| Pages: | 272 pages |
| Size: | 6 x 9 inch |
| Publisher: | Green Park Press |
| Pub. Date: | August 22, 2018 |
| ISBN: | 9780986014741 |
Creating a Family Business
From Contemplation to Maturity
Paperback
$35.00
“[Creating a Family Business] stands on its own merits as a legacy book for family businesses, a true friend and compass from the written word.”–Joel Salatin, cofounder of Polyface Farm; author, Your Successful Farm Business, You Can Farm, and The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer
This book is a “must have” for those who want to build their own business and stop working for someone else.
The author, Allan Nation, was the founder and editor of The Stockman Grass Farmer from 1977 until his untimely death in 2016. Among his legacy of journals and notebooks, he left chapters for a book on business. With the help of his partners, Sonny and Glinda Davenport, Allan’s spouse, Carolyn, brought the manuscript to completion.
Although there are references to the business of grass farming and ranching, his intention was that these principles apply to anyone who has their own business. Nation gives an insider’s story of The Stockman Grass Farmer–the lessons he learned from the euphoric acquisition of a farm magazine, its near bankruptcy, and ultimate success–so that others might avoid his mistakes and follow a clearer path to profits. “This is the kind of book I wish I’d had when I started out,” he explains.
Chapters cover the following: How to turn your dream into reality; Figuring out where you are and where you’re going; Making a business plan; The three-legged stool of production, finance and marketing; Selecting a product and setting a price; The importance of due diligence; Working with your spouse and children; Bringing in employees and partners; What to do when disaster strikes; Enjoying the fruits of your labor.
Reviews & Praise
If you’ve ever wanted classic Allan all in one place, this is it. The stories of buying a bankrupt magazine, going into horrendous debt, the climb out of it, restructuring staff, changing the theme are there in all their glory. Allan was a master storyteller, and this book preserves the best ones in a way that only he could tell them.
He talks about the hard stuff, cycles of life like youth and aging; maintaining margins with low capital overheads; diversifying the market portfolio for financial stability; experiments that failed miserably.
I hope this book, which I think is Allan’s best work, reaches far beyond the SGF family. Of course, it can never be as meaningful to folks who have not walked, for years, through SGF pages with Allan. But it stands on its own merits as a legacy book for family businesses, a true friend and compass from the written word.”–Joel Salatin, author of Your Successful Farm Business, You Can Farm, and The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer.
About Allan Nation
Allan Nation served as the editor of The Stockman Grass Farmer magazine from 1977 until his death in November, 2016.
The son of a commercial cattle rancher, Nation grew up in Greenville, Mississippi. He traveled to some 30 countries around the world studying and photographing grassland farming systems. In 1987, he authored a section on Management-intensive Grazing in the USDA Yearbook of Agriculture and served as a consultant and resource for Audubon Society Television Specials, National Geographic, WTBS, PBS, and National Public Radio. He received the 1993 Agricultural Conservation Award from the American Farmland Trust for spearheading the drive behind the grass farming revolution in the United States.
Nation was a featured speaker at ranching and grasslands conference and authored 11 books on pasture-based livestock and artisan meats and milk products.
Jim Gerrish grew up on a grain and alfalfa hay farm in south-central Illinois. He spent over 22 years conducting beef-forage systems research and outreach while on the faculty of the University of Missouri. With over 20 years of commercial cattle and sheep production on his family farm in northern Missouri, he also has one foot solidly planted in commercial livestock production.
His research at the University of Missouri-Forage Systems Research Center encompassed many aspects of plant-soil-animal interactions and provided the foundation for many of the basic principles of Management-intensive Grazing.
Today, with his wife, Dawn, he contract grazes a commercial cow-calf operation on 260 irrigated acres in Idaho. He has received awards from the American Forage and Grassland Council, Missouri Forage and Grassland Council, National Center for Appropriate Technology, USDA-NRCS, the Soil and Water Conservation Society and others. He is also an independent grazing lands consultant providing service to farmers and ranchers on both private and public lands across the USA and internationally.
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