In today’s farming operations, there are often many moving pieces. It takes a whole line-up of people – both those employed within the operation and those from outside who play some role in helping your farm – to get everything done.

As the farm’s leader and CEO, often it can seem like we’re responsible for managing many different relationships within and across our operation. I’m not thinking solely about managing employees here, although those are certainly important relationships to manage.

I’m thinking about all the other relationships that are key to keep today’s operations running smoothly. These are the relationships you have with your lenders, landlords, vendors, suppliers, dealers and advisors, to name a few.

Where to focus

One of the key elements to good business relationships is trust. When trust is high in a relationship, everything generally goes better. Things move more quickly. People typically want to do business with other people they trust, and they want to keep doing business with them – that brings long-term stability.

Trust can be difficult to quantify, but in business relationships it can become a competitive advantage for your operation. For trust to grow, we must prioritize a few components in our relationships – this applies whether you’re thinking about internal employees or external advisors who are key to your operation.

Three pieces

To prioritize trust, consider working on these three aspects of business relationships. Each brings a different “piece” that comes together to form a strong, trusting working relationship.

Many farmers have found that working with a trusted advisor to create and execute marketing plans has given them a partner for their farm business, bringing more peace of mind. You can get in touch with our market advisors today.

The opinions of the author are not necessarily those of Farm Futures or Farm Progress.