Sign North Dakota Banking Business Plan Template Easy

Industry sign banking north dakota business plan template online

i'm daryl jones with mississippi state university extension service and my presentation today will be about developing a business plan for your natural resource enterprise having paying clients on your property to hunt through either a outfit or business or a hunting lease fishing opportunities rural accommodations bed and breakfast farm tours agritourism so having paying clients on your property and thinking about your business and thinking through the business model is part of an important part of developing a business plan first i'm going to talk about recreational access on private lands in mississippi and other states and this nre program that i manage i enjoy doing landowner trainings through workshops and online seminars like this one to talk about hunting recreation [Music] fishing watching of wildlife riding horses and again being on property with farm tours agritainment and then rural accommodations like bed and breakfast opportunity to get people out on your farm on your property and enjoy natural vistas natural scenery and looking at wildlife and other activities outdoor recreation in the us is big big business the last survey conducted by u.s fish and wildlife service with the us department of interior it it showed that there are 104 million participants in the u.s spending 157 billion dollars annually and a lot of that is in rural landscapes in the us and part of that is on private lands like you own like we're talking about today in this presentation and so there's money spent all over the country and in doing these activities and again there's there's users looking for opportunities places to go i go pheasant hunting every year typically in south dakota and developed a good friendship with a a farmer in south dakota and i pay him to stay at his house and then hunt pheasants behind my my gun dogs which is a big fun trip for me and it's it's developed a friendship with this farmer and he uses that funding that the money that i spend with him to turn back into his property to make it more valuable for wildlife and make it more valuable for people to come so this is big business in the us hunting is about 26 billion annually fishing's almost 50 billion and then watching a wildlife continues to grow is 76 billion narrow it down to a regional overview outdoor recreation wildlife related recreation in in the arkansas louisiana mississippi region arklamis fishing's about 2 million anglers fish annually spending 1.7 billion dollars hunting about a million hunters and they spend almost 2 billion dollars annually and then people that wildlife watch bird watch and go to rural accommodations to see pretty scenery over 2 million participants spending over 1 billion dollars so about 4.6 billion in the arklamiss on an annual basis so that's real compatible income that goes well with farming timber production and land ownership helps make ends meet so to speak for poor landowners and landowners that particularly drill down and do this as a as a business as their primary income source they do they can do real well so it can be a primary income driver scoping down a bit more into mississippi what does it mean for mississippi an agrarian state with about 3 million in population a little under that 2.8 2.9 million in population ex annual expenditures in mississippi that relate to economic impact so you can take what they spend and then look at the economic impact that that produces through economic models hunting means about 1.2 billion annually in economic impact the state of mississippi so that's real economic impact tremendous potential and and real dollars spent an impact from recreational hunting wildlife related hunting in mississippi fishing's about 700 million economic impact people coming and in-state residents watching wildlife spent about 800 or our economic impact of 800 million on an annual basis for an overall impact of almost three billion dollars producing over 70 000 jobs and this has continued to in continuing to increase almost on an annual basis so the punchline of all this some of this recreation a good percentage of it is going on on private land some is on public land with on national wildlife refuges state wildlife management areas people spend money to do that i do that but a large chunk of this income revenues are being spent on private lands and some of that money is being paid to private landowners so again economic the potential for business opportunities here with outdoor recreation related to wildlife people charge i get this question a lot on leasing land for hunting that can be a wide range and several years ago in mississippi did a a pricing schedule or survey with landowners to see what they charge per acre per year on hunting on land that they lease for recreational hunting and the range was from five dollars an acre to 150 an acre some of those larger monies that's probably water fowl hunting in our mississippi delta where people spend a lot of money on a small acreage block where waterfowl historically come or be habituated to come to that property and so they're good duck holes so they uh they they lease out opportunities or charge for people to duck that's probably those top top-end prices in that survey better properties that were sold for wildlife recreation some of those in the state of mississippi we were asking federal land bank and other lenders what people were paying for property so we're surveying the banks on their loan portfolios on recreational properties and so a minority over 100 about 120 some odd properties were being leased in the past what did those lease rates of those better properties with with good timber management a large hardwood forest component to those properties they took care of their water resources rivers and streams and ponds on the property