Draft Your Farm’s Dream Team

To win, a football team needs innovative leadership, a productive offense, committed defense, and reliable special teams. The same goes for your farm.

As iconic Kansas City Chiefs coach Hank Stram was famous for saying, the job of the offense is to “matriculate the ball down the field” until they score.

Your team’s offense moves the business forward, with the goal of scoring a profit. The services these professionals provide directly impact the bottom line and are easy to quantify: banker, marketing expert, agronomist, nutritionist, seed and chemical reps, artificial insemination (AI)technician, production employees, and others.

The defense’s job is to protect their end zone. Your farm team’s defensive line protects your operation, but don’t be fooled into thinking they are less critical than the offense. Legendary Alabama coach Bear Bryant said it best: “Defense wins championships.”

The farm’s defensive unit includes the succession planner, accountant, attorney, insurance provider, veterinarian, mechanic, plumber, and electrician.

Football teams consist of more than just offense and defense. Special teams members may be on the field only for plays involving kicking, but their contributions cannot be denied. In 2023, the Dallas Cowboys’ special teams scored an NFL-high 157 points — nearly a third of the team’s total.  

Your farm’s special teams also deliver in the clutch. Family members, Extension experts, producer organizations, mentors, neighbors, and peers are often what you need to secure the win.

While a farm’s specific team members vary depending on the operation, the best focus on the farm’s success. And they work toward the goals established by their coach: you.

Find the right fit

Rosemary Anderson is a rancher and AI technician from Whitman in west-central Nebraska and a director for the Nebraska Beef Council. She has served on the U.S. Meat Export Federation’s executive committee and as director for the Nebraska Cattlemen.  

Anderson encourages farmers and ranchers to create an advisory board. When she and her husband established their own operation, their team’s first member was a banker.

“When we were first starting out, we were working with my dad’s banker, which kind of seemed like the most obvious thing to do,” she recalls. “He was a great guy, he was great at his job, but he didn’t have the same appetite for risk, and I think he may have still been looking at us as kids. When we were trying to grow and we were needing some financing, he wasn’t returning our calls.”

They didn’t have a lot of equity when they first started and they needed that operating loan to get going. So they sought, and found, a banker who was a better fit. “Our bankers at Farm Credit had unwavering confidence in us from the outset when we came to them with cash flow needs that eclipsed the vision of our original banker,” Anderson says.

Her accountant is another important team member. “Tax management, of course, is huge in agriculture, especially when you can manipulate your cash flow to carry expenses over or bring them forward as you need to and plan for taxes,” she says. “He’s been great.”

The Andersons’ insurance agent and the livestock reps that help the couple buy and sell cattle have also helped build their business. “I consider them all part of our board of advisers,” she says. Another one is their equipment dealer’s head mechanic. “He is absolutely irreplaceable to our operation,” she says, “because he coaches us over the phone when he can, and he fixes everything else.”

Anderson also names University of Nebraska-Lincoln and University of Wyoming Extension personnel as team members. “Those folks have been huge in helping us with calf physiology questions plus pivot management, forage use, hay testing, nutrient planning, and fertilizer application,” she says.

When assembling a team, she encourages producers to think outside the box. “Any kind of professional person that you may have to work with can be a resource,” she says. “They don’t have to just be the guy that you buy fuel from. He can also be the person who can help you contract fuel at the right time of year so that you save 40¢ a gallon on your diesel.

“You never know what breadth of experience and knowledge any person has. And if they’re professional people that you’re dealing with for your ranch inputs, then tap into them and put them on your board, because they can help you in more ways than one.”

Time-saving team

Cheryl Walsh is a fourth-generation farmer and pork producer near Peoria, Illinois, and president of the Illinois Pork Producers Association. She and her family have approximately 2,300 sows, selling weaner pigs at around 20 days old. They also run 40 cow-calf pairs, and farm corn and soybeans in five counties.

Two generations of Walsh’s family farm together: herself, one of her brothers, her father, his three brothers, and a cousin. “The seven of us each have our areas we’re technically in charge of,” Walsh says, “and we rely on the others to help if we need it.” They also have 11 full-time and three part-time employees, including some from Mexico and South Africa. Some of their staff have been with the farm for 20 years or more.

Not only does having a trustworthy team help Walsh’s business succeed but it also frees up some brain space and some hours in the day for the family to live a life. “We are so busy with the kids, the farm, and life,” she says, “that we really depend on the people on our team. We couldn’t get everything done without them.”

Walsh says her top three go-to team members are her banker, attorney, and accountant. “You have to find a good lawyer and you have to find a good accountant,” she says, “and they will spend a lot of time talking to each other.” Nobody wants to pay the high fees they require, she agrees, “but at the end of the day, you have to just write the check to pay those people to make sure that everything is correct.”

