Mind Your Farm Business — Ep. 111: Time, teams, and true purpose

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Mind your Farm Business podcast brought to you by RBC Royal Bank. I'm your host, Shaun Haney of Real Agriculture. If you've ever felt like you're just getting through the season, you're putting out fires, juggling cash flow and reacting to problems instead of steering your farm, you want it to go. You know what it's like to be in survival mode. If that's the case, the truth is a lot of farm owners spend years there without even realizing it. My guest today is Josh Kirpin. He knows that place all too well. As the managing partner of Kirpin Farms in Saskatchewan, Josh has built an 11,000 acre mixed farming operation from the ground up since 2009. But beyond running his own business, he's also a business coach for farmers, helping them move from a reactive to just getting by mindset to one that's a lot more proactive. It's strategic and of course, sustainable. In this episode, we'll talk about the signs of being stuck in survival mode, the systems and habits that help you break free, and how to shift from working in your business to working on it without letting the day to day chaos pull you back in. Let's get to it. Foreign. Josh, welcome to the Mind your Farm Business podcast. Thanks for having me, Shaun. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, it's great stuff. You know, I mentioned some of your background in the intro, but tell us a little bit about your farming operation and what you do now with your consulting business. Yeah, so we're based in central Saskatchewan here. Keniston, Saskatchewan. I started farming. I actually went to business school, University of Saskatchewan. Got my business degree there and did a few things after that and got into farming. You know, it was something, I guess I'd grown up on the farm, but my dad had gotten out of it in the early 90s and got into politics. So the farm that I'm on is, I think I'm the fourth generation here, but we're, we're kind of a fresh start, my wife and I. So we didn't take over the farm for mom and dad after school. I was actually working for a buddy at harvest time and just crunching some numbers on a nice crop that he was commenting on. And I recognize that there is some margin there and I knew that there were some other costs. So I didn't know exactly what, what there was. But I was, I was young and Crazy and thought, hey, let's. We're actually combining one of my dad's quarters. So I was like, let's. I got to see if I can make a run at this. I always love this. I love farming, love cattle and always kind of wanted to be involved in that. I just wasn't sure what my avenue was going to be to get into it and just had the opportunity to start. I don't know that I could have done it now with the barriers to entry, I probably got in just in the nick of time. We really legitimately started from scratch and I had put together, I went, got my business degree and I don't know how much value I got out of that four years in school. But I did take a small business entrepreneurship class which is really, really valuable and taught me to put together a business plan. So I put together a business plan for this farm and had calculated out that it could be profitable if I was projecting correct. And, and it helped me go get a loan. You know, the banks really like to see that type of thing that you kind of know what you're talking about when, when you're talking about business. And so anyways, we got started and kind of threw it all on the table. Didn't really have anything to lose that first year. And we grew a bit of a crop and got our feet underneath us and away we went. And part of my first business plan, my goals were to get to 10,000 acres. And that was really kind of an ego pride based goal. I was young at the time and it just seemed like a big farm. And that's what I wanted to do. That's not a big farm anymore, but back then it was reasonably big. Had no real plan of how I was going to get there. But that just shows you the power of actually writing things down what you want. Exactly. The universe kind of conspires to make those things happen. So I had that goal out in front of me and basically got there a lot faster than I would have thought. Just strictly on the grain side of things. And that's where we get into that survival mode. So when we have these perceived successes, we achieve our goals and we think that's all great. But if you haven't built a foundation underneath what you've. What you've built, then you've kind of built a great big mansion or a nice house on a foundation of sticks. And it started crumbling around for me. So I was really in survival mode. Had to develop a team of people. And that was probably the, the biggest puzzle Piece that I was personally missing was how to lead and manage people. Well, you know, started adding people that are supposed to take work and pressure off of me and, and probably put more stress and pressure on me. And it wasn't the people, it was the fact that I was missing the skills to, to sort of manage them. So. Yeah, Josh, so how do you. Okay, so I, I understand this idea of trying to escape survival mode as an entrepreneur, but how do I identify that? Yeah, okay, I'm actually in survival