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Anna Goebel's Sport Horse MarketPlace magazine is in an easy view FlipBook version now.
You can see it here or paste this url in your browser: http://www.sporthorsemarketplace.com/index.php/flipbook-oct09.
Anna still mails out 20,000 printed copies but, the FlipBook version is the future for a lot of magazines and a good solution for rising printing costs as well as postage. And don't forget the environmental benefit.
Have a look at it.
Picture this scene. Bright sunshine, clear blue skies, shirt sleeve riding conditions, clippety clop, clippety clop, not a problem in the world for horse or rider. All of us have ridden on perfect weather days and there is no better scene for enjoying horses.
The problem is that in most parts of the world, there aren’t enough of those perfect weather days. Weather and a busy professional horseman are often in conflict with each other. Scorching sun, bitter cold, rain, snow, mud and fierce winds can severely limit the number of days to make money with horses with training, riding lessons or attracting customers to your boarding facility.
A day lost due to bad weather is lost money for the professional horseman. That window of time to generate income for your professional services is gone forever. Sure, you can “make it up" another day, but that means you lose a day off or you have to work long hours the following days to recover the income.
The solution for those horsemen who are always fighting the weather is to build an indoor riding arena for bad weather and early morning and after dark work. I can hear some readers thinking, yes but, GASP, I can’t afford it!
My answer to that comment is a question. Is it possible that you can’t afford not to have an indoor arena?
I am the first to admit that every personal financial situation is different, but for the sake of simplicity let’s consider the following example:
You have $5000 to put toward construction of an $80,000 indoor riding arena with not too many frills other than a roof, four walls and proper footing and lighting.
You borrow conventionally, or creatively, $75,000 at 6.5% interest to be repaid monthly over 15 years. The monthly payment is $653 per month.
Let’s ignore additional real estate tax, insurance, utilities and maintenance expenses because they will vary by location; please don’t forget to include these expenses in your personal calculations in making your investment decisions.
Now, calculate how much horse training and riding lesson income you lose annually due to bad weather and not being able to work before light or after dark. How does that loss on a monthly basis compare with all of the costs of having an indoor arena? You may be surprised with the results. Could the lost revenue due to weather pay for the indoor arena?
I talked with Pete Rohring, owner of Parco Building
Systems over coffee last week. (click here for
link) He’s been building
barns and arenas for over
25 years and had some tips and considerations for
building indoor arenas.
Put that pencil and calculator to work some evening and do indoor work on how you might be able to do more “indoor work.”
Our son Andrew Emerson designed this self motivation machine. I'm skeptical about its commercial potential, however.
I'd
been thinking about telling you this for some time and kept
forgetting. But last week, I captured the thought on paper and the
result is you're reading about it right now. But, mixed in with the business-as-usual thoughts are great thoughts and ideas. Your best thoughts and ideas about your business and personal life bubble to the surface in your conscious mind and then are lost faster than cash at the race track betting window. Thoughts and ideas like: Thoughts
like those above and thousands of others are lost each day. Some times
they resurface for you, other times the thought ocean undertow claims
them for others to discover and put into action. There
are almost as many ways to capture ideas for your horse business as
there are bits for a horse's mouth. But just like bits, the favorites
should get tried first. Index cards-
don't leave them in the package! Spread them around. Keep a few in the
barn, in the truck, on your desk, next to your bed and in your pocket.
Collect them daily, rubber band them and look at them several times a
week. Post it notes-buy
3-M brand only. The sticky part on the knock-off brands is as useless
as a 3 foot lead rope. If you use a pencil based calendar planner,
stick your thoughts on the pages of the calendar on the appropriate
days. Spiral pocket notebook- buy pocket sized only, in multiple packs. Get in the habit of carrying one with you. Moleskine-
these are impressive and this classic notebook of choice of writers and
artists. Not only cool looking, it frames your thoughts as you re-read
them. Good enough for Hemmingway, good enough for me.
You and I do a
lot of thinking each day the experts tell us. You may be surprised at
this, but research estimates you may have 40,000 to 60,000 thoughts
each day. Even though that sounds like a tremendous amount of
thinking, most of your thoughts are repeat thoughts.
Thoughts like:
Cell phone: Dial, dictate, done. Call a phone number and your words are automatically transcribed, captured and e-mailed back to you with service called Jott.com
PDA's Once
you make the shift to electronic notes, these are extremely useful
tools for capturing thoughts and converting them to notes. However,
even though PDA's are durable, they're not as forgiving as paper when
your horse's foot is standing on it. Personally, I log a lot of my work day at a desk focused on a computer screen and talking on the telephone. It requires concentration and as a result, my best thoughts do not occur while I'm engaged in work.
I've used the above methods to capture brilliant and not so brilliant
thoughts while feeding, mucking stalls, being a tractor jockey and
cooling out a horse. If you want to make more money in your horse business, capture your ideas and take action on the best!
Controlling dust in indoor riding arenas is a chore for all horsemen. While footings vary in the amount of dust fines created from daily use, there are no footings that don't break down eventually.
I used to spend hours watering our indoor arena with a garden hose, lawn sprinklers and eventually a tow behind tractor waterer.
Time required: Seven minutes to detach manure spreader and hook up to waterer. Thirty minutes to fill the waterer, six minutes to apply. Repeat every other day in dry conditions. Tolerations: Overfilled waterer tank due to forgetting, uneven distribution by waterer, can't apply water in below freezing weather, most annoying of all, it cut into my riding time.
