Getting the Best Deal in Tough Times
David Hanlon
Right Mind International
As an international business strategy and marketing consultant and Director of “Right Mind International”, David has built his skills as a presenter and facilitator through extensive national and international experience across many parts of the agribusiness supply chain. David looked at developing strategies to apply the resources available to growers in drought to arrive at “the best deal”.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you hope growers can take away with them from your presentation?
I was a standard agricultural consultant doing business analysis until I realised that business analysis alone didn’t work, you had to look at business drivers. That journey lead us to looking at a whole lot of things to make business managers tougher, more resilient, and more profitable.
What do you believe are some of the personal pitfalls growers need to overcome during times like drought?
Dealing with the whole stress of it. Drought’s awful, it creates anxiety, there’s no money, your staff are depressed, you’ve perhaps got a bank manager on your back, and you don’t know when the end is. You need to work on the decisions that you can change. By managing that you not only become more resilient it also helps your family situation, and helps your staff.
What strategies can growers use to overcome these pitfalls?
You need to break it down, look at the little things you can do and build those strengths.
One of the single most talked about things is the weather and yet it’s the only thing you can’t control! Possible strategies include being more positive and making sure your expectations are real. That means asking yourself questions like: what will you do if your debt gets to XX amount, what are our alternatives if it doesn’t rain again and we don’t get another crop. You need to plan so you aren’t forced to make decisions because that reactive decision making is much more stressful. And finally have a real framework to work within and a team around you.
What’s are the three most important message growers can take away from your presentation?
- Plan your decision making process
- Have a support team – generally farm businesses don’t have the management support associated with bigger businesses
- Keep positive – this is probably the most important one.
What are your tips to keep growers and their staff positive?
Celebrate the little successes, even things like cleaning ring tanks during drought, because staff get uncertain – they don’t know if they have a job and have also got family’s to feed. If you can give your staff something, it doesn’t need to be expensive, it just needs to acknowledge and celebrate something good. And do it often.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I believe that if we break the paradigm of always having to make decisions alone and find a group that we can trust who won’t just support us but can push us when necessary, then growers will be able to cope better in any adversity, not just drought.
