Have you always dreamed about running your own equine business? Do you have empty stalls in your barn that you've thought about filling to help pay for your horse obsession? Are you finally at a place in your life where you have the time, energy, and resources to devote to your own fledgling business? Consider living your dream, and start a horse business!
A passion for horses is the foundation of all successful horse businesses. However, passion alone won't get you where you want to be. Horse-business success happens by design, not by chance. You need a plan of action.
Eight Key Strategies
The following eight key strategies will serve as a framework for the business you'd like to have (or help you analyze the business you're already running). They're easy to understand and are based on the fundamentals of operating any profitable business.
Strategy #1. Build a compelling three-year vision. First, define what horse-business success means to you. Does it mean a riding lesson business with two hired instructors operating six days a week? Or do you want a boarding/lessons/training facility with 24 box stalls and an indoor arena with capacity for horse shows? Or perhaps you want to be a part-timer, training clients' horses for a specific discipline.
Your business vision is exactly that-your business vision. It's compelling to you and pulls you forward without you having to push, prod, and rationalize why you chose this business.
You can create a business vision by answering these questions:
• Where are you going?
• Why are you going there?
• Who's going with you?
• How will you get there?
Next, get this vision down on paper. Without a written statement of purpose, you'll be destined to operate an uncertain and confusing horse business. Your statement of purpose can be something as simple as bullet points and ideas on a single sheet of paper or as elaborate as a 2,000-word narrative describing your business.
Strategy #2. Control the dollars. Your knowledge of your business's finances helps eliminate cash-flow surprises, allows you to better focus on the profitable enterprises within your business, and helps bring about peace of mind about money.
It'll be gratifying to be in a business you love, but it would be emotionally draining to lose money every year because of a failure to understand and correct problems with profitability issues.
You don't need to have a degree in accounting to operate a successful horse business; you do need to have accurate, timely books kept by you or your designated bookkeeper. However, a timely profit-and-loss statement and a balanced checking account aren't enough. As a business owner, your understanding of the sources and timing of both income and expenses are keys to your profitability.
It's acceptable to have seasonal cash shortfalls in income that require planned, temporary financing from savings or a line of credit. It's unacceptable for your business to be ambushed by unplanned expenses or strangled for cash due to stale receivables.
