What's your WHY?
Why do you do what you do? Knowing the answer can inspire you to figure out how you can best do it.
View ArticleThree Traits of Talented Farm Owners
Delegating unnecessary decisions frees you to do what you do best.
View ArticlePreparing for price moves
Ideas to help you prepare for the possibility of a long downward price slope.
View ArticleFive Ways to Inject Discipline into Your Marketing
Five ways to inject discipline into your marketing - taking these steps can prevent frustration and stress caused by market volatility.
View ArticleWhat's in Your Plan B?
Contingency plans gain importance every day. These ideas can help you create your Plan B.
View ArticleBe aggressive. Be conservative. Be aggressively conservative.
Should you fear Friday's report? Not if you're prepared like this.
View ArticleClassic example of the need to think ahead
Planning ahead can matter a lot in life as well as in marketing.
View ArticleStaring Down Uncertainty: Four Stories Prompting Questions
There's one question we get asked all the time. But times are changing. More often, farmers are asking the strategic questions.
View ArticleBad news for the economy, good news for agriculture
Brian Beaulieu, an economist with the Institute for Trend Research, recently offered economic scenarios for the next 20 years. If he's right, the road ahead looks like a roller-coaster. Here's the...
View ArticleExhaustion – a legitimate marketing excuse.
If you ever tell yourself you need to do more with your marketing, yet never find time to do it, is time really the challenge? There's a bigger, perhaps better, excuse.
View ArticleSlow change promises big change
Generation Y, those people between the ages of 19 and 32, will be the next dominant generation in America. They have different ideas about farming than their parents and grandparents.
View ArticleThe forgotten market factor that cries wolf
Factors influencing market moves are like the shepherd boy who cries wolf. They constantly set off alarms. One factor worth keeping an eye on is quantitative easing policy.
View ArticleThe No. 1 danger to your marketing – plus three tips for prevention.
When markets rise, so can apathy for marketing. Here are three tips to help you continue capturing price opportunities as you protect against the risks that can strike when you least expect it.
View ArticleThree farm marketing lessons from rain
Aside from unpredictability, what can rain teach about marketing? Here are three key lessons to keep in mind next time the sky pours forth and throws a wrench into your livelihood.
View ArticleFarming when acres are cost-prohibitive.
Rising farmland values carry implications beyond cost that could change farming as we know it.
View ArticleHow to break the bond between the market and your emotions.
Breaking the market’s hold on your emotions—in effect, its sway over decision-making—will help you position your marketing to strategically capture opportunity and manage risk. First, you have to...
View ArticleOver time, three principles help you win.
If extreme market volatility is a consistently recurring factor in commodity marketing, how can you position yourself to protect what you work so hard to earn? You can—and must— adopt three marketing...
View ArticleThe higher sale price brought disappointment
You’re likely never happy when prices for your production fall. Last time, I wrote how even rising prices make producers anxious. Well, there’s another common price scenario that triggers an emotional...
View ArticleRising prices stoke emotions, too
As prices climb, so can anxiety over when to sell and how much. That is because a myriad of factors can change prevailing market sentiment at almost any time and cause prices to tumble. When prices...
View ArticleWill Independent Family Farms Survive?
According to Illinois Farm Bureau research on consumers’ perceptions of agriculture, consumers generally like farmers, but they dislike anything related to a corporate farm. This becomes disconcerting...
View ArticleKnow your tools in your toolbox
A big part of marketing in this day and age is opportunity management. You have to balance the opportunities and the risks. Just be sure you understand the risks and the opportunities of the tools that...
View ArticleSwimming Upstream
Recent world events, both natural disasters and social unrest, remind us that the only certainty you can count on is continued uncertainty and volatility. The only sensible reaction is to prepare your...
View ArticleWhat's ahead for the U.S. economy?
When you combine the most recent economic collapse and the money spent to come out of it, the sluggish recovery, and all the other new spending, one thing seems clear: The U.S. economy is slowly headed...
View ArticleDon't be fooled by average
There's a perception that producers should not spend time on marketing during volatile times because their reward will be only an average price. Perhaps the reason some people equate marketing to...
View ArticleSuper lessons from Dallas
The Super Bowl can teach us a lot about marketing, such as always be prepared, have a backup plan, create contigencies, don't give up and don't get overly confident.
