Neil Dudley: The Cowboy Perspective, well, it might be hard to define, but I guarantee if you think about it, you’ve got one in mind. Whether you’re building a legacy, an empire, or a fan base, I bet when your friends look at you, they see some cowboy in your face. Y’all come along, let’s talk about this or that. Maybe when we’re done, you’ll go away with another perspective to put under your hat.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Cowboy Perspective. If you’ve been here before, glad you’re back. If this is the first time listening, thank you for giving us a shot. I hope we provide you some value in this show. And I got to just introduce this couple that we talked to in this episode, I talked to. I want to say we because it was my birthday and we’re getting ready to go out to dinner with a group of friends so there was a bunch of people in the room. Well, anyways, I can’t wait for you to meet Jason and Christie Beyer. They’re such a great couple. And they’ve got a lot of great insights and perspectives on life and business and how to do it, or how it’s been, at least how they’ve done it. And I think that just always helps to see how somebody else did it, think about how that might play for you, and then take that chance. Jason turned out to be a friend, he’s been a mentor, he’s a guy that has helped me and Peterson’s, and Cody, this team along the way with just help, simple things like how do you calculate production yield, stuff like that. So, I really value his insights and thought process. And I’m rambling along a little bit. And Christie was there with us, and she chimed in a time or two on some different things. I hope you really get something from it, and I believe you will. Thanks for listening. Let’s get to the show with Mr. and Mrs. Jason Beyer.
Hey, everybody out there, thanks for joining in. This is going to be my 43rd birthday episode, and I’ve finally talked a good friend of mine to come and join us and lend his cowboy perspective. And we’re lucky enough to have his significant other sitting in the room, too. And we might talk her into saying something or shame or into it. I don’t know how that’ll go exactly. But I’m really looking forward to talking about some things and just seeing where the conversation takes us. I don’t know what else to say. I’m just pumped up. Thanks for coming, Jason. The guy’s name is Jason Beyer and that’s B E Y E R, for all those that want to go Google him. It’s not B U Y E R. He doesn’t buy everything. How many times does that get misspelled?
Jason Beyer: A lot. And usually, they’d put an S on it, too.
Neil Dudley: Okay. So, first things first, nobody- Well, a lot of people know who you are, but potentially some of my listeners don’t. So, give us an idea of who you are, where’d you come from? What was growing up like for you?
Jason Beyer: Oh, that’s a long story. Born here in Stephenville. And raised most of my life here in Stephenville and some up in Joshua area when I was younger, but come back and matter of fact, even bought my dad’s house and moved into his bedroom, kicked him out of the house. So, I hadn’t moved far, just down the hall.
Neil Dudley: Well, and that’s pretty cool because he just called you. He is worried about getting to watch the fight. So, I guess everybody’s going to know – well, I don’t know if I want to reveal my birthday. Heck I don’t care. January 23rd. So, there’s a big fight, MMA fight, and your dad wanted to be sure and catch it. So, he needed to call and make sure where to watch that. Jim’s a pretty good character in himself, right there. We might have to try to tell a story on Jim or two as we get along here. Anyways, so you grew up in Stephenville. I’m sorry. I cut in and you got to tell me, Neil, shut up, I’m trying to tell this story, it’s not yours.
Jason Beyer: So anyway, before that graduated from [Lineville], did not go to college, professional rodeoed for four years, and met Christie, my wife. And we ended up getting married and moved to Dexter, New Mexico, or Roswell, New Mexico, and built a cattle auction facility out there, similar to the one my father has here in Stephenville. And we’re out there for four years. Yeah, four years. And then moved back and built the packing plant and started get into the beef business and veal business and been doing that for 25 years, I guess, and going to continue and add on and grow that and just working hard.
Neil Dudley: Yep. So, brothers, sisters, anything like that?
Jason Beyer: Yeah, I got a half-brother Jeff, he lives in Clovis and runs an auction out there and runs that New Mexico. And then a half-brother and sister, that one lives here in Stephenville and works out at Lonestar Ag Credit and Lonestar Land – well, y’all are going to have to edit that. I don’t even know the name of it.
Neil Dudley: The bank, let’s just call it, a banker. Oh, and anybody listening to my podcast knows I’ve got to improve my relationship with the banking industry because of, I don’t know, I just wish bankers would hand me money every time I walk in there and say I want it. And they don’t; they want information, they want plans. I’m not the biggest fan of those things. Okay, cool. What about your mom? I mean, so I know you, and I know this about you, you’re a kind of a pretty tenacious kind of go-getter type. Where does that come from?
