From the start.

I thought I would start a blog, partly inspired by Kevin Luke's. This will be an insight into the start of my Wife and I striving to get ahead in business, at the moment Dairy Farming, the challenges faced and overcome.

Where it started, about a year ago I finally recovered financially from a failed business venture and had built up my courage to start STRIVING again.
I enlisted the help of a business mentor, who stated it plainly for me.
You are good at what you do, now all you need is a job with excellent cashflow to create money to invest!
So I found that Job in November sharemilking 2000 cows, I applied for it and got the job out of 47 applicants.
That was great, mission completed, well not quite.... this job requires me to provide approx $300,000 worth of machinery, employ up to 12 staff and secure a $150,000 seasonal facility to pay bills until the first milk cheque comes through. And I have no equity to speak of, bar cash funds of approx $70,000, which will be used up in deposits for various equipment.
At the same time as this I used some saved tax money to buy cows as they were relatively cheap at the time, hoping to generate some further cash.( I am now selling these cows for more than double what I payed for them in just six months.)
With the thought in my mind that anything can be achieved if you but try, I signed the contract in December with none of these finances sorted.

To date I have succeeded in securing seasonal finance to the tune of 150k( I got turned down by four major banks)
I have secured 260k worth of machinery finance with low interest and deferred payments to ease the cashflow in the first six months.
I have 5 of 6 fulltime staff signed up for the new job.

Still a lot to get achieved before June 1st roles around, I will keep you updated.

The biggest thing I have learnt from this is that, if you set your mind to something and the figures stack up, don't listen to negative people, don't give up when you get told no repeatedly.
And most of all back yourself 150%.