View ArticleFebruary 6 Scenario Bowl
The NFL Super Bowl sets an example for how to approach farm marketing: planning, planning, planning. Coaches for both teams with take a scenario planning approach to the game, making decisions in...
View ArticleEthanol, a finite idea.
The most impactful trend in commodities over the last 10 years is ethanol. Ethanol production has grown substantially, especially during the past five years. Economically speaking, ethanol has the...
View ArticleImagine corn exceeding your imagination
Corn in the mid $20 to low $30 range? Continued market volatility and a confluence of factors – such as ethanol use, outside investors, elevators running out of money, margin liquidation and foreign...
View ArticleUnwanted Company Coming?
The future of agriculture could be shaped by large corporations seeking high ROI in farm operations and farmland. Such a shift could dramatically change producer operations, similar to the way hog...
View ArticleKnow Your Weighted Average
Knowing the weighted average price for your entire production is important to your farm marketing. It takes emotion out of your marketing. It's also an important element in preplanning marketing...
View ArticleAre you feeling uncertain? There’s good reason for it.
Producers should not get complacent now that crop prices are favorable. Permanent, unexpected volatility and rising land rents underscore the need to be prepared when it comes to farm marketing.
View ArticleThirteen habits and behaviors your competitors practice.
While there are no guarantees for successful marketing, there are 13 habits and behaviors commonly found among producers who are satisfied with their marketing.
View ArticleThere's a Friday in every week . . . and a surprise around every corner!
The Friday, October 8, USDA report showed once again that volatility and uncertainty are ever present in the markets. The report illustrates how futile it is to try to predict what the market might do....
View ArticleLearn the Language of Marketing
Improve your marketing: Become familiar with only a fraction of the thousands of marketing tool combinations.
View ArticleAdvisors are like fitness trainers
Market advisors are like fitness trainers. Both push you in an effort to help you.
View ArticleKnowing your average carries a lot of weight
Knowing the weighted average price for your entire crop can help you determine the best time to price your crop.
View ArticleWrite Your Own Financial Reform
Whatever the financial reform bill was created to do about reining in Wall Street, it’s not going to change the way you market your production. The recent legislative wrangling was a sideshow. When it...
View ArticleDoes a Man Get Pregnant? You Bet.
Guest blogger Jacquie Voeks, a Stewart-Peterson senior market advisor, answers the age-old question “Why is it so hard to sell my crop?” with the insight only a woman can provide.
View ArticleHappy Independent Farmer Day
Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Among his many other talents, he was also a farmer. I thought it fitting as we come up...
View ArticleThe X's and O's of Marketing
Put, calls, out-of-the-money options—and a whole host of other marketing terms—have an important parallel to words like the buttonhook, cover 2 and dime coverage. They’re all tactics employed when...
View ArticleCan you learn to love volatility?
The ultimate path to business success involves managing price risk and finding a way to embrace volatility.
View ArticleLenders share their view on “being the producer”
In the second part of his two-part blog on lenders and marketing, guest blogger Mike Hogan, commercial analyst with Stewart-Peterson Inc., shares comments from ag lenders who participated in a...
View ArticleSimulation activity underscores the difference strategic marketing makes
Agricultural lenders participating in a marketing simulation activity saw key principles for managing market volatility come to life.
View ArticleAre you ready for higher interest rates?
Rate hikes and inflation are a very real threat looming on the horizon. Have you thought through the impact this could have on your business?
View ArticleHow the past five years have prompted a new era for farm businesses - and all...
Increasingly, businesses are recognizing the opportunity and risk management as a priority.
View ArticleTiming & Emotion: Two marketing factors to heed
Ideas that stock market investors can use to remove the "human element" from investing also apply to your marketing.
View ArticlePace yourself with marketing
Marketing without committing the time necessary to see things through is like rushing through training for a marathon.
View ArticleDo you turn from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde?
Lucas Qualmann, researcher with Stewart-Peterson Inc., shares his personal experience of feeling like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when managing commodity price risk. He’s happy to report he has recovered...
View ArticlePrice management isn’t madness
How does billionaire Warren Buffet's offer to give away $1 billion dollars during the March Madness tournament apply to the way you manage commodity price risk? His approach has more relevance than you...
View ArticleBe prepared to take advantage of a possible soybean rally
When prices drop, does it seem like you never have enough of your crop sold or hedged? The decline in soybean prices over the last two months has been significant. Guest blogger Lucas Qualmann offers...
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