Do you find your plant finances to be a black box? Are financial statements accessible and transparent? Do you know what to measure or how to tell if you're making money?

Join us today, as we interview plant finance and project management expert Dane Creighton about his experiences as a new plant manager and how we recommends wrapping your head around your financial statements.

This leadership series is going to change your life.

Let's get real on what it means to create results. It doesn't mean what you think it means. It means showing up as who you are meant to be and getting ish done till the result is created.

That is it

It's no harder or easier than that. 

I have been doing a lot of thinking and coaching on leadership. And, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of people are failing at it in our food plants...not because they aren't trying...but because they are trying too hard.

What? Heresy...I know.

Here's the thing though...leadership is a learned and learnable skill. I just think we've learned the wrong lessons. I think people are making it way too hard and are suffering a LOT as a result.

This series is designed to start to fix that. We are going to start with how I help my clients set their course of direction and then talk about the process we use for figuring anything out. Finally, I am going to introduce you to a new way of thinking about how to make any decision.

This week, we talk to Travis Stockstill, AKA American Butcher!

Travis is an expert butcher and production manager who has overseen several high-complexity plants in his highly accomplished career, including Ready-to-Eat facilities. He shares some of his personal experiences and gives advice to food production managers of all skill levels.

One of the most awesome things about my life is that I am a graduate of Wellesley College. Being in the "W Network" as we call it brings certain advantages. Not only can I find alums almost anywhere in the world doing anything that I might have a question about, we also have professors that do very interesting work and are more than happy to talk to grads...even ones decades out!

Meet Professor Robert Paarlberg, a political science professor and researcher of ag policy. He and I discussed his new book "Resetting the Table: STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT THE FOOD WE GROW AND EAT"

This discussion was fascinating because we are absolutely more alike than we are different and there are so many solutions on the table for feeding people...not just calories...but food.

More about the book and Professor Paarlberg here

In this week's episode of the New Plant Manager series, we address all of your recent questions by taking a deeper dive into what exactly a gap audit is! In this episode, you'll learn about:

Tune in to find out how to make management life much less difficult and time consuming!

What is the next step in breaking through to make money as a food producer?

Thru questions

Important ones (because yes, there are dumb questions...the ones you don't want answered with the truth)

Questions empower

On today's podcast, I'll teach you the ONE question I ask that changed everything

Ready to get going...

Well, you have a great OPPORTUNITY here... join us at food safety university TODAY.

https://www.foodsafetyuniversity.com/food-safety

In part 3 of our New Plant Manager series, we'll continue on our internal gap audit. This week, we'll be taking a look at the first portion of our Operations Structure, the Facilities Programming. 

We'll take this opportunity to discuss the most important elements of any program:

...as they pertain to your physical assets, such as equipment, facilities and the ground you're built upon.

If you are thinking about opening a business, going into co-packing or thinking about what it is like to work with me...I want to introduce you to some of the best women in the food space on the planet.

Go deep with Jennell and Alicia as we talk about how I have coached them to grow and build their business. 

If you've ever wondered what it is like to be my client...here is your chance to listen in!

Then go check out Casco Bay Creamery.

Have you ever walked into a new management job and wondered, 'Where the heck to I start?' If so, this episode is for you.

In this week's installment of The New Plant Manager series, David discusses the first part of the New Plant Management Model, the Organizational Gap Analysis. 

In other words, we find out about your company's reporting structure and determine what you already have for a robust personnel management program, and what you need and then how to bridge the gap.  It's the first steps to stepping into your new role as a manager in a new plant.