Jason Beyer: I’d say I probably got that from my dad. I mean, he taught me you got to work hard to play hard, so we do work hard and try to be first. So, I think that’s where I got that. My mother, too, is very, I don’t know the word for it, but she doesn’t procrastinate on anything, she’s right away. But yeah, she’s actually retiring and moving home to her home place, which is next door to our ranch. So, she’s going to be living right down the road here in a few months.
Neil Dudley: That’s cool. It’s so fun, too, that you had both of your parents, like relationship with them anyways. I mean, I’m not saying, I don’t know. Were they together? Were they not together? Did they get a divorce? How did that affect you?
Jason Beyer: Oh yeah, I was one year old. And lived with her until I was 14 and then decided a long-term future would be down here in Stephenville. So, I moved down here.
Neil Dudley: Is that where the Joshua piece of the story came from? There you go. See, and as much as we know each other, I didn’t really know that piece of your life. And I think there’s probably a lot of people listening that have gone through just split families and having stepbrothers and sisters. You need to open a beer? Okay, good. Okay, cool. And see, this is the coolest thing about it – like, whatever, if you’re clicking, just do it. Johnny takes it out. You don’t even have to worry about it. So, you just don’t worry about it. Don’t look at Christie. She’s worried about it. Christie, now might be the time for you to pick up the phone and get involved in this conversation in some way, other than, hey, quit popping your little pop socket on your phone, hey, be quiet. Listen, this is nothing but fun. All we are doing here is talking about stuff that you know without even looking at- you just know it. And I think that people listening, I love to give that history because somebody out there, some guy, some girl, anybody saying that’s kind of like my story.
Jason Beyer: I’d like to say, too, I was very fortunate to have great stepparents that supported everything that our family did and I did, and that was that was a help, too.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, I mean, my best friend Cody, which I talk about him all the time on here, he lived through a divorce. There’s no way that doesn’t affect you in some way. And you mentioned it greatly there, the stepparents and stepbrothers and sisters, all that stuff just plays into your perspective and what you end up- who you end up being in life. So, I like painting that picture. Okay. Really cool. Now, so everybody’s got a little bit of an idea of where Jason came from and who he is. Is there any piece of that story that we might ought to paint a little more brightly or something? You did some dairy stuff. Was that part of as a kid or is that once you got a little older?
Jason Beyer: No, that was part of the childhood. My family always dairied and milked cows and had the auction barns. Dad started in ’74 up in Cleburne, Texas, with this first sale barn and moved down here in ’88 I believe.
Neil Dudley: What’s his story a little bit? Let’s explore that a little bit. Where did he come from? Is from around here?
Jason Beyer: He grew up on the dairy farm, and right out here is where we live, and we still live on the dairy. And it’s still there. We just use it for a feedlot mostly, and a truck wash out. But yeah, it was one of the largest dairies back in the early seventies, the large dairies in the country. I mean, they were milking a couple thousand cows in the seventies in one facility, which was pretty unique back in those days. And they ended up, the milk base got eliminated, and so, everybody could make all the milk they could, and all these dairies popped up in Erath County back then. And back in the day, I believe we had close to 400 dairies here. Now we’re down to 40. So, they sold the cows and that was his first auction. And he fell in love with the auction business, and he went and bought him a sale barn in Cleburne, Texas. Used to be a lot of dairies in Johnson County and went up there, and then, it exploded down here, too. And he built this barn and then it exploded out in Roswell, and me and Christie and him partnered up, moved out to Roswell, New Mexico, and built another one. Then later on, my brother, he grew up, he’s eight years younger than me. He finally got a little old enough and mature enough, and we developed one and built one out there or bought one and renovated it. So yeah, we’ve been in the auction business our whole life.
Neil Dudley: Awesome. Yeah. I mean, that’s a really cool piece of it that I’ve not heard. I mean, I’m curious about a lot of things. I want the audience to hear it, but a lot of it is for me, too. I’m like, dang, now I got a chance to ask him all these questions I’ve always kind of wanted to, but never had, we just never got on the topic in conversation. So, you’re talking about auction barns. One thing I want to tell everybody listening is Jason supports charity in a big way. That’s one of the topics we’ll probably touch on a little bit later. But as an auctioneer, he can come and help a charity auction do really well. And he does that for us. And we’re talking about auction barns. Was that kind of a de facto thing you had to learn how to do was be an auctioneer? Or was it a thing that you kind of wanted to do?
Jason Beyer: Yeah, really growing up, I saw my dad, he was an auctioneer, and he got the world’s opportunities, and auctioneer’s today will tell you if you’re [inaudible], if you’re holding this microphone, you get a lot of opportunities that are just given to you or asked for you or asked of you, and you get to meet a lot of people, and you develop a good relationship, a good group of folks that you do business with. So, yeah, I mean, it was a passion. And it’s a lot easier sitting up there auctioneering then working in the back.
