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This study elicits U.S. agricultural producer preferences for five key management success factors: managing output prices; managing production; controlling costs; managing land/equipment/facilities; and managing people. The objective of this analysis was to determine the relative importance of each of the five profitcentric functional areas of management among U.S. farm managers. Significant heterogeneity in preferences was observed over the management areas. Farm managers, on average, placed the highest importance in controlling costs (29% preference share). Differences emerged among groups of farmers in a latent class model where managing people became relatively important to the viability of the agribusiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]