just did the things with wildlife habitat management that enhanced the habitat for wildlife that's what we're talking about with these properties that federal land bank and other banks financed when people buying property they those properties were leasing twenty one dollars an acre so better properties earn more as a comparison 16 section lands in mississippi that are leased and revenues go to local school boards on average those were about seven to eleven dollars per acre per year and and there were some higher tr higher end tracks that got more money than that but some of these lands for example have been used intensively by um lessees to farm or to cut timber on or they cut timber on the property just to go to local schools so they've been high graded from a timber standpoint they're not as those kind of properties aren't as good for wildlife but even those were leasing you know for ten dollars an acre so that's your that's that's the bottom end of the scale to a large degree so this scale is is rising upward over time we don't know what this cova 19 pandemic will do to people recreating but probably my guess would be outdoor recreation you're getting away from other people so i still see these monies being spent for people to get away and a lot of that again a lot of that's going towards landowners now the economic depression from the pandemic that could affect some pricing but this is hopefully this viral outbreak something we'll get over but these prices are uh are good i get asked all the time how do i price my lease well i'm giving you some numbers there to look at at least uh if i'm leasing land get my land taxes whatever i'm getting from a land tax that needs to be the bottom end of what i'm charging per acre and then you can look at other leases in the in your area to see what they're charging for what those are earning and and you can you can gauge on what you need to charge for yours based on some of that and then i get the question where do i go to get that on the 16th section lands in mississippi the mississippi secretary of state's office has a website where all those 16th section lands those are public lands that are being leased and so they put those on the record on the website and they put out for forbid basis when they come up for hunting loose renewal so you can access that database through the secretary of state's office and look at what 16 section lands in your county in mississippi are going for so that's another way you can look at your lease and in separating leasing i always tell people if you're leasing for deer hunting in the fall you can turn around and lease for your turkey hunting rights in the spring and separate those leases maybe two different groups two different individuals but if you lump it all together you're gonna get one sum but if you separate it chances are you're gonna get more money overall per acre on your property so think about doing things like that i think it's wise angling like we talked about you saw the expenditures those those are are are good fishing and then and then charter bug operations on our mississippi gulf coast and the in the gulf of mexico and our sister states as well is uh quite popular but fishing is growing in demand and on private lands fishing angling if you've got impoundments ponds lakes river access this can be conducted quite compatibly with a fee hunting operation a hunting lease or an outfitter type business management of your fisheries resources and your impoundments are important and extension service can help you with that we have expertise that can help you and and in other states as well with their with our sister land grant extension services and universities if you offer amenities like boats and baits and and like rural accommodations the pricing can go up in terms of charter boat excursions this is older survey but the which was done several years ago but the charter boat industry is about 150 million dollars per year in economic impact to the state of mississippi and again that number somewhat dated it may be higher now so but so fishing is continues to be popular horse trail riding about 4 million horses home for pleasure public land managers are typically downsizing with budget so wildlife management areas by this with the state or or federal lands like national forest and wildlife refuges they have monies to do some of their land management but they're typically those dollars are stretched and so um there's a good opportunity for example for area landowners around public land public lands and with refuge managers with national forest managers to hook up with them to offer horse trail riding on your private lands adjacent to a national forest but then they can also ride on the national forest after they check local rules so that's that's just something i've seen landowners do these landowners offer hookups to the horse trailers a lot of times the riders will camp in their trailers or they provide lodging for the for the riders and liability obviously can be a something of consideration with horse trail riding oftentimes landowners will allow the riders they bring their own horses so if you don't provide horses that reduces your liability potential um on the property when they're riding their own horse for example so but they're ways to raise around we're going to talk about liability but there's ways around making your your property safer to make it safer and therefore reduce liability for horse trail riding and other some of these other opportunities as well birding wildlife watching like i showed earlier continues to increase about a quarter of americans participate spend over 30 billion dollars annually this is just only increasing this is quite compatible with hunting seeing landowners that have fee hunting operations that will offer birding in the off hunting season when migratory birds are coming through neotropical migrants and