Neil Dudley: So, the second you knew you could develop those skills, you could get off running the gates in the back and that kind of thing. Do you have to go to school to be an auctioneer? Or is that just a thing that you learned, picked up watching?
Jason Beyer: Yeah, I never went to school. My dad taught me. And he just – I don’t know how detailed you want to get – but we’d count telephone poles driving down the road and sell out the mailboxes. And if you get real good, you can do fence posts instead of telephone poles, but you got to be talking pretty fast or slowed down.
Neil Dudley: I think you’ve told me that story before, and I doubt remember it since you said it is, hey, that’s a cowboy thing to me – you find a way to learn something in a different way. You don’t have to go to school to learn everything. Sometimes you can learn it driving down the road, selling fence posts or mailboxes or whatever. So, I want you guys and gals out there listening to think about what is it you’re doing every day that you could add a little bit of learning into it as you go? Because Jason certainly did, and now he’s built a career. The other thing you touched on that is just a common theme in every podcast I ever do, is network – the people you know, how do you grow your network, how do you make your network valuable. Let’s explore that a bit. Maybe it’s a good time to even talk about the SMA because that’s a great way to build a network for anybody that’s in the meat business or wants to sell to the meat business.
Jason Beyer: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, network, that’s what’s made me. It’s not what I know, it’s who I know and how I’ve done it. But you got to challenge your network and ask them for help and ask them for their advice and listen to them because they’re not worth anything if you don’t use them.
Neil Dudley: Right, don’t be scared to ask. I mean, I’ve asked you for things and you’ve gave me things. And sometimes you don’t and that doesn’t mean we’re sideways. It just means, hey, I mean, you’ve tapped that little faucet enough for a little while or whatever it was. Maybe that didn’t work. It’s happened to me a lot. Like I think you have to get used to being, don’t be afraid to ask for help. That takes a little bit of what I always say, you got to be humble, hungry, and smart, and you got to have that humility to say, hey, will you help me? And a lot of times, people in your network will gladly help you. I help anybody I can because people have helped me. And I know, Jason, you’re the same way. So that Southwest Meat Association is a thing I just wanted to talk about and plug a little bit because they’ve been really great for Peterson’s and our business. And you’ve played leadership roles all over the Southwest Meat Association. I guess let’s give the listener, somebody that might be listening, the pitch for being a part of that.
Jason Beyer: Yeah, the Southwest Meat Association is, we wouldn’t be in business, Christie and I and D.L. and Beverly, my partners, if it wasn’t for that organization. We had some great, I call them old, old men. But when we got in, and I was young, I mean, ’92, I wasn’t but 30 years old I guess, and started the meat business, and I never cut a piece of meat, sold piece of meat, except at the grocery store in my life or in the kitchen. And we wanted to get in the business, and we had an opportunity because of the veal business, the baby calf and the dairy deal was really depressed, and they had nowhere to go with these calves, and you couldn’t afford to raise them. And so, we jumped in and started doing that. And then helping, we knew we needed to learn to process cows and bulls. But we did start in the veal business. But anyway, the old SMA guys like Bob Ondrusek and Morris Bolton, there’s been several of them, Don Rea, just jumped in and gave, like you said, just helped us and started developing network with them. And they introduced me to people that would buy our products and people that would sell us supplies and boxes and give us an honest deal. And yeah, just started there. And like you said, I’ve been on the scholarship foundation since we started the Bob Ondrusek Scholarship Foundation. I can’t even tell you how long ago that was – 12, 14, 15 years ago. And then moved up through the board and became vice chair and chairman and convention chair. And I still do a lot, and we’re going to have our mid-year convention virtual, and we’re going to launch it from our plant here in Stephenville at ABF Packing on February 10th. So, it’s free. If you want to register, just go to SMA, Southwestmeat.org.
Neil Dudley: Johnny, we want to be sure and get that stuff in the show notes about the SMA Meat Association and that conference we’re talking about. If I need to help you with that, let me know. We can find it and be sure and put it in the show notes. For everybody listening that may have missed some of that little sidebar I gave to the producer, Johnny Peterson, which maybe I’ll just give him a shout out. I really appreciate everything he does for me. A lot of the podcast I’ll do, and as we’re going, if there’s something I want Johnny to think about when he hears what we’re talking about, I’ll just start talking to Johnny. A minute ago, I did it, and Jason’s like, well, who’s Johnny? Where’s Johnny? Well, he’s listening later once this recording gets to his desk. Well, anyways, Johnny does a great job, he helps me make this thing valuable or more valuable. I think any honest conversations, it’s just here to tell people, hey, this is what I know, it doesn’t mean I’m the most brilliant person ever. But it’s, I am where I am, and I’m going to tell you what I know. I think it’s valuable people. I think they hear that, there’s a chance there’s something in there, like you were saying, I never cut a piece of meat in my life, I just started a meat packing plant. Similar thing happened to us at Peterson’s, which I wasn’t there for it, but I tell the story all the time like it is my story. Cody was there, he got hired to be the marketing guy, and then-
Jason Beyer: We actually sold you our veal plant to start Peterson’s because y’all’s burned down in Clifton, I believe, or somewhere over there, and y’all needed to place. And I don’t remember the gentleman’s name. He walked in and said, “Who owns this joint?” And I was, shoot, 28 or 29. I said I did. And he said, “Well, I’m going to buy it.” And I said, “Excuse me, I just opened six months ago.” He said, “You didn’t hear me, son. I’m buying this plant,” and he wrote me a check, and I had to get the heck out.
