- Enterprise value
- Never modeled
- Margin by enterprise
- Pooled
- Operating knowledge
- In one head
- Succession plan
- None formal
- Enterprise value
- Clear and defensible
- Margin by enterprise
- Separated and tracked
- Operating knowledge
- Documented and transferable
- Succession plan
- Structured and funded
My grandfather built this. My son wants it. I do not know if the math works.
Tom farms the family land with a small cattle operation and a farm store his wife runs on weekends. The question was never whether his son can farm. The question is whether the business can support two families, service a buyout, and still survive a bad crop year.
What the North Star surfaced
- 1No enterprise value clarity. Land value and operating value have never been separated, so nobody knows what is actually being transferred.
- 2Margin invisible by enterprise. Row crops, cattle, and the store are pooled. One of them is almost certainly subsidizing the others.
- 3Succession math never done. What the farm can pay, what debt it can service, and what Tom needs to retire on have never been modeled together.
- 01 · Destination
The number they were building toward
Separated land value from operating value, then modeled three succession structures against what the business could realistically carry.
- 02 · Roadmap
What had to change, in order
Right-sized the cattle operation, documented the operating knowledge that lived only with Tom, and built separate books by enterprise.
- 03 · Rocketship
The systems the team now runs
Built enterprise level tracking with margin visible by crop, cattle, and store, a complete operations manual, and a storefront the farm store could actually grow on.