birders will come in and use the same blinds that in the fall earlier they may have been hunting out of but they use the same blinds to look at wildlife and look at birds particularly coming to water on the property so birding is compatible with hunting and prices can vary depending on what you offer with package arrangements i've seen landowners that cooperate with national audubon society which is a good way as well to get bird expertise on your property find out a bird bird inventory or have a bird list on your property that will entice birders to come and want to want to see these species agritourism or acquitainment this is a fast growing tourism market worldwide and in the us as well farm tours you pick operations with vegetables and fruits corn mazes for mostly for kids children farmers markets where you're selling selling produce at a central farmers market location and uh family entertainment lots of groups like to come to these agri tourism destinations youth groups are looking for places school groups are looking for places like this to go church groups can be active here and and this is a growing a growing market and will continue to be shooting sports always popular in the united states over 20 million shoot recreationally target shoot they spend almost 17 billion a year on equipment and travel supports a large number of jobs for shooting sports this may not be for everyone to offer a uh sporting clays or rifle range on your property because you don't want the noise for example but some people that do this do do real well we've had workshops on destinations like this and these landowners talk about it and again they can they can be very successful other enterprise opportunities like rural accommodations bed and breakfast the music of mississippi is quite steep jimmy rogers started country music from meridian the singing breakman blues blues artist from our mississippi delta and surrounding states elvis presley from tupelo king of rock and roll so a lot of people come here tied to interest in music and culture as well with the history of mississippi in the south and the literary writers so all this is tied to rural lands natural beauty of mississippi so again this is uh something that brings in lots of of um of people to make mississippi and the south of destination and other areas of the country as well rural appeal is what particularly urbanized looking for and a sense of value with family and and land are important and some surveys that i've done in the past looking at what does wildlife related recreation mean to rural land values it means a lot about a third of the value and land in mississippi is tied to people buying and buying this land for wildlife related recreation to hunt to fish to have a rural rural um place that they can go and and and camp and stay in them stay in a house stay in the cabin so people looking for these kind of properties so about a third of the value was tied to outdoor wildlife related recreation so it actually was about 654 dollars an acre was due to wildlife recreation what land types were important those were the drivers of this increase in value good forest lands with mixed pine hardwood forest some of our piney woods particularly in longleaf pine in the central and south mississippi where important and also ag lands which are primarily more in our delta and our north central counties these properties these kind of land covers were important what people were looking for to buy because of the importance to wildlife and they could therefore buy it for recreation to hunt on this is a photograph of a a friend in southeast oregon chiloquin oregon at yamsey ranch john hyde he actually has a 5 000 acre cow calf operation we're fly fishing there on on the river that comes through his property called the williamson river and again he's in he raises cattle but he also is an expert in fly fishing fly tying fly casting and he offers recreation to fly to fly anger fly anglers fly fishermen to come to his to his property and fish for rainbow trout and brook trout and in this river the smaller river that comes to his property and they stay on the property and cab in a in cabin accommodations that he has and he's booked from april to october so this goes perfectly with his rural land it fits well in with cattle production you can't see from this photograph but he has a fencing electric fencing that keeps the cattle out of the river that makes water quality better and doesn't erode the banks but has alternative water in holes ponds for the cows but all this again usda with the natural resources c nservation service helped him do some of these practices so his habitat management land management fit right in with the fly fishing here and that really he he mentioned to me it helps us stay on the farm particularly when beef prices are down so he's a good poster man for what we're talking about today so how do we think about a business plan for these kind of nre businesses i think it's important to think through this at least have some type of skeleton plan in place back of the envelopes doesn't have to be 200 pages with appendices uh it can be but it doesn't have to be at least think through your business model what i'm going to do for this business and and a written plan makes you think through this put this on paper and it helps you get your business started and keep it successful over time so the role of a business plan is to turn an idea into a written plan of action and it serves to convince me or you that your business will work if i go through this analysis and the mental gymnastics so to speak of going through this business model and writing a plan i can convince myself my business will work or if if i start getting the feeling hey this is not going to work for me that's good to know up front i'm an ox banker and if you uh sense that an idea won't work and you don't start a business that saves