Neil Dudley: Well, see, now, did you negotiate a good price? At the time you thought it was?
Jason Beyer: No, that’s probably the first time I was mad at myself for not asking enough. Because he didn’t care one way or another, he just wrote me a check. So, I mean, I was being fair, but I didn’t know what it was worth. And we had only been open six months, and we were just starting up, so we weren’t making any money. But we were learning, and we wanted a bigger plant anyway. So, I said, well, might as well, and we moved to here and started building this one with that down payment. We went and got a loan at the bank for a lot more. And the rest is history.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. I do think those bankers play such a valuable role in helping people get the funds they need to move on, to try the next thing. So earlier in the podcast, I said I don’t have a great relationship with bankers. That might be a little bit of a lie. I think they play such an integral role as a support mechanism for entrepreneurs, business owners. And they have to think about a lot of things. I mean, when you’re sitting in that banker seat, you got to think about, oh, this person hasn’t paid their bills in six months, but we got to keep them alive because they’re a cog in the wheel that can’t fail at the moment.
Jason Beyer: I remember we were having tough times, and it was probably five years into after we started. And we were having tough times, and I was still auctioneering, still working everywhere else. And we never drew any paychecks and same thing with D.L. and it got to the point where I went down to the bank and had the keys in my hand. He said, “What’s up?” And I said, “Well, you got two choices. You can take these keys to the plant, it’s yours, or you can loan me $50,000.” And he loaned me the $50,000. And after that, we took off and never looked back.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, see right there’s a little bit of salesman. I think, to be an entrepreneur, to be a guy, you got to have a little bit of salesman. That was just the perfect way to go in and tell the banker you knew you had- like look, you can have the keys or give me some money.
Jason Beyer: We weren’t making money. He wasn’t supposed to loan us money. And they wouldn’t probably do that today. But back then, it was family or a little community bank here in town and they stepped up.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. One of my favorite stories, or you told this to me recently, and I keep remembering it because I thought it was just so cool, the start of your company, the name of it is ABF. Now tell the story of how you came up with ABF.
Jason Beyer: Well, my partner’s name is Funderburgh, and my name is Beyer. And back then, our competitors all were like H&B and L&H. And we didn’t want to be B&F. We wanted to be three letters, I guess, more like IBP. We wanted to be a little bigger. But we’re driving down the road, and the lawyer calls me and goes, “Hey, I got file these dang corporate papers in Austin today. I got to have a name.” So, me and D.L. were driving down road, I think we’re going to Abilene for something, I can’t remember. But I just, I said, “Well, just make an ABF so we’re first in the phone book.”
Neil Dudley: Yeah, I love that. And that was a great- I mean, it could have been on the spur of the moment, but at the time, when phone books were the place people went to find business, to do business, you got first on the list. It’s kind of like having great SEO these days and being first in the search on Google or wherever somebody is going. Oh, Christy, no, you can’t leave. If you got to take the call, you can take it. I love that story.
Jason Beyer: Back then the newspaper was where you found everybody, and I’d go to Dallas, I’d go up there in a hotel room or whatever, and I’d be ripping pages out of the dang phone book, the meat brokers and wholesalers and meat markets, so I could go knock on a door and sell them meat. And I still got that book that I saved, my old phone book, and it’s sitting there, and I was looking through it the other day, and sure enough, I’d stuck all of them newspaper, I mean, them phone book pages in there. And it was pretty crazy to see how many of them aren’t around anymore.
Neil Dudley: Well, right. And then just think back on the grind to get that business off the ground. I love to paint that picture. It seems like anybody I talk to that has built a successful business, there’s that time period of grind in it. You got to dig it out of the dirt. You got to go tear pages out of the phone book and call every single one of them. Anybody out there listening, that’s what it takes to build a business. It’s just not going to poof up out of nowhere and be successful for you.
