The AgriCoach Podcast by The Financial Bloke

What if the reason you can't find good people has nothing to do with where your farm is — and everything to do with how you're showing up?
Finding and keeping top talent in agriculture is one of the most pressing challenges facing farming families today — and it's only getting harder. With a retirement cliff looming, a shrinking pool of skilled workers, and a generation that thinks and works differently than any before it, the old ways of hiring simply don't cut it anymore. But here's the thing: the farms that are winning this battle aren't necessarily the biggest or the best resourced. They're the ones who've figured out what great people actually want — and how to communicate it.
In this episode, Ben Law sits down with Kelli McDougall, Partner and Managing Director of Agri Talent, a woman who grew up between Inglewood and Goondiwindi, built her own recruitment business at 25, and has spent the better part of three decades placing top-tier talent across the agricultural sector. She sits squarely in the middle of both sides of this conversation — hearing what farming families are frustrated about, and what high performers are quietly walking away from.
What she's seeing should make every farming family sit up and pay attention.
Kelli unpacks why over 80% of the best placements Agri Talent makes are headhunts — meaning those people weren't even looking — and what that tells you about where the real competition for talent actually lives. She gets into the uncomfortable truth about why good people leave good employers, and why it's rarely about money. She talks about what your housing says about your standards, why a half-billion-dollar farming operation with zero online presence is raising red flags with 30-year-old candidates, and what the difference is between telling people you're a great place to work and actually being one.
There's also a conversation about the tectonic demographic shifts reshaping who's available to work in agriculture over the next decade — and why automation and authenticity may be your two most powerful recruitment tools going forward.
Whether you're trying to attract your first farm manager or hold onto the best operator you've ever had, this episode will change how you think about the people side of your business. 
🌾 About Agri Talent Agri Talent is one of Australia's most respected agricultural recruitment specialists. They place permanent and executive talent across the full spectrum of ag — from hands-on farm roles to senior leadership — and they bring genuine industry knowledge to every brief. If you're looking for the right people for your farming enterprise, they're worth a conversation. 
👉 Learn more about Agri Talent here: https://www.agritalent.com.au/
👉 Learn more about Global People Solutions here: https://www.globalpeoplesolutions.com.au/
If this podcast has ever added value to your farming business, we'd love for you to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
https://pod.link/1598835360
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Ben Law is a coach to some of Australia's most successful farming families. He was raised on the land — three generations of farming in his blood — and has spent almost 30 years and more than 40,000 hours alongside farming families, first as their financial adviser and now as their coach. Along the way he learned the truth nobody talks about: what makes or breaks a family legacy isn't the money — it's whether the family can communicate, get aligned, and prepare the next generation before succession arrives.
That's what this podcast is about. Each fortnight Ben sits down with farming families, trusted advisers and industry experts to unpack how to build a family that thrives across generations — strong in business, strong in relationships, and set up to hand over the farm without losing each other.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this podcast is general in nature and for education purposes only. It is not financial advice. It is not legal advice. No one should act on the information without appropriate specific advice for your particular circumstances. Ben Law is a former financial advisor but is no longer licensed and cannot and will not give you specific or personal advice in this podcast. The Financial Bloke Group Pty Ltd accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage occasioned by any person acting or refraining from action as a result of reliance on the information in this podcast.

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Most farming families have a good year, watch the money come in — and then quietly wonder, sometime in March, where it all went. Not because anyone was reckless. Not because anyone wasn't working hard. But because profit without a plan doesn't stay put. It gravitates toward whatever's urgent, whatever's default, whatever no one got around to deciding.
In this mini episode, Ben Law — The Financial Bloke — puts a name to something that happens quietly on farms across the country: the gap between what a family earns and what it actually decides to do with that money. It's a gap most families don't even know exists until they sit down and look at it.
Ben shares the single clearest signal he's found in high-performing farming families — something that separates the ones genuinely building wealth across generations from those working just as hard and getting a fraction of the result. It's not about scale, location, or what the season did. It's about one conversation. And whether your family is having it.
He also unpacks the four-bucket framework he uses with clients — a simple but surprisingly confronting way of thinking about where profit should go. What makes it confronting isn't the framework itself. It's the exercise at the end: the moment when family members who thought they were on the same page realise they've each been operating off entirely different assumptions about what the money is actually for.
If the next generation in your family feels like they're not quite at the real table yet — or if money conversations tend to get started and never quite finished — this one's worth eleven minutes of your time.
If this podcast has ever added value to your farming business, we'd love for you to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
https://pod.link/1598835360
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Ben Law is a coach to some of Australia's most successful farming families. He was raised on the land — three generations of farming in his blood — and has spent almost 30 years and more than 40,000 hours alongside farming families, first as their financial adviser and now as their coach. Along the way he learned the truth nobody talks about: what makes or breaks a family legacy isn't the money — it's whether the family can communicate, get aligned, and prepare the next generation before succession arrives.
That's what this podcast is about. Each fortnight Ben sits down with farming families, trusted advisers and industry experts to unpack how to build a family that thrives across generations — strong in business, strong in relationships, and set up to hand over the farm without losing each other.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this podcast is general in nature and for education purposes only. It is not financial advice. It is not legal advice. No one should act on the information without appropriate specific advice for your particular circumstances. Ben Law is a former financial advisor but is no longer licensed and cannot and will not give you specific or personal advice in this podcast. The Financial Bloke Group Pty Ltd accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage occasioned by any person acting or refraining from action as a result of reliance on the information in this podcast.