you heartache and loss of money and that's important so not starting a business that won't work is a good idea the business plan will help you think through that but hopefully your business model will be a good one um and this plan will help you get that business model on that business plan so to speak on rails gets you started so it serves as a model for performance and a road map to get there it educates not only yourself but if you have to borrow some a little bit of money from time to time bankers like to see business plans i'm as i mentioned an ex-banker i like to see that somebody has thought through a process and has a written plan of action and it makes me feel more comfortable as a lender and i can actually analyze that plan to see if i think the model is going to work so that's another attribute of a business plan it also shows financial feasibility particularly for myself to think through if this is if this is going to bring in revenues and income for me and be worth my while and a plan of action this business plan is not static it's not write it put it on the shelf never look at it it's a road map you go back to it time and time again and you can flex it you can change it over time so it can be flexible over time i'm going to talk about the sections just generally of a business plan that you would have for your natural resource enterprise it's good to have for you kind of a executive summary an overview of the plan just a very brief but an op brief sketch of your operation what you're going to be doing have a general synopsis of the market that you're going to be getting into with your business what your management structure your business is going to be i'm going to run it with my family for example planned operations what i'm exactly going to do give some overview briefly of the financial projections that money i'm going to make and this summary kind of sets the tone for a project people that will read your business plan will particularly read the exactly summary first obviously set the first of the plan but sometimes that's primarily what they'll read to get a sense of whether this is a viable operation next i need another the next section i want to describe my business the history of my business how i came up with this idea what i've done up to date my land how it fits into this business model describe the type of industry i'm getting involved with hunting operation agritourism it serves as an this description serves as kind of an outlook and a basis of projections for my nre for my business talk about here my goals and and strategies to put my plan in action to make my business successful so talking about my goals and strategies will be something that i articulate in this description this also the business description start thinking about your economic and liability risk and how to minimize those risk and usually when you go through a plan like this it it gives you some ammunition so to speak gives you some plans of action to minimize those those risks business economic risk and liability risk and then it kind of makes this describes a setting of how my business will be successful in this business description part let's talk about kind of goals and mission statement mission statement is an overarching statement about what my business my nre will be doing and i'm going to use this as an example which is what i would do i love to train gun dogs and love to love to upland bird hunt bob white quail grouse and particularly ring neck pheasant and i've already mentioned that so let's say in my model i'm gonna my my mission will be to provide a premium hunting and outdoor experience on quality lands my property to a selective range of clientele so that that's that's my mission now how do i get to my mission i need to have some goals and objectives to get to that and and one of the things let's say for uh hunting operation is i need to have good wildlife habitat to support the wildlife that i'm going to feature in my business so a goal would be to have better wildlife habitat to improve wildlife habitat on my property to maximize wildlife populations and this aesthetic good looks of my property how am i going to get to that goal to improve as one goal and this is an example a goal to get to better wildlife habitat well one way i've gotta have an objective which would be measurable specific and tied to time how to directly achieve that goal so if i need to have better wildlife habitat well i need to have a uh somebody help me let's say with a wildlife habitat management plan to increase habitat for bobwhite quail or in south dakota increase habitat nesting and and brood rearing habitat for ring neck pheasants and on my uh corn on my on my farm that i particularly focus on corn production let's say so that objective would be to develop and input implement a wildlife habitat management plan on the property to improve the wildlife habitat to support my business so again a goal is to get somewhere how you going to get there that's through your objective so think through that for for your business have at least several goals and then objectives to meet those goals a very important part of my model and your model should be looking at what i've got in terms of resources available to me physical resource inventory is important to go through of course one of the most valuable assets i've got is my land landing water on my property you know what kind of acres do i have what's the current present uses and the types of land cover and i've got mixed pine hardwoods on the property i've got some ag fields i've got some wetlands i've got ponds you know those are the types of lands that i have that's important to write those down and and think of those as a package and how much of that all of it or some of it that i'll operate my nre on what buildings that i've got that can support the business and barns and storage buildings and meeting