This week I've been preparing for my next marketing school scheduled for the first week of April. I am the only instructor who applies buy and sell marketing in my daily life, so I understand the importance of using real weights and real sales prices from actual sold drafts. I'm the only one who does this. This means you'll be spending time observing sales to collect materials for your next school session.
Preparing for marketing school
Yesterday I observed internet sales in 13 different states. And what I saw excited me. If you're not as excited as I am, there are obviously some things you don't know. Typically, you have to watch the sale for a while (sometimes an hour or more) to get the materials you need.
I watched the sale for a bit yesterday and saw drafts sold for less than 20 copies. And just like that I was able to get the example I wanted. In his 20 years of buying and selling marketing, he can only remember a few times when the market was as fluid as it is now. Currently, there is a plethora of relationships available to profit-oriented cattlemen. I say excessive because there is no way to take advantage of all of them.
Profit rate
It feels like the market is trying to make a splash to get our attention. At the Arizona sale, ropers were able to sell their large roping geldings and trade them in for smaller fresh roping geldings for a handsome profit. In Oklahoma and Missouri, I've seen lightweight feeder bulls selling for well over $4. A large lot of Nebraska black 4-weight heifers cost well over $193,000.
There are currently some opportunities to earn unpaid margin, but it also means that due to the natural law of polarity, there are also trades that incur large losses. This is the beauty of legal buy-sell marketing and Cattle Square, where we can see in real time what we can and cannot do to make ourselves prosperous. You can take control of the situation because you can earn profits on the exchange. As I said earlier, sometimes you don't know if you can't see it.
gain value
This week, the Plains states experienced a trough effect, or inverted bell curve, in steer gain values (VOG). VOG in heifers decreased steadily with increasing body weight. VOG in the South was also on a steady decline for both men and women.
I've received quite a few calls from people who have sold these undervalued classes and are wondering if they should keep their money or buy the next bunch. I asked them a few questions and they found out that he was hated on one or two sales. I also found out that they went to different marketing schools. That school gave them the idea that selling an undervalued set was considered a liquidation, and a buyback was a virgin buy. Guys, we have to make a little effort to achieve excellence. This is why I say things like “keep the needle pointing in the right direction” and “he gets five Best Buys.”
Please be prepared!
Excellence is a mindset, and so is giving up easily. Mindset is all the rage these days when we talk about it, but if you don't believe in it and put it into practice, it's just boring. You'll be there all day, so go to the sale and get comfortable. Pick singles and small bunches. This week, feeder bulls were up to 40 bucks and bowlers were up to 30 bucks. Combine and upgrade them. After all, this is a unique value-added marketing strategy that has been around longer than others. I warn you, if you call me asking for permission to waive, I will not grant it. If you do that, you won't be able to run a profitable business and leave a legacy for the next generation.
Fat is overestimated by feeder weight.
Business opportunities are similarly plentiful for women. Most women sell beyond their intrinsic value (IV). A woman's IV changes significantly every month. This is due to increased expenses, increased weight and calf prices. They don't always cancel each other out. The monthly cost of owning a cow has increased by $45 over the past two years, but most of the increases have been recent.
Comparing the value of a calf to the calf budget announced by the university will make anyone wonder why anyone would keep a cow. This is why you need to learn how to market women. If someone sells a pair of heifers this week and buys back the heifers that were bred in the fall, she could easily earn $1,200 by selling $1,000 worth of value into the market. I would never sell a calf.
Don't forget the difference in values
Not all transactions from spring-born pieces to autumn-born pieces go well. Some people think that by paying attention to the bell curve and avoiding depreciation, you are doing good marketing. This is not the case. We need to pay attention to the difference in value and make sure we are getting paid more for that value than what we are selling to the market.
The bell curve is just a visual aid and a great teaching tool. From heifers of the same color and condition he sells pairs up to 4 year old spring at the same price. Next, in the 5-year-old he had a drop of $300, followed by the drop of $200 in the 6-year-old. This price remained stable until it was called a short solid, where it saw a $500 drop. From heifers bred in the fall he sold for the same amount up to 4 years old, but at 5 years old he sold for $250 less and that price increased from his 5 year old to brachycephalic solid heifers. will be the selling price. Smooth-mouthed cows with cracked mouths were being sold off the scale.
spread of labor
I like to buy these old moms in one-and-done programs. Even if the market for weigh cows goes down, you can still skin a calf cheaper than buying one.
Demand for open replacement heifers is high. At this week's prices, why not spend a few hundred dollars more per animal and buy one that has been in captivity for eight months? The answer is simple: buyer desire creates the market. If these young mothers have not yet given birth, they are considered to have delayed childbirth.
This is a less implicit tip, but cattle buyers buy cattle of all weights year-round. We don't care when you give birth. In fact, we would like to have the calving dates spread out a bit so that we don't have too many eggs within 60 days. If it's too cold to plant corn, it's too cold to raise calves. This is also an easy way to keep costs down. There is no need for expensive feed or equipment to prevent calves from freezing to death. But each to his own. A pair of calves with frozen ears sold for $600 to $800 less. As a buyer, I love bargains.
cost of profit
With such high prices, the loss of death is much more painful than usual. When someone dies, the value is spread across the survivors, which can cause the cost of benefits to fluctuate widely. From a strictly economic perspective, their health and ability to sustain life may become more important than ever. Additionally, understanding price relationships may be more important than ever as price relationships expand. Because taking sides at these price points can easily ruin some businesses. Be intentional and market with purpose.
Doug Ferguson's opinions are not necessarily those of beefProducer.com, beefmagazine.com, or Farm Progress.
