Building a Resilient and Profitable Ranch Business
8:00am - 5:00pm
Morning Session: Setting the Stage
- Do you own a business or just a pile of assets and a bunch of jobs?
- Conventional wisdom is right, conventional ranching isn’t profitable. We continue only because we subsidize ourselves.
- Why ranching isn’t profitable.
- Working In The Business v. Working On The Business (Knowing how to raise livestock is completely different than knowing how to build and run a business that raises livestock)
Afternoon Session: The Three Secrets for Increasing Profit
- Starting a business from scratch, we will start a livestock business from scratch to identify the 3 things you can do to increase profit.
- Develop a shared language for evaluating profit – Gross Margin Analysis
- Looking for “dead wood”
5pm – 6:30 pm | No host social hour at the Elks
6:30 – 8:30pm | Young & Beginning Rancher Business Session
Wednesday, September 16th, 2026
8am – 12pm noon
Morning Session: Applying the Economic Model
- Apply the economic model to an example ranch
Financial Principles
- Learn the financial principles for creating resiliency and cash flow
Afternoon Session: Benchmarking and Leading Change
- Learn the key economic and financial benchmarks of profitable businesses
- Knowing how to interpret the numbers isn’t enough, how do we lead change in these complicated and complex businesses.
Location: Elks Lodge 309 2nd Ave S, Glasgow, MT 59230
Come dive deep into ranch economics with Dallas Mount, instructor of Ranching for Profit.
Participants will leave with a better understanding of how to evaluate ranch decisions from an economic perspective.
The workshop will be interactive and use case studies of example ranches for teaching concepts. This isn’t a normal boring lecture on economics, come ready to engage!
We will also be offering a 2-hour session specific to young and beginning ranchers. This session will occur after the no host dinner on day one. The young rancher segment will expand on topics discussed during day one while applying them specifically to the scenario of starting an ag operation and the practical application to that process. The target audience for this session will be those aspiring to start their own ag operation, particularly 18 to 25-year-old current or prospective land managers, who are interested in developing the necessary business management and leadership skills to succeed in ranch management.