mode. I need to be getting out of this. What are the symptoms? You have to do a really serious time audit and be really honest with yourself about. Because to me, that is the only commodity that really matters. Right. We talk about, I think that a lot of us measure success and money and profit and there's something to be said for that. But to me, the only value in money is that I can actually buy my time back with it. Time is all that matters for me. I've got a family and we've all got a limited amount of time. We don't know how much, which makes it sort of an extra special commodity. And we just can't buy it back. We've only got 24 hours in a day. So I suppose you can buy it back if you can get yourself into a situation where you don't have to trade your time for money anymore. But I guess to answer your question, that would be it is, is do a really serious time audit. Are you able to do the things that you want to do when you want to do them, or do you just convince yourself that you can? Right. Is it, is it completely seasonal? Are you missing out on things that, that are the most important things in your life? And if the answer to that is yes, then you probably are in survival mode. And I think a lot of people are maybe not completely honest with themselves or maybe just don't haven't determined exactly what the most important things in their life are. But that would be how I would. That that's how I recognized it was that I just wasn't able to do exactly what I wanted to, to do when I wanted to do it. And it became a lot deeper than that. Like, I mean, I, I got a lot of anxiety and stress and really had, you know, kind of a hit, a hit a rock bottom spot where I didn't know what anxiety was at that time. I just thought that what I was feeling, the stress was what comes with running a successful business. You know, you're just, you're busy and you're Overwhelmed and you've got too much to handle. And it's almost a. Almost a badge of honor, but it became too much to handle. And that rock bottom process for me made it really obvious that I was in survival mode. But I think that there are signs before that. Yeah, okay, I think that'll make sense. Now. Some of the audience may be saying to themselves, okay, that sounds great, Josh. I wish I could get out of like survival mode, but based on the finances or the current situation, farming, you know, especially on the cropping side, it's. It's not exactly a lofty positive margins. Right now I'm kind of forced to be in the survival mode. I got to get through this. Is that reality or is that kind of trying to justify your. The way you structured things? Yeah, I think that financial survival mode is a little bit different than maybe that. The time and the business management survival mode that I'm talking about. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, financial survival mode, I'm pretty familiar with that too. And really still in that. We've been in our part of central Saskatchewan. We got a little rain last year, not enough to finish a crop, but basically we're in year nine of a. Of a pretty serious drought. We haven't grown a proper crop in that long. And it's been a. It's a pretty small little pocket here. But we are still in financial survival mode. And that, that makes it difficult. And of course there are different ways to deal with that as well. But setting up your business to run as a business, having the right people and the right team around you is important for even surviving those, those difficult times, because there's not. You have to control what you can control. Right. And we can't control the markets, we can't control the weather, but we can control some of the risk and how much it. It affects us. Yeah. So if we're trying to build a team around us, how do we make sure we get the. The right person in the right seat, so to speak? As Jim Collins famously wrote about, how do we make. How do we increase the probability of that happening? Yeah. So for me, the system that we built is called the POP system. And it's really, it. It's built around aligning purpose people and processes. So the number one step is understanding your purpose as a business, any business, and your business, ag businesses, farms are not exempt from the principles that govern business. So you need to understand why you exist and who your customer is and why it's important that you exist. If you went away, would it matter And a lot of farms, they go away and it doesn't really matter because somebody else just scoops up that land and nobody really, nobody really notices. So if you can find a niche in there, that's. That can make you really special, especially in when you're talking about surviving financial difficulties. But then you need to understand your vision and where you're going. Those two things are really important when you go to build a team, because you want people that are on board with you, that want to go to the same place as you, that, that fit your culture, that fit your core values. So then you need to determine what your business needs. And that's really important to me is. Is meeting the needs of the business, not the needs of the people that are currently in the business. And that's where it becomes a little bit tricky when you get especially larger family farms