Don't Look Back

Operations Manuals For Horse Businesses

It's spring in my part of the world and that means an abundance of water.  Melted from ice and snow and delivered by relentless rains, water is everywhere.  Motionless water is standing in low pastures, puddled in driveway potholes and trapped in my leaky rubber boots.        

There is water in motion as well: trickling, flowing or roaring toward larger bodies of water.  Nature sees to it that water stays in motion without instructions.  It goes wherever gravity chooses to send it.  Natural flow for water is easy to see and understand; it's downhill and usually along an obvious, well carved path. 

Ideally, the work in your business should have natural flow to it just like running water, resistance free along a clear path.  But in many businesses, work flows like ketchup from a bottle.  Following inverted shaking, taps and slaps, the ketchup bottle temporarily spurts and drips an appeasing amount, very similar to the way some employees respond to the boss's instructions.

Workers (assistants, volunteers, family) often have difficulty maintaining work flow because the path, that is what to do next and how to do it, is unknown.  They're trapped like water in a low spot in a field, waiting for a drainage ditch for guidance.
 
Sure, you've told them, more than once, in different ways when and how to do things.  But, most likely the instructions you gave were in your own concise language.  You see the problem with your concise language is that it's too concise, lacking details and only presented in one way and in your style.

Consider your assignment of the task:  sweep the barn.  You have the mental image of a swept barn and it's done according to your standard.
 
The recipient of the order is now faced with many decisions:
 

What broom?

Where is it?

Where to start?

Sweepings into stalls or into a shovel or out the door?

Sweep the feed and tack rooms, too?

How much sweeping, rough, medium or squeaky clean?

Sweep behind trunks and under mats?

Catch cobwebs too?

What about horses cross-tied in the aisle in my way?

Where does the broom get stored when done?

 
The process of sweeping, simple at first glance, is filled with decisions.  The other work tasks in your business require decisions too:  Feeding hay, turnout groups, when to blanket, how often to check water buckets and scrub, greeting customers, cleaning tack, taking messages, fueling the tractor, filing receipts, loading the trailer for the show and so on.
 
Unclear expectations about work and how to do it by the owner, guarantee inconsistent performance in job completion by the employee.
 
Well defined expectations in the form of an operations manual for your business will help communicate the order in which to do work and the steps necessary to complete it.
 
WAIT, before you stop reading, an operations manual doesn't have to be difficult to produce! 
 
Be easy on yourself and your employees, construct the manual one part at a time.  Start with feeding, or stall cleaning or cleaning tack.  Begin with a notepad and take notes on the process and what's important.  Use your digital camera to take photos of what a clean stall looks like, the right level of bedding to maintain in the stall and the image of a rack full of clean bridles with sparkling bits.
 
The photos will save hours of writing and explain certain parts of operations more easily than words.  Draw on the photos if that helps explain.  Don't go to extreme details at first.

Describing eleven ways to operate a rake in the barnyard may be overkill.  Add detail, or better yet, have your employees add detail as they analyze the process.
 
Operations manuals are often associated only with large corporations like McDonalds, Starbucks or Wal*Mart.  

Small businesses have less room for error than  large corporations; lean with employee numbers by economic necessity, there are no extra people in small businesses to pick up the slack for low productivity.
 
An operations manual is the basic support for a system to allow work to flow like water on a clear path.  Your development of systems for your business will help:
 

•   minimize conflicts between employees
•   create consistency in quality of work done
•   speed the completion of work
•   reduce training time for new hires
•   minimize worry while you're out of town

Let me know your results.

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Is Discretionary Income Shrinking and How Will It Affect Your Horse Business?

If your customer is employed, receiving the same steady paycheck as eighteen months ago, is there any change in discretionary income?

 

No.

 

If  Discretionary income = Gross income - taxes - necessities, then the dollars are still available to spend.  The change in D.I. is fear. Fear has changed the customer's attitude about spending money on horses.

 

In conjunction with your marketing program, sell the value you offer in your business.  You provide much more to the boarding customer than a clean and bedded stall, feed and water.  You offer atmosphere, community and emotional relief in the form of recreation.  A therapy that is most effective and greatly undervalued.  Your lesson program offers much more than an improved seat or better lead changes, it offers personal growth, achievement, and confidence building which are benefits hard to find for youth and adults.

 

Periodic, thoughtful review of your sources of horse business revenue and their related expenses help make sound business decisions in all economies.  This work can be ignored more easily in good times because there is forgiveness due to greater perceived amounts of discretionary income.

 

Focus your horse business enterprises on the customer groups with the ability to pay and understand the complete value you offer.

 

You can find tips on operating a successful horse business at my site www.ProfitableHorseman.com

Don't Look Back, There is no future in it.

On the theme of don't look back:

“When the lion is chasing the antelope, he doesn’t look back.  He has to eat.”

 

--Robert Cheruiyot  four time Boston Marathon Winner

The Secret of How to Deliver the Best Quality and the Best Service at the Lowest Prices

The Secret of how to deliver the best quality and service at the lowest prices: 

You can't.

Yet, so many business owners try.  I've tried, you've tried or maybe you are still trying.

As an example, I've stayed in a lot of hotels. You probably have, too.  They've ranged from discount national chains to luxurious and pricey Ritz-Carltons.    And, I've never gotten Ritz-Carlton accommodations and service at a budget hotel. But, I didn't expect to get it either.  In the hotel industry and other industries, consumers have reasonable expectations for quality and service in consideration of the price charged.

That's not always the case in the horse industry.  Sometimes, the customer is not educated in the ranges of quality and service offered and makes no evaluation of the fairness of price because she has no experience to judge by.

As a person in business, you want to deliver the best boarding care, the best lesson program or the best training program at a price that is affordable to everyone. After all, you consider many of your customers as your friends and want to give them a break.

 But you want the impossible.  It defies logic to try to deliver top quality product (think boarding, lessons, training) and outstanding customer service at discount rates.

 Because the relationship between the three factors: quality, service and price is established as a law of business.   You can have two out of the three, but not all three.

You can provide the best quality and the best service but not at the "best" or lowest price.  When you offer low price, it is delivered only with either okay service or okay quality; there simply isn't enough margin in the sale to deliver any more than that. For example:

The discount boarding barn might have to skimp on bedding or hay quality to stay in business,

The $20.00 a session riding instructor starts her riding lessons 40 minutes late because her disrespecting students value her time as if she is a twenty dollar riding instructor or,

The owner of a "one month training miracle" horse finds her horse canters on command, but seldom on the correct lead.

If your business profits are skinny, consider if you are attempting to deliver the highest level services at the lowest prices.

If that is the case and you want to bring about change, your two options are:
 
1. Reduce your level of service to match value and price.
 
2. Increase your fees to a level appropriate for the service you offer.
 
Looks simple in writing, doesn't it?  So do something about it!
 
But wait, I forgot!  There is a third choice.  That is to do nothing and struggle with the finances of your business in a battle you cannot win.


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Operations Manual for Horse Businesses

I've been doing some thinking about operations manuals for horse businesses.  A few, I suspect very few, have them.

Most horse businesses and small businesses in general have none.  The default ops manual then becomes the Nike tag line:  Just do it!

"Just do it!" works, but only if the employee understands the core principles of the system.  And with many horse businesses, inexperienced and untrained employees are the norm.  Self starters are rare and kick starters are too common. 

Starting an Operations manual with three pages may be all you need to get going.  If you are a writer, keep adding items.  If not, find an employee who will.   The exercise and process of creating the manual will help you evaluate wasted motion, unnecessary habits and highlight processes that work well.

Employees want to do things right.  You need to make clear to them the right things to do.