Jason Beyer: Yeah. Back then I was trying to, I was just doing the math and trying to sell meat, we were processing 7,800 cows a year. We just finished 2020 and we did 85,000 head this year, so long ways from 7,800.
Neil Dudley: And along the way – I say this a lot, I don’t know how much water it should hold, but it is a real philosophy of mine – stay in business, just stay in business, stay in business, keep- Eventually, be willing to shift or think a little differently about things, but stay in business. And it’s worked for me in my career. It sounds like it’s worked for you guys and your career, and you’ve parlayed that into a lot of different things. I mean, just the other day you were carrying around a bag of quarters. You’ve got a car wash – I mean, you just do a lot of different things, which I aspire to. I mean, I’ll watch you and I’m like, dang, what would Jason do in this situation? That’s I want to think about that. And maybe let’s explore that a little bit. We’re in the COVID-19, you got invested in a hotel. So, tell the audience a little bit about what that’s like. I mean, because that’s going to happen to people. You can’t predict – well, maybe you can, maybe you know better than I do – I feel like you can’t predict every little thing that may come up and create a roadblock for your business. So maybe the hotel business is a pretty good spot to start. I don’t know. I don’t know the intricacies of it. Maybe you could show us.
Jason Beyer: Yeah. The hotel business is new to us. We decided to invest and build a hotel in a 1926 skyscraper, 10 story building in downtown Amarillo. And I can’t tell you what we were thinking when we did that, but it’s been an adventure. Construction’s been, COVID has really slowed that down. We had several bumpy months there getting people to come to work. But we decided to diversify, and that was one thing we want to do is hospitality. And we thought it would be a good idea and we still think it is. But we’re not open yet. So, I can’t tell you yet, but maybe we can do another one of these podcasts here in five years and I’ll tell you how it’s going. But our plans, we’re going to open right now in April, I believe, or May, 1st of May. It’s a Marriott Autograph Collection is the flag, and it’s called the Barfield and you can go to thebarfield.com website and check it out. We are getting very close to finished.
Neil Dudley: Isn’t it a historical landmark in Amarillo, too? I don’t guess you’re probably up there getting all the permits and stuff, but I could only imagine that would drive me nuts to try to permit that thing.
Jason Beyer: Yeah, no, we’ve got a good team of folks that are taking care of all the paperwork and the nitty gritty and working with the Historical Society down in Austin and then also the Federal Historic Commission. So yeah. It’s going to be really, really upscale, really nice for west Texas. And we believe Amarillo’s the hub of west Texas and everyone’s stopping point on their way west. So, we hope it works out well. And Amarillo has been really good to us. The people up there are good.
Neil Dudley: Go check it out, people, the Barfield, if you’re traveling through Amarillo, and I don’t know, sometime in the near future, not tomorrow. But well, and this podcast may come out at a little different date, a little later date than early January 2021. But anyways, go check it out. I think you’ll know that that’s a place that’s owned by some good people if you’re spending your money there. I always like to spend my money with somebody I feel like I know a little bit or I think that they’re going to give back to the community. Sometimes it’s a little hard to buy from Amazon. I mean, Bezos, I don’t know the guy, but I don’t feel like he’s too worried about central Texas. And I care about central Texas, it’s my people.
Jason Beyer: Oh, we didn’t mention along the road there, we bought Kennedys Sausage in 2010, I believe, or ’11.
Neil Dudley: Oh my gosh. You got to just tell this whole story. I mean seriously because this thing is great. I mean, you just survive, that’s all I can say.
Jason Beyer: So that’s a long story too. They were down and out in the third generation taking it over and it didn’t work out. So, we come in there, and Weldon, the old man that started it, that founded it, me and him worked hard together, and he worked for me a long time. There, I say that, he worked for me for three or four years. And he would go do sales and he’d do salesforce. And he’d tell us where we needed to buy stuff. And so, we were processing big sows and making breakfast sausage and bacon and hams, and he’d go sell. He even passed away doing a sale; he was on the phone with a customer. So, and the customer called me and said, “I think you need to go check on Weldon,” and sure enough he’d passed. It was sad day. But yeah, he was a neat man and neat business, and we built that and tried to grow it, and we’ve grown it very well. And we’ve also added a kettle cook operation and we’re cooking all kinds of soups and sauces and chilis for a some pretty big chains. And we’re always looking for business. So, if you need any kettle products, well, just give me a holler.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, in the spirit of a true salesman, making the plug. But I would tell you to go check out Kennedys Sausage there. That whole company is doing a lot of interesting stuff. The piece that I think really paints a picture of a resilient businessman is the thing burnt down almost, or most of it burnt, and you had to rebuild that. I mean, just that process is a pain. It’s arduous. I mean, maybe you got it totally paid by insurance, so hey people – maybe you didn’t, I don’t know – if it did get insurance, then great. Hey, that’s a paint the picture of keeping insurance.