where you've got people that are sort of inherently embedded in the business and you have to create roles for them that can be a little bit dangerous because the business does not know your DNA and it does not care about your DNA. And you have to kind of come to grips with that. The business needs its needs met before it can meet the needs of the owners as the family. So, you know, creating your org chart and mapping out all of the roles and the duties and the responsibilities and everything that gets done in any business. And a farmer ranch is no different. That will tell you all of the roles that need to be filled and then you can start finding the right fit people to plug into those roles. Yeah. You talked about the growth trajectory that, you know, your goals were to get the 10,000 acres. There's. When you see growth like that, what tends to happen is you go from like, say just you to maybe there's three people, maybe there's five, maybe there's 10. You know, some farms will be plus 25 people working on their team. There's different scalable challenges there from a management system setup. Right. What, what allow, you know, how you function to three employees is not how you can function at 15. It will implode on itself. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, even, even at three or four people, you can have the wrong people is really difficult. But you can have the right people and the wrong systems in place for communicating, delegating and all those things. And it's going to take you more time to manage three people than it would just to do all the work yourself. Right. Which is where a lot of people just say, I'm not going to bother with, with hiring out anybody I'm not going to learn those skills. I'm not going to bother hiring out. I'm just going to work twice as hard for, for the short season and get through it. And that, that's pretty difficult. That's pretty draining. And I'm not sure that the next generation is probably going to be really interested in that. So if you can gain the skills to manage people well, to build, manage and lead a good team, and it really can unlock what your business can do, but it really can unlock a lot of freedom in your life. And that's, that's the key. That's where it really gets special for me. We'll get back to the Mind you'd Farm Business podcast shortly, but first, a word from our sponsor, RBC Royal Bank. This episode of the Mind you'd Farm Business podcast is brought to you by rbc. Your idea of tomorrow's success happens here. When it comes to growing your operation, making strategic investments, or securing the future of your farm, RBC and their team of experts are ready to help you chart the course. They'll work with you to develop a personalized plan that sets your goals in motion. Ready to take the next step? Visit rbc.com agriculture and get started today. Josh, I was looking at some of your material and you talk about building a business that supports freedom. Now, for a farmer, what does freedom actually look like in measurable terms? And how do you track the progress towards that? I suppose it means to me personally being able to do the most important things in my life, regardless of the season, regardless of the day or the time of day or anything like that. So where this really grew out of was my family is we love baseball. So baseball is a huge part of what we do. My kids, my wife, everybody is on the same boat. We all love baseball. So my boys started getting close to that age where they were going to play baseball. I really wanted to coach them. It was really important. We decided it was a very important family goal of ours. And the only way to be able to do that was to be able to somehow free me up for five days a week in May when we were calving, seeding, spraying, doing absolutely everything that can possibly be done to go to the city to coach baseball for five or six hours a day, for five or six days a week in May and June, which, you know, seems completely impossible, but it's actually completely doable, right? I mean, you just, it's just a matter of finding the right people to, to step in and being able to manage them properly. So that Is that to me, is freedom. Yeah. The thing about this too is there's really no, like, there's no endpoint. Right. Kind of what makes it challenging. You, your, your goals may also change as your life develops or, you know, new generations come onto the farm, or maybe, you know, new investors come onto the farm, new partners. This is like a, it's kind of an ever moving target. It's really kind of a living, organic thing. Absolutely. Absolutely. So for me to be able to achieve this level of freedom that I was looking for, I had to be able to build a very competent team around me. Well, that means I needed to be able to create the economic space to bring in competent people and pay them. Now my ultimate goal was really to build a business that would be sellable, that would be worth more than the sum of its assets. Right. And I think that. I don't know that a lot of farms have done that, but that was my goal. And the reason wasn't to sell the business. It was that if I could build that, it would be a great passive investment for me and allow me to create value in any other way that I wanted to. But what kind of