Business Advice video conversations

You Can Farm: the entrepreneurs guide to start and succeed in a farming enterprise  Joel Salatin

Have you ever desired, deep within your soul, to make a comfortable full-time living from a farming enterprise? Too often people dare not even vocalize this desire because it seems absurd. It’s like thinking the unthinkable.

After all, the farm population is dwindling. It takes too much capital to start. The pay is too low. The working conditions are dusty, smelly and noisy: not the place to raise a family. This is all true, and more, for most farmers.

But for farm entrepreneurs, the opportunities for a farm family business have never been greater. The aging farm population is creating cavernous niches begging to be filled by creative visionaries who will go in dynamic new directions. As the industrial agriculture complex crumbles and our culture clambers for clean food, the countryside beckons anew with profitable farming opportunities.

While this book can be helpful to all farmers, it targets the wannabes, the folks who actually entertain notions of living, loving and learning on a piece of land. Anyone willing to dance with such a dream should be able to assess its assets and liabilities; its fantasies and realities. “Is it really possible for me?” is the burning question this book addresses.

The E-Myth Revisited: why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it  Michael Gerber  

In this first new and totally revised edition of the over two million copy bestseller, The E-Myth, Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. Next, he walks you through the steps in the life of a business — from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective: the guiding light of all businesses that succeed — and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether it is a franchise or not. Finally, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. After you have read The E-Myth Revisited, you will truly be able to grow your business in a predictable and productive way.

The Lean Farm  Ben Hartman

To many people today, using the words “factory” and “farm” in the same sentence is nothing short of sacrilege. In many cases, though, the same sound business practices apply whether you are producing cars or carrots. Author Ben Hartman and other young farmers are increasingly finding that incorporating the best new ideas from business into their farming can drastically cut their wastes and increase their profits, making their farms more environmentally and economically sustainable. By explaining the lean system for identifying and eliminating waste and introducing efficiency in every aspect of the farm operation, The Lean Farm makes the case that small-scale farming can be an attractive career option for young people who are interested in growing food for their community.

Working smarter, not harder, also prevents the kind of burnout that start-up farmers often encounter in the face of long, hard, backbreaking labor.

Lean principles grew out of the Japanese automotive industry, but they are now being followed on progressive farms around the world. Using examples from his own family’s one-acre community-supported farm in Indiana, Hartman clearly instructs other small farmers in how to incorporate lean practices in each step of their production chain, from starting a farm and harvesting crops to training employees and selling goods.

You2  Price Pritchett

Go-Giver (series)  Bob Burg, John David Mann   

This is a series of books, but they are inspirational individually as well. Salesmanship and relational lessons given in story form. 

Go-Givers Sell More:

The Go-Giver took the business world by storm with its message that giving is the simplest, most fulfilling, and most effective path to success. It has inspired hundreds of thousands of readers; but some have wondered how the story’s lessons stand up to the tough challenges of everyday, real-world business.Bob Burg and John David Mann answer that question in Go-Givers Sell More, a practical guide that turns giving into the cornerstone of a powerful and effective approach to selling.

The Go-Giver Leader:

Ben is an ambitious young executive charged with persuading 500 employee shareholders to agree to a merger that will save their company. But despite his best efforts, he can’t convince anyone to buy in to the deal.During his week at the company, Ben realizes that his aggressive style is actually making it harder to reach his goals.

The Go-Giver:

The Go-Giver tells the story of an ambitious young man named Joe who yearns for success. Joe is a true go-getter, though sometimes he feels as if the harder and faster he works, the further away his goals seem to be.One day, desperate to land a key sale at the end of a bad quarter, he seeks advice from the enigmatic Pindar, a legendary consultant referred to by many devotees simply as the Chairman.

The Big Leap   Gay Hendricks

Thou Shall Prosper  Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Money and faith are not exclusive from each other. How you manage your business and make money is related to your faith. This is part of the message of this book. 

A practical approach to creating wealth-based on the established principles of ancient Jewish wisdom-made accessible to people of all backgrounds

The ups and downs of the economy prove Rabbi Daniel Lapin’s famous principle that the more things change, the more we need to depend upon the things that never change. There’s no better source for both practical and spiritual financial wisdom than the time-tested knowledge found in the ancient Jewish faith and its culture. In the Second Edition of Thou Shall Prosper, Lapin offers a practical approach to creating wealth based on the established principles of ancient Jewish wisdom. This book details the ten permanent principles that never change, the ten commandments of making money if you will, and explores the economic and philosophic vision of business that has been part of Jewish culture for centuries. The book’s focus is on making accessible to individuals of all backgrounds, the timeless truths that Jews have used for centuries to excel in business.

Farm Marketing From The Heart: how to attract your dream customers and build your profitable farm  Charlotte Smith

We often start farming because we love the plants, the animals, the land—but we soon learn love does not pay the bills. Marketing and selling our products can feel like a mystery: How do we get customers to find us? How do we convince them they need our grass-fed beef, raw milk, or veggie-and-flowers CSA? When you build deep trust with your customers, you create loyal customers who wouldn’t think of shopping anywhere else and tell all their friends to shop with you, too, assuring you a strong customer base and taking the mystery out of sales and marketing. Farm Marketing from the Heart shows you how to make this your reality by combining the right mindset and approach to marketing with a few sophisticated yet easy-to-use online marketing technologies that help you save time and effort, reach and build relationships with your dream customers, and build your thriving and profitable farm.