Jason Beyer: Well, that’s a hard lesson I had to learn – you think you got the right stuff, you got to be your own advocate there, and you got to work hard. And that’s one thing that taught us because we didn’t have enough or the right or this or that. And the lawyers fought it out, and we didn’t win that battle, but we did learn a lesson.
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Yeah. Well, I mean, I think if you’re going to stay in business for any amount of time, you’re going to be in some kind of a legal snag here or there with somebody. So, it’s valuable to think about, Jason said it well, be your own advocate. The insurance companies want to get your premium and never pay. That’s all. I mean, that’s their job. That’s how they make money. The lawyers want to fight the battles. They don’t really care if you win or lose. I mean, they’re getting paid. So, you have to be your own advocate. Look, you’re going to have people that work with you and for you and insurance agents, all those things. They’re great. I have insurance agent friends. They’re going to listen to this; they’re going to think Neil’s a sorry son of a buck. He’s telling people we don’t care about them. That’s a lie – they do care about you. Just think their business model, for them to make money, they have to sell premiums that don’t get paid. I mean, it doesn’t work any other way. So, I just think it was a great insight for everybody that’s listening that may own a business, may be thinking about starting a business, may work for another business, just hey, advocate for yourself, folks. Okay, Jason, what’s our next topic? What’s another thing that we can talk about? I always love this failure perspective. I mean, in my career or life, I feel like I always learned the most from a failure or at least something that hurts so bad I will never forget it. Maybe we just touched on one with the insurance piece. Is there any other thing that you know or can remember quickly that’s like wow, we survived that but it could’ve been the end of it?
Jason Beyer: That’s a good question. There’s been a lot of failures, and you just got to remember them and try not to go down that road again, and stay in business, stay in business, count on your family and count on your team or your network to get you out of those situations because that’s what they’re there for. They don’t want to see you fail. And if you’re doing business with them or you are just friends with them, nobody wants you to fail. And even your competitors, I had some competitors that did help us out of some situations. So, you got to depend on your network, you got to advocate for yourself and you just got to fight and try to remember those situations.
Neil Dudley: Do you think you’re going to go the rest of your life without failing in business or messing up again?
Jason Beyer: Oh no.
Neil Dudley: That’s the lesson I want people to think about. That’s the cowboy perspective that I feel like I learned riding on the back of the horse with my dad. The cows get away sometimes. You got to go gather them back up. It’s not the end of the world. Yeah, you wish it hadn’t happened, but it doesn’t mean the day is lost, the businesses lost. Everybody, I worry that sometimes the people that get the attention in our world look like they don’t, they’re billionaires in jets and driving Ferraris and that’s what I want to be, that’s who I want to be. And they don’t give anybody a clear picture of what the grind was to get to that or the amount of failures. You just can’t- It’s almost hurry up and fail. The quicker you do that, the quicker you’re going to learn, the faster you’re going to get to a place where you can, what I think a lot of people look for and I certainly strive for my own life is I want to be able to choose, I want to have the financial wherewithal to choose if I work or not. I think that’s a pretty good spot. I think a lot of people want to feel that way and want to get to that spot. And I’m trying to talk to people that I think can help you get there. So, TCP Nation, I always want to, see this- I listen to- I’m not even letting Jason talk. Somebody is going to be commenting like you idiot, shut up, we want to hear what that guy has to say, not you. But I don’t even know what else to say. Just think about those things heard.
Jason Beyer: I always say when there’s a decision to be made, you got to make one. I mean, if it’s right or wrong. But you got to do it. And if it’s wrong, you can fix it. So just takes a little work, and you learn from that. But you can’t do nothing. So, when you got to do something, make a decision.
Neil Dudley: Don’t get stymied with sitting still. Yep. Progress above perfection. And that network is huge. I’ve failed and messed up and made stupid decisions so many times. But we’re lucky, I’ve been lucky, Cody was right there to save me from it. Or he’s made one and I’ve saved him, and our team, the people we’ve worked with, all, they just run in and help. It’s the network does that, too. I think that was a great illustration of the competition helping you out a time or two. Get involved, build your network. There’s no better advice that I can give than that. I just don’t know any better advice than that. The people you know are just assets to you.
Jason Beyer: And just call them out of the blue. I call people, I’ll go through my phone and say who have I not touched base with in a while and just pick a phone and say, “Hey, how’s it going?” And then I’ve got some people I call every day and check in on them. And when I need something, they’re always there.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, totally. I want to talk about, and maybe this is a good time for Christie to turn her mic on and get involved a little bit. Why don’t you, seriously, pick it up, because this is going to deal with personal life happens, Cancer happens, deaths in your team happen. I know stuff you guys have lived through. How did you, like, what is the approach to that? Or how do you get through that? How can we help somebody see how you got through it? I interviewed my uncle a few episodes back and his son died. How do you deal with that? And he gave everybody his kind of what he said. We just got out of the house. We just had to keep moving forward. Can you guys, do you mind sharing that with us a little bit, how you guys worked through that?