had gotten really close to that. The final step was to be able to replace myself within the operations side of the farm. And, and I really didn't know what the heck I would want to do with myself. I sure wasn't interested in retirement. I just didn't. I was a farmer. I was, you know, reasonably good at it. I still am. Not, not to misrepresent what I do now, but I, I didn't know how to take that next step because I just didn't know what I was going to do with myself. And that's where this coaching consulting thing has really stepped in. So it's allowing me to create more purpose for myself and, you know, achieve important things for myself, but also create the economic space to build a team around me without just being a drag on the farm. So as you started to transition yourself out of the daily operations of the farm, what. There had to be some really uncomfortable moments for you in that. There, there had to be. So do you have some examples or, or just thoughts that went through your head? Oh, lots and lots. So the bulk of it really happened this spring where, you know, for, for a long time I've. Or for a number of years anyways, I've been able to get away for a lot of hours during the day. But this spring is really when I handed over the, the reins, the operations, rains, full time. And yes, Incredibly uncomfortable. But that's where growth happens. Right. We can't. If we're going to stay in our comfort zone, you're never going to achieve anything, anything great or anything really significantly more so. And that's just a fundamental principle of life to me personally and business wise is you have to be growing or else you're dying. There really is no neutral. We can't, we can't sit still. And growth can mean a lot of different things, but to me it meant letting go and, and ultimately watching things happen that wouldn't have happened if I had their aims. You know, we had. I, I don't believe in failure because they're the things that maybe looked like failure, but we just learned from them. And now we're a lot better for it. Right. We're, we're set up so much better for next spring and this fall. So to give specifics, I, I don't know that I can think of anything right off the top of my head, but there was, it was lots and it was this spring and it was just incredibly uncomfortable. Yeah. To hand over this, this baby that I had built to somebody else and, and watch them do what they want with and do a great job and very, very capable a team of people. But it's just very uncomfortable. There's, there's no doubt about it, but it's just that leap of faith that, you know, that it's all going to work out and there is no failing. Whatever happens, we're just going to learn from it and it's just a stepping stone on to where we want to get to ultimately. And that's the power of having that, that longer term vision is this was, this was a step that was necessary. When those mistakes are made. Requires some discipline to not, you know, re engage yourself because you're worried that there could be some, you know, obviously there's large m. There's, there's all, all mistakes are not created equal. Yeah, it does require some discipline to not re. Engage yourself immediately. Right, Absolutely. But that's just, you know that there's going to be tuition to pay during this process. Whenever you're training any, any new team member, there's going to be some mistakes made. And I think that, that like we plan for that the higher the level in, the higher in the organizational chart, the hierarchy that, that that new team member is in, probably the more expensive those mistakes are going to be, but the greater the education is going to be. So you just, you just accept it, you pencil it in as one of the costs. Of doing business and you move forward from there. Yeah. If a entrepreneur is successful in getting themselves out of this survival mode that you described, you also have to be conscious of the fact that without the discipline, you can sort of just bring yourself back into it. Like, just because you left, it doesn't mean can't come back. Talk about that and just how that's important to, to stay disciplined. So I guess when I, when I think about removing myself and this was a hurdle that I had to get over, is that just because I removed myself from operations, the farm doesn't mean that I could never come back and run a combine or do something. So now basically I'm working at the top level of the org chart, the CEO level and the operator level, and the middle stuff is left to other people. And it's great, but it just means that you get to choose what you do and you, you need to do something. Always be creating value in life. So if you're at that age that you want to retire, well, I think you can't retire from things. You have to retire to something else or you're probably in for, for a tough haul. But if you want to retire from your farm, you can completely remove yourself or you can just, if you set up the structure and the team around you, you can just really pick and choose the things that you love to do. Yeah, Josh, you know, I think the other comp. Important component here is I don't want people to fall into the trap, like, okay, you got to be this like mega super farm to try to remove yourself from this. Like, you could be a hundred