areas for for my hunting clients to come and eat accommodations that they can stay overnight these kind of assets are important it also may show me what i need i may have to build some things but hopefully i've got a good bit of this already on the property what equipment machinery that i need do i have a tractor do i have do i have a clipper do i have discs spreaders these kinds of things and most farmers would have some of those types of resources i may need some of that may not but if i if if i need it i need to take an inventory what i got and what i may have to to to get that helps me think through my business plan who am i going to hire who's going to work this who's going to run it am i going to run it i'm going to need a manager to help me run it it's a family it's gonna be a family business my son my my son and i or or my daughter and i with my spouse let's say who's gonna run and work the business and look at also if i gotta hire people how am i gonna develop that that workforce what's the local mixture for people i can hire so that's important to think through that early in doing my resources inventory to look at the assets that i have some other things i'm going to probably have to have insurance have insurance now on say my farming operation timber operation i'm going to need some insurance probably for this nre as well and that can be tied with my existing insurance maybe as an additional policy or rider on my existing policy or i may have to i'm leasing land for hunting may have to get a lease insurance that i can get through maybe my local vendor or someone else but think through that so i can cover that as a base cover that is something i need to do farm bill i mentioned earlier your friend in nrcs and usda particularly has cost share opportunities with farm bill to help improve your your land management habitat quality of your property so take advantage of of nrcs so this is this is money that's out there that's every year in the farm bill and if you don't know about farm bill get get knowledgeable on that because that can help you particularly increasing your cash flow in your business and particularly in improving um your land and wildlife habitat uh for example on your property next part of my plan would be to describe my product or service you know what exactly am i going to offer and i mentioned in my businesses say a hunting operation where i'm bringing clients to look at my bird dogs walk behind my bird dogs for bob white quail with pen release birds in addition that i may have a sporting clay sporting clays range for shooting sports and maybe some of the same hunters would do both but describe this product so i can understand it so anybody can understand it so describe my product service in terms that anybody can understand it and include what the features are of the product walk behind good gun dogs have good flying birds to get good exercise out outdoors be able to shoot your shotgun over over good english pointers i mean that that's a feature benefit that takes that person back to when he was walking with his grandfather as or his dad and did as he did that as a boy she did that as a uh as a child so it takes them back in time and gives them that experience again that that's the benefit of it and where else can you go and get that so uh i need to describe that so what's the market target market i'm looking at what's that niche that i'm my product and service heist gonna line up to fit that niche how my offering is different from local competition uh just someone down the road doing the same thing will that affect me or no one in this area is doing it so think about that and that can help guide my decision on starting the business look with your local people uh governments and your state government on any licensing regulations or permits that you may need and then in this section why would someone come and uploading bird hunt on my property describe that and that's important for me to think about in going through this business plan doing your business doing your research on your market and analyzing that that information is important i've noticed businesses don't do this and i think it's important to do it this can help you decide whether to start your business or not sometimes it can help you maximize your target market segment as well just think about your market that you're entering so to describe the general state of this industry what the trends are in the industry what the future is in this type of service industry to bringing people on my land and it helps me focus my air efforts to the this target market describe my customer again what's my customer base profile my target customer again it'd be say older individuals that love to bird hunt shoot the shotgun are really interested in good gun dogs and they get outside in the sunshine and and walk on pretty land behind gun dogs for chances to see up in game birds i mean that that is what i'm selling and describe that and that's my customer bait that older individual that used to do that is interested in doing that how am i going to get this this this hunting opportunity available to them looking at competition local area i've already talked about that uh some but in the state that i'm working in in my region are there other competitors that are similar to me it may be that they actually bring more people in so it's not a disadvantage to have some competition but if i've got a shooting preserve right down the road from me that may or may not be good so think about your local competition and so describe [Music] my competitive advantage to get my customer my targeted customer on my property and then through that business i can estimate what my cash flow will be what my market share will be how much business will i generate again this market research and analyzing the analysis of this information is important part of this should be a mark you