In a number of these blogs for Rayner Reckons, I've written about the importance of working to achieve outcomes. I have a deeply held belief that every business should know what goals they are working towards. Those goals or outcomes don't have to mean that your business is to move into the top ten beef producers in the country, or to own more cattle in the region than anyone else.
Your goals could be as personal as making sure you and your family can have a holiday away from the farm every year. Or it could be a decision to structure your operations to respond to seasonal changes without significantly altering your enterprise.
Whatever your outcomes are, its important to work towards those by structuring your daily, weekly, and monthly activities around the best tactics to help you achieve your outcomes on time and as efficiently as you can.
One of the key outcomes for RaynerAg is to help my clients find ways to more efficiently meet their goals.
This year I've been working to help the team at Classimate services offer producers who want to market their livestock on line a credible, independent assessment of the structure, temperament, fertility & muscling of their cattle.
This system would complement other data breeders want to provide their clients, such as EBVs or pedigrees on their animals. I've written in previous Rayner Reckons about the way we have developed this concept.
For me there are some outcomes I wanted to achieve. The first was to develop a system that ticked the boxes for industry credibility, repeatability, relevance and most importantly usefulness to producers, both from a selling and from a buying position.
To achieve this goal I worked closely with a team of people who I respect for their industry knowledge and experience. Together we developed a cattle assessment system that ticks those boxes.
The next goal was to actually undertake assessments for a producer who wanted to market their cattle on line. As a new concept I wondered how producers would respond to the new opportunity.
It turns out there has been plenty of interest from producers in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. The first cattle to be assessed for the system are based in Gin Gin, Queensland.
I was really pleased to have over 100 cows come through the yards to be assessed under the system I had developed with my colleagues. I reckon that in itself was a successful outcome to the project I'd been working on.
I reckon the next goal is to use the assessment data in two ways. The first will be to provide the owners with the ability to market their cattle with the independent assessment scores we allocate each animal. And secondly I want to provide the owner with a benchmark of their animals structure, the trends and observations I've seen, as well as some suggestions on how to manage those trends.
That way I reckon there is real value in having your cattle assessed. One, you can market them to a wider audience, and two, you can have something objective to work towards in your herd improvement process.
I'm really pleased this project is achieving the outcomes I wanted, its also reminded me of a few lessons that can be applied to any project you're working on to achieve your goals.
1. Break your goal down into a series of smaller goals so that you can manage them more easily
2. Look to your networks and seek the skills to help you get to your goal
3. Be prepared to invest in those skills or people. It might mean paying for advice or assistance, but that is investment that pays a bigger return when you achieve your goals.
4. Think about the other positive outcomes your achievements might bring. It could be new options to manage your business, to market your livestock or in my case provide additional tailored support to producers.
I really love the outcomes from this project. For me, I've been able to see some great cattle, meet some fantastic new producers, work more closely with a great group of colleagues as well as implementing a great cattle assessment program. Its been a great few months, and I'm looking forward to setting some new goals to work towards.