Jason Beyer: Oh, that was a tough day when- It was Halloween.
Christie Beyer: We actually went in the day before Halloween and were told – we had really good friends that did the mammograms and did the sonograms, and she was confident enough in what she was seeing that it was, she knew it was what the diagnosis was going to be.
Neil Dudley: Well, by the way, I mean, this is a real serious conversation. I’m fixing to go a little bit light – I’m so glad I don’t have to do a mammogram. It looks painful.
Christie Beyer: It’s not pleasant. It’s a necessary evil. But I don’t know where we’d be without them. But it is a little uncomfortable.
Neil Dudley: You probably advocate for, hey ladies-
Christie Beyer: I do. I talk to my friends.
Neil Dudley: It’s not a fun situation, but you’d highly advise you want to be proactive.
Christie Beyer: I do. And I laugh because I think some of the women that are in there actually performing the mammograms, some of them like their jobs a little too much. They probably really don’t, but they’re just trying to make us feel comfortable. So, it’s kind of an awkward situation. But no, we actually got the confirmation on Halloween. And it’s, there was a lot of awkward silence after we got the diagnosis, after we got the phone call.
Jason Beyer: But we got some advice from people, and we called our network. We called friends and family and businesspeople. And we tried to find the best doctors, the best surgeons, the best. And I think we did. And how long has it been? 12 years?
Christie Beyer: I was diagnosed in 2007.
Jason Beyer: So how ever long that is.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, round of applause. Johnny play some applause background music or something. But that’s kind of to applaud Christie and Jason and their just surviving that and then everybody else out there that’s survived it because it’s just a nasty thing that’s very scary that you don’t know what’s going to happen.
Jason Beyer: Don’t forget your kids because they go through a pretty tough time.
Neil Dudley: You bet. I mean, I think back, I used to have bad dreams that my parents died in a fire or something because I saw some movie or something. Which kind of makes me want to tell everybody, if you haven’t listened to my dad’s cup of love theory, back in the podcast, it talks about his philosophy and a lot of things of how close your connection is with your parents and parents to children. It is just a God given kind of agape love that you can’t break. I mean, just no matter what, you can’t break that love. And when a kid’s seeing something like that I guarantee-
Jason Beyer: And you got to teach your wife and her family to stay off the dang internet and keep self-diagnosing and checking all that. Listen to live people, not print that anybody-
Christie Beyer: That’s some of the best advice I got was get off the internet.
Neil Dudley: Did you want to early on?
Christie Beyer: Oh, I spent day and night on the internet. And I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, which initially the prognosis for triple negative is the worst. And so, everything I was reading on the internet was the worst-case scenario. And Dr. Doggett is actually the one that told me at first, he said, “You’ve got to get off the internet.” Because I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t, I was just, I was stressed. It was the worst. And my mom finally looked at me one day and she says, “Christie, you’ve got to remember, the people that are living are not on the internet.” She said, “They’re not the ones posting those stories. They’re not the ones that are sitting there in those rooms, chat rooms, and doing that.” She said, “The ones that are living are out there living.” And so, I think that was finally the advice that I took to heart. And it was like, okay, you know what, you’re right, because that’s what I want to do. I want to live. And so, I had to get off and start thinking for myself.
Neil Dudley: I think anybody listening to this podcast that knows anybody that may have just recently been diagnosed, hear Christie’s story. She’s a survivor. Like in every situation, there is the worst case. There’s also the best case. So, I think people, especially in today’s world with COVID-19, political unrest like it is, that you just think it’s all bad, especially if you’re involved heavily in all of the social media platforms and really almost any news. I kind of stay totally away from news. I talk to people that are in business that feel what’s really happening in the world instead of what’s being fed to them through a media outlet. Anyways, I’d say, everybody, talk to the real people, just like Jason said, and Christie is a great example of a winner.
Christie Beyer: I will tell you, Jason also gave me some really good advice, because as a cancer survivor, there’s times that you don’t want that title. You just want to be Christie. I just wanted to be Christie. I didn’t want to be Christie the cancer survivor. I just wanted to be Christie. Every birthday, every Christmas, every everything, people were giving me pink ribbon things. And I was like, I don’t want that. I want that behind me, just, I wanted to not be that person. And he finally looked at me that one day and he said, “Christie, you are that person.” He said, “You need to get that flag and you need to wave it high. Because people need to see you and they need to see you living and I need to see you moving forward.” And he said, “Quit worrying about it.” He said, “Carry the flag and be proud about it.” And so, I did.
