KCARD provides a lot of different services, but key to each one is our mission of Business Development for Kentucky farmers and agricultural businesses.  We define business development as helping businesses be in a better place tomorrow, next week, next month, next year than they are today, this week, this month, this year. For some agricultural businesses, that may mean expanding, hiring, and reaching new markets.  For others, it means finding ways to transition labor responsibilities to allow the owners to spend more time on “big picture” tasks of the business.  Regardless, businesses with whom we work get to decide what their goals are and then we try our best to help them reach those goals.  

A key part of that process is business planning. “Business planning” sometimes gets a bad rap.  All too often we hear people say that they do not see the need to put together a business plan because the future is too hard to predict, and such plans are not worth the paper they are written on.  Here’s the surprise: We would agree that the future IS hard to predict, and SOME plans are indeed not worth it. 

But here’s why smart businesses put time into business planning regardless: 

1. BECAUSE the future is hard to predict.  Business plans help you consider different opportunities for your farming business and the many risks involved. That gives you greater tools for when the future delivers you the unexpected, which will ALWAYS happen.  

2. Good business planning does not aim to get a document that you file and never look at again.  The most important thing to come out of business planning is a better understanding of your business, what will be needed to make it succeed, and increased tools to manage it.  Not all businesses with whom we work end up with a document that they can point to as a completed business plan. That’s okay.  The value is contained as much or more so in the process. 

3. No one knows everything and is great at everything. We have yet to meet a business owner who runs production/operations perfectly, markets like a dream, handles their financials like a banking wizard, manages staff like an angel overseer, and has mastered all things under the sun related to their business. Working through a business planning process, you are confronted with your “discomfort”; the areas where you know you just are not as strong and the areas you have to figure out if you are going to develop that business.  

If you are interested in working on a business plan, check out our Business Plan Development Guide, which lists a lot of the questions KCARD staff will work through with you. You can contact us at (859) 550-3972 or kcard@kcard.info if you have questions related to our business planning services.