know think about how you're going to get the word out many landowners that i've worked with just use word of mouth and that's fine and they do very good at that and their established uh businesses and their land is established and that works fine but if you want to take the next step up look at thinking about marking plan with with social media marketing getting a website how am i going to get the word out and in that plan plan for marketing again to again describe my product what i'm offering what my price structure is one way to look at price couple just two examples you know what's it gonna cost me to provide that service and then i need to add some kind of percentage margin on top of that to make it wild for me to make me have some income revenue coming in so cost plus basis pricing and another way is to just look at competition offering similar services what do they charge so that can help you in your price pricing structure you know in your plan of action for your marketing hit your key selling points what makes me unique and why people want to come here to my property hit those points again walking by good gun dogs just like you used to with your dad so that's a selling point so think about how much i'm gonna spend on advertising and how i'm gonna advertise developing a website social media marketing producing brochures whatever that is or the combination thereof what my contact information is and then in the marketing plan again what what this plan is going to generate for me was sales so that's important like think through this a next next part of my thought process needs to be what's what's my operation plan look like what my operating plan will be what are my day-to-day activities i'm gonna do with my outdoor recreational business wildlife related hunting business for example so day-to-day activities where my location is what facilities do i have again some of that was done in your in your your physical inventory of of of your assets on the land what storage buildings um equipment storage accommodations houses to put people up camp sites whatever that may be look thinking about my facilities that i'm gonna have to offer what improvements that i need to make to those facilities and then who's gonna work work this business and again we've talked about that again important think about it who's going to manage it am i going to manage it by myself i'll have others that will help me with this one thing that's important to do and i can give you some more information if you're interested and please talk to your attorney about this but the business structure it doesn't make any sense in my opinion to operate as a sole proprietor something happens from a legal standpoint and i'm um i'm found liable and got somebody hurt they can then sue me for my house and all my retirement and all my land and everything so talk to your attorney about business structures just makes no sense to operate as a sole proprietor think about setting up corporations or or limited liability corporations llc's to structure your business this can not only be good for economic cash flow to help you differentiate and separate those pools of revenue but it also can help you from a liability standpoint as well for example if i own property and i'm offering a hunting lease i could have a hunting lease llc where i do the leasing operation out of that llc but the hunting lease llc doesn't own my land i have my land ownership through my land holding llc an attorney can help you sep that set these up and the leasing operation actually leases my land from the land holding llc that way if something happened i got i was negligent i got somebody hurt and i get sued and fell found liable they may get my tractor my lodge my hunting lodge but they're not gonna get the land because of the the leasing operation doesn't own the land so just think about your business structure talk to your attorney think about upfront it's better to think about that upfront and go into it eyes open than try to fix a problem on the back side so it's easier it's easier to set it up first and again get legal counsel on this but back on the management team who's the key personnel going to be me with my family say working it how am i going to pay myself business structure i talked about how you're going to own the property or own the business rather and in preparing taxes i may do that or may need some help with an accountant so think through who's going to help me run the business now finances are important being an ex-banker i got to talk a little bit about that uh particularly it's important what available cash do i have and what's the sources of those cat of that cash think about that up front and hopefully have enough cash early on to help um get my my business on wheels startup expenses come without any revenues coming in early in my business life cycle so having enough cash early helps me with that startup expenses so think about what i'm gonna have to get started do i have some existing debt that i need to be concerned about or at least need to be knowledgeable of how i'm going to service that debt and how does that fit in with my financial cash flow opportunity cost meaning if i don't do this if i don't do the nre i'm i have opportunity cost of losing that revenue from the nre but i can also just put that money in a savings account or put in mutual funds if i feel that's safer and less hassle you know again think about that there's opportunity cost for not doing a decision or and doing sometimes doing a decision so think through your financial situation in this plan documents that you need again back on your sales forecast what's my projected sales gonna be i need to make some kind of guestimation on that and hopefully it'll increase uh over the years in the short run financial statements to give me what income stream i'm gonna have um in my business cash flow statements this may be one