Market Closeout
Weaning is a stop along the way.
Like most cattlemen, I always considered weaning to be an end goal. For most cattlemen who sell their calves at weaning, their focus is on getting cows bred to the right bulls; calving them out; and keeping them alive, healthy and well-fed. All the time, they are focusing on doing it as efficiently and with as few costs as possible. Getting the calves to weaning, with the right genetics, right nutrition and right health status is a monumental task that requires a lot of our focus.
The AngusLink program is designed to give buyers of your calves the information necessary to expand their market access and market flexibility.
It is not surprising that we tend to think of weaning and marketing time as an end point. In some ways it is. It provides us with a tremendous scorecard and lets us know if we get to continue the pursuit for another year, or how well we are doing relative to our peers. It is logical to assume that we have done all that we can do at this point.
However, in the end, we are all in the customer-service business. Customer service doesn’t end at the point of sale. It extends to the point where that person realizes or captures the value of the product you sold them. When we take a step back, it is obvious that you don’t consider the seedstock producer’s job to be over when he sells you a bull. You have written the check, but the transaction isn’t finished until that bull breeds cows for three or four years, their calves enter the marketing stream, or their daughters go back into your herd and that bull is replaced by another.
In reality, if a seedstock producer is looking at things from a customer-service perspective, he is probably committed to helping market calves sired by his bulls and is looking to build a long-term relationship with his customer. They don’t look at it from a transaction standpoint, but from a longer perspective, where that customer has significantly more value over a lifetime than any individual sale would indicate.
The same can be said for the cow-calf producer. That sale is not completed until the feeder, packer and eventual end customer have opportunity to realize value from the product. Of course, the goal isn’t to ever just sell one draft to a particular buyer, but to create a satisfied customer who wishes to continue to do business with you over the long haul.
The AngusLinkSM program is designed to give buyers of your calves the information necessary to expand their market access and market flexibility. It is designed to help you provide buyers with the information they need to assign value, to manage your cattle properly going forward, and to put them in front of as many potential buyers as possible. The end goal is to create an exchange of information that promotes long-term relationships and continuous improvement.
Editor’s note: Troy Marshall is the director of commercial industry relations for the American Angus Association.