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What separates the farming families who build something that lasts from those who simply survive? If you're honest about it, the answer rarely comes down to rainfall averages or commodity prices. It comes down to the decisions made by the people running the show — and the mindset they bring to every one of them.
Tim McGavin grew up off-grid in western Queensland, raised by a semi-literate father who could barely read but understood hard work, thrift, and responsibility better than most MBA graduates ever will. From aerial mustering in the outback to founding Laguna Bay — one of Australia's most respected agricultural investment funds — Tim's path was never linear, never planned, and never easy. But it was built on a foundation that very few people talk about openly: knowing who you are, thinking for yourself, and being willing to make decisions when no one's watching.
In this conversation with Ben Law, Tim gets refreshingly direct about what it actually takes for the next generation to step into a life worth leading — whether that's on the land, in business, or somewhere in between. What should ambitious young people in agriculture be doing with their twenties that most of them aren't? What does it really mean to back yourself when the conditions are bad and the pressure is on? And when it comes to succession, what's the conversation that simply has to happen before a next-gen kid comes home to the family business — and what goes badly wrong when it doesn't?
Tim also unpacks his involvement in Marcus Minds, a free online high-performance resource born out of a real problem at Marcus Oldham Agricultural College. The principles behind it aren't reserved for elite athletes or Formula One drivers — they're the same fundamentals that help any person, on any block of ground, make better decisions and build better habits over time. What does high performance actually look like when you strip it back to what matters? Tim has a very clear answer, and it might surprise you.
There's also a broader conversation here about the kind of thinking that produces long-term wealth and resilience — avoiding groupthink, understanding your own psychology, developing financial literacy, and learning to read the economic conditions that will shape farming families' futures in the decades ahead. Tim doesn't sugarcoat it. He sees both the opportunity and the threat clearly, and he's worth listening to.
This is one for the young people heading out into the world — and equally for the generation handing the reins across. 
If this podcast has ever added value to your farming business, we'd love for you to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
https://pod.link/1598835360
-----------------------

Ben Law is a coach to some of Australia's most successful farming families. He was raised on the land — three generations of farming in his blood — and has spent almost 30 years and more than 40,000 hours alongside farming families, first as their financial adviser and now as their coach. Along the way he learned the truth nobody talks about: what makes or breaks a family legacy isn't the money — it's whether the family can communicate, get aligned, and prepare the next generation before succession arrives.
That's what this podcast is about. Each fortnight Ben sits down with farming families, trusted advisers and industry experts to unpack how to build a family that thrives across generations — strong in business, strong in relationships, and set up to hand over the farm without losing each other.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this podcast is general in nature and for education purposes only. It is not financial advice. It is not legal advice. No one should act on the information without appropriate specific advice for your particular circumstances. Ben Law is a former financial advisor but is no longer licensed and cannot and will not give you specific or personal advice in this podcast. The Financial Bloke Group Pty Ltd accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage occasioned by any person acting or refraining from action as a result of reliance on the information in this podcast.

