Julia Shanks speaks regularly on topics of business planning and financial sustainability. She has presented at conferences around the country including The National Farm Viability Conference, SEMAP’s Annual Conference, Future Harvest Annual Conference, MOSES (now Marbleseed), The National Young Farmers’ Conference, Practical Farmers of Iowa and PASA. She has lectured at Cambridge Culinary, Le Cordon Bleu, Newbury College and Babson College. Seminar and Workshop Topics include:
Julia's Speaker Profile
"Thanks so much for sharing your expertise with our apprentices. You have a gift for making notoriously “dry” material engaging and accessible."
Mel Weiss, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture
Keynote: The Farm-preneurial Mindset
When I first wrote The Farmer’s Office, I naively thought that if farmers just understood why bookkeeping was so important, they’d be motivated to implement new business management practices. You know you should get on top of your recordkeeping, but do you? There’s always a more pressing chore – like feeding the chickens or covering the pac choy before a frost. We don’t always do what we should.
What gets in our way? What keeps us from doing what we should to be financially sustainable? In this talk, I'll discuss the roadblocks farmers face on the path to success and how to overcome them. I’ll share stories from my own experience as well as from farmers I’ve worked with.
Opportunity Costs: Evaluating Profitability of Different Sales Channels
Time is your most limited and valuable resource, and you want to make sure you’re making the most of each hour of the day. While retail sales can command the highest price, they also can take the most time. How do you evaluate whether it makes sense to sell wholesale to distributors or retail? In this session, we’ll dig into some actual numbers from a small-scale farm to see how to analyze the numbers and make these kinds of decisions for your own business.
Bookkeeping and Recordkeeping Systems
“How do I make more money?” “Does it makes sense to sell wholesale?” “Can I afford to hire employees?” You have so many questions about your business. Believe it or not, most of these questions are straightforward when you have a good recordkeeping system. A good recordkeeping system is more than just tracking your sales and expenses for tax day. It’s about knowing and tracking the important numbers for your business so you can improve profitability, set goals, and grow your business. In this workshop we’ll talk about the basics of recordkeeping (whether you use Excel or QuickBooks) and what you need to do to easily answer the questions you have about your business and financials.
Basic Accounting and QuickBooks for Farms
You decided to become a farmer because you love being outside, working the land and making a difference in the way we eat and farm. And when you decided to become a farmer, you also became an entrepreneur and business person. In order to be ecologically and financially sustainable, you must understand the basics of accounting and bookkeeping, and as Richard Wiswall says, “plan for profit.” In this course, we will review the basics of accounting from the income statement (profit and loss) to the balance sheet. We’ll discuss the importance of classifying revenue and expenses so you can make important managerial decision like whether you can afford a new greenhouse or sell at a new farmers’ market. Finally, we will cover the basics of QuickBooks, the standard in small-business accounting software.
How to Read Financial Statements
Most farmers keep some sort of financial records in order to file taxes and/or apply for a loan. Within the numbers are details about the farms operations — its efficiency and profitability. Being able to create financial statements is the first part. Next is learning how to read the statements to garner important information about your business.In this workshop, we will discuss the basic layout of the Income Statement and Balance Sheet. We will go over each statement to understand how to garner information about your business: not just “Is my business profitable?” but more richly, “What can I do to improve profitability?”, “How can I improve cash flow?” and “Can I afford to make capital improvements or take out a loan?”We will review real financial statements; and will leave plenty of time to address the specific questions and concerns of the attendees.
Investment Decisions and Enterprise Budgeting
Have you ever had a hard time weighing the costs and benefits of new opportunities, such as selling at a new farmers market or purchasing new equipment? This workshop on partial budgeting will provide you with aframework for informed decision making. Partial budgeting analysis allows farmers and business owners to assess the costs and impact of an investment decision, such as the purchase of new equipment, a facility upgrade, or a new line of business. Julia will show you how to evaluate whether an investment is affordable given projected returns and provide sample materials to allow you to fully understand how and why to use this tool.
Full Day: Farm Financials Intensive
This full-day workshop is designed to help both established and beginning farmers understand the financials of their business and learn how to make informed decisions to increase profits. The goals of the workshop are to plan for profit, examine YOUR farm enterprises and better understand financial statements. It is best suited for those with at least one year of farming or similar experience
The workshop covers the following topics:
How reading your financial statements can help you improve profitability and manage cash flow How to calculate your cost of production, and how does that effect your pricing strategies. Using break-even analysis to set sales goals
What WeOffer You
Whether you’re just starting out, or expanding your business to the next phase of growth, Julia Shanks Food Consulting can help you succeed. Click below to find out more about our services.
Tips, Toolsand Templates
Writing a business plan? Looking for investors? Getting set up in QuickBooks? We’ve got the tools and templates you need, from planning a startup to growing your business.