of the more important ones so my cash outflows my business what cash do i have coming in and what cash do i have on on hand to meet expenditures that arise that's important to to know this so a cash flow analysis statement would be important you can look that up in an accounting book or finance book and kind of help you do that i'm sure some of you have done that but having a knowledge of my cash on hand through cash flow is important balance sheet what my assets liabilities and then again what my um equity is in my business important to to do have have an idea and you're doing some of that with the projections on your sales and also with your physical inventory your your land that you have your buildings machinery again those are assets what loans do i have at liabilities and then what equity do i have with the difference of the two so important to have some of these at least think through some of these statements that we've talked about would be important to do legal considerations um are important what i've found in working with landowners that this scares them most most of anything they're worried about people coming on the property getting hurt and suing them for their for their land losing the farm in mississippi you don't have to make your land perfectly safe when mississippi code it has reference to a landowner should be reasonable and prudent to make their land reasonably safe if i've got hazards on the property warn guests warn people coming on the property as paying clients warn them of them those hazards or better yet remove those hazards so you that's being reasonable and prudent and documenting that that i've done that i just don't see a lot of judges in mississippi looking to hang a land owner they're they're more the fair-haired child so to speak just open up their land for for recreation so i don't see a lot of courts looking to get them judges after them but if you do your homework up front to reduce hazards document that reduce hazards by eliminating hazards document that and showing that to your paying clients that's important important to do reduces your overall liability risk so having if you're hunting doing a hunting lease having a well-written lease i've got some examples of those i can give you and publications that i've got if you contact me uh but with a well-written lease having an attorney review it have it tied to your land and what activities those these lessees will be doing these hunters will be doing on the property turkey hunting in the spring whatever it is uh in mississippi i encourage liability waivers that's important to do and how you do it i think it's important for example if i'm bringing hunters in and get them up that morning and stick a liability waiver in front of them before we go out behind the dogs to shoot quail pen pemberley's quail that wouldn't be the way to do it a judge wouldn't look good good at that because i didn't give that hunter an opportunity to think about it but if if i'm got people booked months in advance say to come to my property to hunt sending them a package of information then there's a waiver that i want you to sign and return to me because that's the way i keep my insurance costs down that way that client can think of potential client guests can think about it and not sign it not come or yeah that's no problem i'm signing send it back that's the way to do that and and i think in legal standing would be a fair way to do it an insurance cost if you've got insurance on an nre if you've got an existing nre and on your land land insurance you'll notice particularly with hunting leases they ask the insurance provider will ask do you have waivers signed so if you do that's a way that they're going to price you differently so that's being preemptive as a landowner and they're going to give you typically a better insurance premium just beginning by getting a waiver signed so that's in um that that shows i think some value of the waiver enforcing rules on the property what the canny can't do again it's important to talk to your guests about that communicate we've already mentioned insurance one thing on insurance like in in hunting lease insurance is a landowner getting insurance you have insurance on your nre land you're an re operation but if i'm say for example if i'm leasing land to hunters and that hunting group may have a insurance policy to cover themselves as a landowner i can require them to to name me as an additional insured party on their policy and i'm not going to take their word for it i want a copy of the certificate of the policy where i'm named as a landowner as the additional insured party so that's so that's another another thing you can do to kind of cover yourself with liability we've talked about business structure a little bit with llc format limited liability corporations companies and again that's something to talk to your attorney about just makes common horse sense to me to do that so what are the problems that i've seen pitfalls and not having a business plan and i know landowners that will do nres and not have a business plan are successful but it sure makes more sense to me more it's more practical more um planning in place to go through the process that we just talked about in the business plan to think about how my business is going to operate how is it going to be successful and how am i going to adapt over time to make it better so some common problems i see is not creating a plan if i don't go through that process chances are my failure rate will be higher i mean just no doubt of that so going through a business model process this business plan will help me make my my business more viable problem with not looking at your market research enough not knowing what i'm getting involved in looking at the the industry and the trends and the customer base for an nre that i'm doing with agritainment agritourism corn maze not doing any