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Markets are behaving in ways that don't seem to match the headlines. Conflict in the Middle East, the Strait of Hormuz under threat, oil briefly pushing $120 a barrel, inflation creeping back, interest rates moving the wrong way — and yet equity markets keep printing fresh all-time highs. If you've been watching your superannuation balance climb while quietly wondering what on earth is actually holding the whole thing together, you are not alone. In Episode 126 of The AgriCoach Wealth & Wisdom Podcast, Ben Law sits down with David Berthon-Jones, Chief Investment Officer and Founding Partner at Aequitas Investment Partners, for a candid conversation about what's really driving global markets right now — and what intergenerational farming families need to be paying close attention to as they think about long-term wealth, off-farm investments, and succession planning across decades, not quarters.
David manages and advises on roughly eight billion dollars of client capital, and he brings a refreshingly honest perspective to a moment that most commentators are either talking up or shouting down. He and Ben get into the AI capital expenditure wave fuelling the so-called Magnificent Seven, the quiet accounting questions underneath those valuations, and why the panic that used to follow geopolitical shocks seems to have evaporated at the index level — even as individual stocks get punished savagely. They also turn the lens home to Australia: rising fuel prices, stubborn inflation, a Reserve Bank with fewer levers than it had six months ago, the housing affordability question that other comparable countries have already started answering, and the productivity backdrop that every primary producer is feeling on the ground.
For farming families thinking decades ahead, the conversation moves into the territory that really matters. How should off-farm wealth be structured when valuations are rich and the macro picture is murky? Where does cash, fixed income, and genuine diversification fit when growth assets have done all the heavy lifting? And what's the single most common mistake David sees in self-directed portfolios that quietly undermines a family's succession plan before the next generation even gets a look at the books? Ben and David also touch on the lessons from the dot-com era, why Warren Buffett is sitting on an extraordinary cash position right now, and what that signals to patient capital with a multi-generational horizon.
If your family balance sheet stretches across the farm gate and the share market, and you want a clear-eyed read on what's worth worrying about — and what's worth ignoring — this is an episode worth your time. Tune in for a grounded, thoughtful conversation about protecting and growing family wealth in a market that's quietly daring everyone to look away. 
If this podcast has ever added value to your farming business, we'd love for you to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
https://pod.link/1598835360
-----------------------

Ben Law is a coach to some of Australia's most successful farming families. He was raised on the land — three generations of farming in his blood — and has spent almost 30 years and more than 40,000 hours alongside farming families, first as their financial adviser and now as their coach. Along the way he learned the truth nobody talks about: what makes or breaks a family legacy isn't the money — it's whether the family can communicate, get aligned, and prepare the next generation before succession arrives.
That's what this podcast is about. Each fortnight Ben sits down with farming families, trusted advisers and industry experts to unpack how to build a family that thrives across generations — strong in business, strong in relationships, and set up to hand over the farm without losing each other.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this podcast is general in nature and for education purposes only. It is not financial advice. It is not legal advice. No one should act on the information without appropriate specific advice for your particular circumstances. Ben Law is a former financial advisor but is no longer licensed and cannot and will not give you specific or personal advice in this podcast. The Financial Bloke Group Pty Ltd accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage occasioned by any person acting or refraining from action as a result of reliance on the information in this podcast.

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Most farming families don’t fall apart because of one bad decision.
They fall apart because of a conversation that kept getting put off.
In this short, straight-shooting mini episode, Ben Law tackles a habit that quietly drains momentum, trust, and future options in family businesses — not through drama, but through delay. The kind that feels sensible at the time. The kind that buys comfort today and creates pain later.
If you’ve ever thought “now’s not the right time”, “we’ll deal with it after this season”, or “things are travelling okay for now” — this episode will stop you in your tracks.
It speaks to parents watching the next generation circle closer to the business… to sons and daughters wondering where they actually fit… and to families who sense a drift forming but can’t quite name it.
This isn’t about scare tactics or worst-case scenarios.
It’s about recognising the small warning signs early — while the fix is still manageable and the future still flexible.
Short. Practical. Uncomfortable in the right way.
One idea. One metaphor you won’t forget. And one quiet question that might change what you choose to address next. 
If this podcast has ever added value to your farming business, we'd love for you to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
https://pod.link/1598835360
-----------------------

Ben Law is a coach to some of Australia's most successful farming families. He was raised on the land — three generations of farming in his blood — and has spent almost 30 years and more than 40,000 hours alongside farming families, first as their financial adviser and now as their coach. Along the way he learned the truth nobody talks about: what makes or breaks a family legacy isn't the money — it's whether the family can communicate, get aligned, and prepare the next generation before succession arrives.
That's what this podcast is about. Each fortnight Ben sits down with farming families, trusted advisers and industry experts to unpack how to build a family that thrives across generations — strong in business, strong in relationships, and set up to hand over the farm without losing each other.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this podcast is general in nature and for education purposes only. It is not financial advice. It is not legal advice. No one should act on the information without appropriate specific advice for your particular circumstances. Ben Law is a former financial advisor but is no longer licensed and cannot and will not give you specific or personal advice in this podcast. The Financial Bloke Group Pty Ltd accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage occasioned by any person acting or refraining from action as a result of reliance on the information in this podcast.

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