On top of her other farm duties, Walsh handles the books. Her accountant uses the same record-keeping platform, a major time-saver. At tax time they can access the records, check for accuracy, fill out the forms, and contact her if there’s a question. “I can’t tell you how much easier that makes my life,” Walsh says. “I don’t have that big, stressful tax appointment every year because it’s just taken care of for me. I wouldn’t have time for that anyway.”

Those handling the farm’s crops work with an agronomist. Since the family contracts their weaner pigs, they take advantage of the nutritionist offered by the company they work with, and they have a veterinarian on call.

The farm’s AI provider delivers semen three times a week; its employees do the insemination, so they’re an integral part of the team. So are the insurance agent, commodity brokers, and fuel delivery person.

“We have an electrician out here probably once a week,” Walsh says. “The guy who does our well repair is another key team member, because we go through a lot of water here, and without water, the livestock won’t survive.”

Walsh says if a piece of equipment breaks down in the middle of planting or harvest, it’s crucial to have a mechanic who deals with it quickly, even if it’s the middle of the night. She says, “Our mechanic is on call 24/7.”

One of the most important things Walsh looks for in a team member is an understanding of agriculture. “I need them to know that if they call me at 8 in the morning, I’m doing chores and I won’t be able to call them back until everything’s done,” she says. “They need to understand your business and your life. If they have no concept of what 80 acres looks like, they aren’t the one.”

What if someone isn’t a good fit for the team? “Remember that you don’t work for them; they work for you,” she says. “You’re paying them to take care of things for you. If a relationship with someone you’ve hired isn’t working out for whatever reason, find someone else.”

When someone doesn’t feel like a good fit, “You have to give yourself permission to move on and find somebody that will serve your goals,” agrees farm succession expert Mark McLaughlin. If you don’t feel like you’re ready to cut the player in question from the team, he suggests getting a second opinion: “Either you’ll get confirmation that you have the very best plan in place, or you’ll come away with some talking points and things to go over with your other advisers.”

Player’s perspective

For two decades McLaughlin, who regularly contributes to Successful Farming’s “Can Their Problem Be Solved?” column, has helped Midwest farm families develop their succession strategies. An associate with Farm Financial Strategies and co-owner of Farm Estate GPS, he shares in the fifth generation of ownership on the family farm he grew up on near the western Iowa community of Defiance. 

Noting that his farm’s top three go-to team members are his banker, accountant, and attorney, he asserts that it’s important to have everyone reading from the same playbook. “Otherwise,” he says, “it’s too easy to pick up several ‘microplans’ along the way. While they may individually make sense at the time, they don’t always work together to really move the ball forward. If the legal documents, financial tools, and farm succession strategies are not coordinated properly, it could really blow up in your face. It helps to have someone who can see the entire field and bring the team together to help the family win. That’s how I view my role.” 

The challenge is that sometimes, not everyone in the huddle speaks the same language. “Everyone means well, but each adviser often talks in the vocabulary specific to their discipline,” McLaughlin says. “There’s too much at stake to have something lost in translation. It’s nice to have an attorney or accountant who understands farming, but it’s not always required or even possible. You just need someone who can help connect the dots.”

He says he is often introduced to a family through their banker. “Having us communicate is important because the existing debt ratios and payment schedules might work for the parents today,” he says. “However, if you drop it down a generation, and the farm heir has to borrow on top of that to buy out one or more off-farm siblings, the financial ratios get out of whack really fast. It can be really difficult to expand the farm if you’re borrowing money to buy dirt that was already in the operation.” 

He notes that some families hesitate to step onto the field of farm succession planning because they don’t know how to articulate “the win” yet. “I tell clients we’re working through a funneling process,” he describes. “At the top there are a lot of questions and topics to cover. We’ll keep refining the goals and strategies to the point where the path forward becomes apparent. This allows the other team members to apply their skills more effectively and efficiently, which ultimately saves time and money.”

McLaughlin says in his experience it’s important for everyone on the team to understand what their roles are and are not. That includes the parents. “While everyone can certainly give their opinion, it’s not up to the attorney to define ‘fair’ vs. ‘equal’ for the kids,” he asserts. “It’s not up to the CPA. It’s not up to me. That decision lies with the parents. Our job is to help them explore the full context of the situation so they can have confidence in their decisions.”

Filling your roster

One of the best ways to find quality team members is word of mouth such as recommendations from a neighbor, mentor, banker, or current team member. When seeking suggestions, wording is important. Instead of asking “Do you know a good planner?” McLaughlin says farmers should ask something like “Do you know someone who has been in my situation, and who helped them work through it and grow?”

While working with local professionals is often preferred, technology provides more options. “In the past, if you didn’t have the right attorney in your county, you were out of luck,” McLaughlin says. “Video meetings have opened everything up, so now you can hire the best fit regardless of location.”

Once your team is assembled, McLaughlin advises meeting regularly, as coaches meet with teams before practice and after games. He says, “Make sure your team members are striving to meet your goals and give you the best chance for a win.”