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The Top 3 Most Common Problems in Equine Business
03/30/2009
If you’re starting your own equine business, you know that the joys of self employment are almost outweighed by the burden of responsibility.
If you’re starting your own equine business, you know that the joys of self employment are almost outweighed by the burden of responsibility. Everyone knows the basics of running an equine business—find good employees, keep your horses healthy, pay your bills. But other things like tax issues, insurance, and cash flow can severely hurt your equine business. Here are the Top 3 Most Common Problems most new equine business owners face—and what to do about it.
1. Not Enough Cash Flow
In the equine business, generating revenue and managing money is your biggest concern—just like any other business. What makes the equine business different in terms of cash flow is the fact that you are dealing with a live product (horses), and seasonal support. Let’s say your equine business is a ranch that offers horseback riding lessons. In the summer, your equine business will pull in a lot of money, and when the bills come in, they can all be paid with some left over. Now, winter comes, and the equine business starts suffering because fewer kids are coming in for lessons. When you tally up the amount you earn, it isn’t enough to pay all the bills. Cash flow can help an equine business solve those problems. One of the best ways of generating cash flow is by saving as much as you can in the fat months, so you can roll over the profit to the leaner ones. Another way is to negotiate a payment plan with your supplier, or take out a short term equine business loan with a low interest rate.
2. Overspending and Misspending
Before you start any equine business, you need to have an idea of what the initial investment is going to be, then what the baseline costs will be to maintain the status quo. It sounds simple, but most people are wildly over-optimistic when it comes to the cost of running an equine business. One of the ways to create an accurate bottom line for your equine business is to do some of the chores yourself for a few weeks. How much hay do you go through? How much feed? Look closely at the water bills and the electricity bills. That way, when you hire help, you can have a better idea of their management, and you can notice ways that money is being mismanaged before it becomes a threat to your equine business.
3. Mismanaging your Property
While you’ve probably given a lot of thought to how to supply hay to your horses, there are certain areas of equine business management that don’t get as much attention. One of those is water quality. Impure, alkaline, or stale water can have serious effects on a horse’s gastrointestinal tract, which can further hurt your equine business. If you let your horses out to pasture where there are streams or wetlands nearby, your equine business could suffer because of sick animals. Things can get especially complicated if you don’t have a proper system of manure management. Then there are issues of zoning—do you have enough land for pasturing and riding? How are you managing the land that you have, or zoning it to get the most out of it? In order to protect your equine business, look into local regulations and talk with other members of the equine business community for guidelines