of that that can be a problem because i again i'm going into uncharted waters if i don't do enough research not being objective and making assumptions so as i would call it back in the banking world too much blue sky in the outlook so being being objective with what i'm planning to do how many customers are going to have how what will they pay me what the the sales forecast for my business how i'm going to make it fit with my land operations so all of that being objective and making good assumptions is important to do and and being realistic with those assumptions not being thorough not again not going through a planned uh process and with enough um not being thorough enough to go through that that that will lead to more chances of failure so being thorough and and thinking about the different components of this business plan will help your business be more successful lack of flow again you don't have to be a literary giant to writer to write a business plan but again having this broken out into a good sections with a good flow to it that makes sense to me makes sense to a reader that's important so lack of flows can be a problem from a financial standpoint most and this is true for any business not have enough cash up front because you're going to have things that come up that you're just going to have to have cash outflow to cover those expenses so having a buffer of cash is important early now after your business gets on wheels and you start giving getting revenue in then you can get over those rough rough times but early in the business cycles when most businesses say fail because of lack of cash early diversification of business of services offered over time is important in getting started it may be that i do hunting excursions at first but as i get get accustomed to doing that have a customer base then i could also venture out and offer offer some wildlife watching opportunities on the same property and another time of year maybe even for some of those same clients that i'm bringing on the hunt or with new people so diversifying over time is just a way to get more cash flow in um and it and it makes good sense to do that helps your business with you with uh with your revenue intake remembering that with an nre like we're talking about having paying clients on your property for outdoor related recreation you're in the entertainment business people are wanting to come to see your land wanting to meet you wanting to talk to you see your entertaining people you know i've had i've had people tell me you know i'm thinking about uh doing farm tours and corn maze and having having people on the property but i just don't like kids i don't know if i want to have i've had them i've had individuals tell me that i said well maybe we ought to think about this agritourism business a little bit different it may not work if you don't like to deal with your client base so that makes common sense but with an nre having people on my property i'm entertaining them so i'm kind of in the entertainment business whether i know it or not so know that getting in getting into this line of business work with what i have on the property the assets that i have the land types that i have that can makes me successful and also differentiate what i offer as far as as outdoor recreation and services that i offer so working working what i got is important overall sustainability of my of my land and my natural resources on my property is important nre type businesses work hand in glove into that and help me improve the value of my land by making better decisions on land management practices to increase wildlife for example this sustains resource and sustains my land by increases my land values so that's why business planning is important to get wheels under my my my new nre business or expanded existing business if this is of interest to you it can certainly enhance your income with this kind of line of business with nre it enhances conservation on the property increases that natural resource value and capital and species that you have out there enhances wildlife it can also control access to the property particularly for if i'm a landowner don't live on my property if i have a hunting lease on a property and my absentee landowner that hunting lease client that let's see will be my eyes on the ground to make sure people not coming on the property i don't want on the property so again that these nre type business helped me control access to the property so there's more eyes on the ground and i'm there working it for example with a with a farm tooler operation or bird watching so again it controls who's out there um and and that's that's important for landowners it can also promote this business can promote land stewardship and retention i've had landowners say look i just want to keep this property so i can give it to my kids kids and they can pass it on to the family and so making ends meet financial wise cash flow wise uh revenue wise these kind of businesses will increase your land value your better land steward and it can help me retain ownership of my property this is my contact information here um you're you're free and i encourage you to contact me at any time that i can be of service to you talking through some of these things we've talked about today within helping you find additional resources and through thinking through your business model that last line there's my website i have a lot of good information on that that's free to you to download and and so you won't have to go find this kind of information it's there available for you free at my website and that's www.naturalresources.msstate.edu so that that use that website of mine as a good resource i've enjoyed this presentation i hope it's been beneficial to you and i can help you in the future don't hesitate to give me a call and start and expand your nre outdoor recreational business thank you