head dairy. That feels like, you know, I just, I just want a few Saturdays off. And so you, you have a relief milker or maybe you install robots and you know, you're not a super farm. You're a, you know, a small dairy farm. And, and you're just looking to find some of that time back. That, that's another example of this. Absolutely. And we live in a time now where the interconnectivity that we have has, has created opportunities for like fractional CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, virtual assistants. So if bookkeepers, all of these things that might be taking up two days a month for you. And maybe that's all you need to, to create your idea of the perfect freedom. I mean, not everybody wants to, to not be the operator on their farm. They love that part of it. But like you said, maybe they just want off a couple of Saturdays a month. There's a lot of ways to Go about doing that and you don't. Yeah. Like you said, you don't have to get bigger, double your acres. There's. There's just. There's a lot of ways to attack that. Yeah. Maybe a question. What is my time worth? And connect that to the task that you're thinking about at that time. Sometimes you think about that way. That can sort of spur some thinking in your head besides. Well, it only takes a couple hours. I'll do it. Right. Yeah. And that was something that I realized when I had got introduced to the ranching for profit principles. And part of this was based on the e myth and the idea that there's, you know, $15 an hour tasks and $150 an hour tasks. Right. And I knew that I. I don't have a really extravagant lifestyle or extravagant needs, but I probably needed more than $15 an hour to do the things that I wanted to do. So I kind of got addicted to trying to do the $150 an hour tasks, which are higher leverage tasks by nature, and have moved my business forward and created a lot of economic space for me to do those things. But, yeah, when you think about it that way, it does make you think about how you're spending your time. You know, what if I'm going to go sit in the combine for, you know, 14 hours a day, for 35 days, what does a combine operator get paid? Well, that's what I'm getting paid. Am I. Do I want to work for that? Or am I better off to hire somebody to sit here and I'll do something else if my skill set's better suited somewhere else? But if I'm willing to work for that, then great. That's totally your decision. But you just need to understand what you want most in life and where you want to go. Great stuff. Okay. So if somebody finds themselves in survival mode, let's. Let's bring this all together. If you identify that. Personally, I feel like I'm in real survival mode as an entrepreneur running my farm or my ranch. What do I need to do? Where are my action items? Call me. Well, there is some truth to that, because I learned a lot of really hard lessons, and I think that. I think that successful people learn from their mistakes, and really successful people learn from other people's mistakes. And that is something that I've learned by getting engaged with other coaches. I have my own coaches, you know, a fitness nutrition coach, and I have. I have my own business coach. That is part of what really made me want to get into this. Just experiencing the value of engaging with somebody who's been there before is, is incredibly, I mean, the return on investment on all the coaching that I've purchased has been absolutely incredible. So I would say you don't need to, you don't need to contact me. You don't need to pay anybody. Maybe you can find a mentor, maybe you can find a neighbor who's been there. But, but learn from somebody who's been there would be, that would be step one. Just, just open up, have that conversation. I guess the first thing is probably recognizing where you're at because it can be difficult to say, you know, I, I'm overwhelmed. This is more than I, this is more than I can handle. Or at least it's more than I want to handle. But once you come to that realization, there is a path forward and find somebody who's been there and done it. Yeah, it's a road you do not need to walk alone. Josh, thanks so much for joining us here today. Really appreciate it. Awesome. Thank you. That's it for today's episode of Mind you'd Farm Business Podcast. A big shout out to Josh Kirpin for being our guest here today, sharing his experience and insights. Survival mode can feel like, well, the only gear there is at times, especially when markets are tight, labor is scarce, and the weather has, quite frankly, just a mind of its own. It doesn't cooperate at all. But as Josh reminded us, it's not just about getting through another season. It's about building the habits, systems and mindset that free up the mental space for you as the entrepreneur to lead your business instead of being run by. Buy it. If you want to learn more about Josh's operation or his work as a business coach, make sure you visit kirpinfarms.com you can find past episodes of the Mind your Farm business podcast@mindyourfarmbusiness.com make sure you subscribe to our email newsletter that goes out every two weeks. You can do that at realagriculture.com subscribe thanks to our sponsor, RBC Royal Bank. And until next time, keep on minding your farm business. Sam.