who have suffered severe, potentially traumatizing lack of access to money, often feel that way about using it.
For those willing to learn, “poverty” (no matter how short the period of exposure to it) can be a good teacher of money management 
Believe me dear reader, I say this from painful personal experience!
The fact that you have money does not mean you have to throw it at anything you want to do.
To flourish in business, it’s best to train yourself – and your employees – to use as little money as possible, to generate as much money as possible.
That’s the key to being competitive. Take a good look at Richard Branson’s Virgin range. It’s what makes them tick!
When you’re in firm control of what it costs you to produce, you’re likely to have plenty of profit “margin room” to play with.
In other words, you’ll be able to price your farm output competitively (to fend off rival farms), and attractively (to entice profitable buyers).
So, keep that in mind.
Don’t just go buying this and buying that and hoping to impress people with different machinery and livestock littering your farm. Practice focus – aim to develop a production system that works with one or two specific livestock ventures – using cost-saving strategies.
What you learn by being so painstaking will enable you keep that operation going with minimal running expenses incurred.
Do Not Start a New Venture Until That/Those on Ground Are Yielding Significant, Sustainable Income
The reason is simple. You want to start a business that at some point starts to generate enough revenue to finance itself – so you can stop dipping your hands in your pockets.
That way, you can use what you generate from them, to finance new ventures (even if in part).
It would make no sense for you to still be using your salary to pay salaries, buy feeds and cover other expenses on a fish farm that’s over a year old!
If that is happening, something you’re doing is not right. Investigate and correct it, so the farm can start making money!
Once that farm is setup right, and generating useful revenue, explore ways to further save costs, so you can raise your profit margins.
Then if you have plans to start any other farm enterprise – say an egg laying poultry enterprise – find ways to use the income from the fish farm to slowly finance it.
Again, understand what I mean here.
Nothing stops you from going out and buying all you need to start a piggery, poultry, rabbitry and poultry layers farm ALL at once.
However, I’m saying that being in a salary job, it will be difficult to monitor multiple enterprises. Unless you’re really lucky to get reliable manpower.
So, whatever you want to start should be done slowly. Aim to learn how to do it well on a small or pivot scale – in preparation for a full launch later on.
That process will help you determine what areas problems or challenges can arise from. And because it would be on a manageable “scale”, your spending needs to get it up and running would be minimal.
No Matter How Far Away Your Retirement Day Is, You Can Start Preparing Today
It won’t be easy. But the process of engaging in all the aspects of running the enterprise you choose, will give you valuable education you will draw on later.
The best part is that you will do all this while still earning a salary!
And by using an intelligent step-by-step or phased implementation like the one proposed above, you can actually end up with a fully operational farm business.
That’s because the longer you’ve been doing something, especially if you’re not lazy, the more proficient you’ll become.
Running a farm business – especially livestock – is not easy to do.
That’s why I suggest starting as early as possible, while the advantage of salaried income is still there.
Get your immediate family members involved, and extended family members you can really trust. That will enable you save on labour costs.
With that kind of cost-effective arrangement in place, you’re more likely to succeed in making the scaled down version of your farm business profitable.
Then, using what you’ve learnt, and the experience you’ve gained, you can then gradually scale up the business. Do this, possibly to coincide with (what will hopefully be) your planned exit from paid employment.
Imagine what it would feel like, to quit today, and get home knowing you can walk into your very own – already profitable – farm business that same day!
That’s an experience many who retire after years of serving their employers often do not have.
Instead, those periods tend to be characterised by fear, and worry, about how they’ll cope with the significant loss of monthly salaried income.
A person who works a plan like the one proposed in this article, with diligence and determination, is much less likely to have such an experience.
It is my hope that YOU will take THIS, as a wake up call, and start making necessary enquiries – and plans – today.
To that end, I suggest you read my article titled: Searching for Farm Business Opportunities? (5 Tips, Based on a Real Life International Phone Conversation)
I wish you success.
RELATED ARTICLES WRITTEN BY TAYO K. SOLAGBADE
1. Searching for Farm Business Opportunities? (5 Tips, Based on a Real Life International Phone Conversation)
PREVIEW: I recently took an international call, from a Nigerian based abroad, on my mobile line. I was then on a farm in South West Nigeria, where I was coaching users to use a Poultry Farm Management application the CEO hired me to build.
He and a partner were trying to decide on investment opportunities to pursue in Nigeria. They yearned to come home after decades of working in foreign countries. But they also worried – rightly too – based on news they kept getting – that it could be quite risky.
Perhaps too risky.
He shared the story of a colleague who traveled home with his entire family to “retire”, only to return saying he NEVER return there till death!
2. Should You Quit Your Job or Start Your Business Part-time?
PREVIEW: “No enterprise worthy of accomplishment would ever begin, if all obstacles were first to be overcome – Napoleon Hill
In attempting to help you come to your own decision about the better of the two options mentioned above(quitting your job vs. starting part-time), I will give you an insight into how I entered into the business of entrepreneuring. I start by reproducing the exact words with which I narrated the experience in an ebook I wrote back in 2003 titled “How To Help Your Child Discover His/Her Purpose In Life” (see excerpts below).
3. Once You Start Your Business, You Must Think & Act Like An Entrepreneur To Succeed!
PREVIEW: “I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going” – Richard Branson.
Preamble
In this article I explain why ANYONE starting a business needs to realise that s/he MUST become an entrepreneur in order to succeed. For many people this will require changes in spending habits, use of personal time, friendships kept- and most importantly THINKING HABITS!