I discovered MAG Flakes for dust control two years ago and am so delighted with the results, I sell the product.
Learn more at: www.StopArenaDust.com
.
Annette Riley, Web Designer, makes good points about websites in her recent newsletter below.
Good Fast Cheap
You probably know the saying - Good, Fast, Cheap - Pick 2. The premise is that you must sacrifice one to get the others. If something is good and fast, it won't be cheap. If it is good and cheap, it won't be fast. If it is fast and cheap, it won't be any good.
I was all set to write a clever article about this topic, extolling my virtues as a Web designer, but I kept getting stuck.
Then I realized it is because there is only one choice. Good.
In the 8+ years I've been in business, I have never had someone walk into my office and ask for a bad Web site. Some want it "yesterday" and some want it for as close to free as possible, but the quality desired is always high.
What makes a good Web site?
First and foremost, it must present a clear picture of what your company has to offer your customers or potential customers. At the beginning of the web development process, it is more important to examine what makes your business different from your competition, than what colors you like. I sometimes meet resistance here, but I have to keep pushing. Taking time to plan and determine goals for the web site saves time and surprises later. The Web site will be more effective because it will be easy for visitors to understand how you can solve their problem.
Fast and Cheap are relative terms. There are many factors that determine time and cost, such as: size, complexity, desired features, existing budget considerations and/or how fast I get information such as text and images from the client.
A Web site an investment. A good Web site is the foundation of your marketing plan and adds value to your other marketing venues. You have to make the commitment of time and money to make it the best it can be.
Don't worry, however, I make the transition to a new way of marketing as painless as I can and will walk you easily through the Web design or re-design process from start to finish.
You can visit her site here
I'm amazed at the number of horsemen and farmers active with posts on twitter on a regular basis. I never would have guessed that busy folks, outdoors most of the day, would stay connected.
With the aid of wireless technology, no one is left out who chooses to stay in the stream of conversation.
Granted, the twitter conversation is as mindless as coffee break chatter at times, but the brevity of messages and speed of delivery helps develop business relationships instantly.
Our son brought one of his city buddies to the farm. Seeing one of the horses wearing a cooler, he said, "Wow, and they wear sweaters, too?"
I visited Dave Howard of Newstead Equestrian Center in Newstead, NY yesterday and learned about his first horse show planned for July 18th, 2009.
Dave is a "detail guy" and he works hard at developing his relatively new business. He handed me a color horse show prize list and showed me the terrific looking ribbons from Hodges Badge Company . Nice to see the energy and effort put forth to create an enjoyable show for the local community! And what a great way to promote the facility for boarding, lessons and training,
For those who are working with horses for a living, discretionary time for distraction is as scarce as a shade tree at a horse show. Social networking via your computer keyboard may be a distraction for some, however it is clear to me that it's a good investment of precious time for making acquaintenances that you'd never (ever) make without it.
Twitter has been an excellent tool for me, as well as Linked-in. Facebook is not the right tool for me and I've dropped my account.
It seems the magic of social networking is the ability to cut through tradition,stuffy etiquette, shyness and awkwardness with its click your way to instant gratification.
Twitter's 140 ch. rule is brilliant. Say it succinctly quick and close the gate. Thought captured; instantly available for others. Get back to work.
The speed of twitter news is lightning-like. As a medium for communication, its possibilities are staggering.
Less newspaper reading, less TV, less radio. Instant gratification for news for specialty areas like horses and agriculture.
see you on twitter! @DougEmerson
"They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." - Andy Warhol
Change doesn't come easily in the art business or the horse business; everyone is a critic. In an industry built on tradition, ideas for doing things differently take much effort to put into practice.
One of the reasons professional horsemen are reluctant to make changes in their businesses is that some changes just "don't feel right." They are uncomfortable and go against the grain of what we have become accustomed to and are comfortable with doing.
For example, as a youth I learned to ride in a western saddle. Over time, the contact points of my body with the saddle became my points of reference for posture and balance. It all "felt right" every time I sat in the saddle.
Later, my first experiences riding in an English hunt seat saddle made feel awkward, out of balance and generally uncomfortable. My traditional frame of reference had been altered and I was in the "uncomfortable zone". With practice, I managed to regain my composure and balance and the new saddle started feeling better every time I rode in it.
I have not ridden in a western saddle in a number of years and I know with such a long time away from it, riding in a western saddle would not feel "right" the first time I sat in it.
My point is familiarity creates comfort and the natural human tendency is to be comfortable. Being comfortable means trading off potentially better results for the privilege of being comfortable.
In your horse business do you:
Making a business decision to act on the types of things listed above is never easy. At first, moving from a comfort zone to potentially stressful situations might feel like you have put your boots on backwards just to make sure it will hurt.
But, you will soon find out that a better analogy is that changes in your business are more like sitting in a strange saddle for the first time. It feels uncomfortable, you're out of balance and have to question again why you are doing this.
Amazingly, in time, the deliberate business changes you make become as comfortable as your favorite saddle and will result in a much more comfortable ride.
Richard Feldman, Chairman of the Lake Placid Horse Show Assn. reports entries are off about 8% this year. The Lake Placid, NY Show, a long running competition, will still attract plenty of horses, exhibitors and spectators this year. Full story here: http://www.wptz.com/news/19838099/detail.html
Many shows are reporting reduced numbers for this show season. It's all part of the economic cycle; horse showing isn't going away. However, show organizers are challenged to do the best possible job attracting people and horses to their shows this year and set the stage for next year.