Neil Dudley: That’s a great show- I love that vulnerability of y’all’s relationship and how you communicate with each other, and you’re just, hey, you’re going to have to fly that flag. I know you don’t want to, but you can’t stop, people need it. And it paints also this super important piece in my life is that significant other, that partner in life, sad times, happy times, tough times, that you just totally count on without even, there’s no, there’s never a little doubt in the back of your mind that, oh, they might flake on you. So that’s so valuable to find that person and have that relationship. I encourage anybody and everybody to be out there looking for it. And once you find it, or once you get a chance to be that, embrace it and do everything you can to make it great. Because it is not easy. It’s work.
Christie Beyer: I couldn’t have done it without him and my entire team. But he was a, oh, I can’t tell you how he reacted and how he behaved. But I had the easy part. I had the easy part. He is the one that got everyone together and made sure I was, between him and my mom and a couple of friends, they made sure I was where I needed to be when I needed to be there. I didn’t miss an appointment. I just, I was along for the ride, and they had the hard part.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. Well, everybody listening can’t see it, but these two are just looking right into each other’s eyes. I’m afraid they’re fixing to just start hugging and kissing. But they’ve got real love for each other. And I love seeing it. I love that y’all share it. And it’s valuable to people, and everybody listening. I probably didn’t paint that picture just as great as I could have, but it’s really awesome. It’s fun to see and it’s fun to be a part of.
Jason Beyer: We changed oncologists three times. So, if you don’t like what they’re telling you, go get another one. Because I think peace of mind is worth more than anything. So just, you got to be your own advocate and go find the best.
Neil Dudley: Christie, thanks for picking the mic up and shedding a little bit of light on that. And I think on top of that, part of the business conversation is Christie does things in the business. So, she’s missing during some of those times. I know every business has integral players that have an unfortunate- unfortunately they die or their parents die or something takes them out of the business, COVID-19 comes, I mean, all those things. How do you approach that? Or what’s your mindset? I perceive you don’t dwell on it very long. There are tough times, but as business goes, make a decision, move on.
Jason Beyer: Make it decision. But depend on your team. And I’m very fortunate, me and D.L., to have a great team that works together, works hard, where it’s I had to learn to become, I mean, to go through a business when we’re out on the floor, we’re actually doing the process, and then you’re doing the books, and you become from somebody running the business to a business owner, and there’s a big difference. And I’m not one to delegate, but it took me a long time to learn that and trust their decisions and work with them. And I love fixing bad decisions, and I make bad decisions, too, and my team helps fix those. It’s all about your team.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. My team is always laughing at me a lot because we had a product that we thought a lot of, and I know, I still believe it’s a great product and people want it. And I promised them we’d sell X amount of this product, and we hadn’t sold one of them. I mean, they’re fixing it. We’re figuring out how do we solve that? Yeah, Neil was wrong. And they’ll let me make the crazy decision again, because luckily, I hit on some of my crazy decisions, the crazy things I want to try. That helps us kind of stay in front of the wave, which I think is so important, that this wave is always building in business. I mean, if you can stay in front of it, you’re going to be able to pick up some gravy or you’re just positioning over time. I had a great question I wanted to ask you and it’s fluttered out of my brain. Oh, D.L. Let’s talk about D.L. a little bit. So, explain or let’s explore y’all’s relationship a little bit, because I would guess you’re not exactly the same kind of personality.
Jason Beyer: You could say that. I met D.L., he was my ag teacher in high school, he was a roommate and friend. And I met him, he’s nine years older than me. But anyway, we started rodeoing together and he rodeoed, he helped me a lot. We went down the road, and like I said, come home, met Christy, and told him I was going to get in this business. And I said, “Hey, do you want to go in as partners?” So, we did. So, but yeah, he is someone that keeps me grounded, especially back when I was younger. He’s real, I don’t know how you call it, he’s real black and white and sometimes not as aggressive at taking on new challenges and risks. But I think I’ve taught him how to risk take now, or he’s taught me how to not.
Neil Dudley: We need to get D.L. on to rebuttal that. We’ll have to have D.L. on the show to rebuttal. But I think I read this book called Rocket Fuel – or I say I read, I never read books. Anybody out there, if you think you have to read to learn something, I’d tell you, try audibles, try podcasts. I’m not a reader. I just never did enjoy it. I always felt like it was work, where if I’m commuting or driving, I can listen to books. I’m enjoying a book right now called Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. And the only reason I’m listening to it is I heard on a podcast every billionaire this guy has met has that book on his shelf. So, I’m like I got to listen to that. Yeah, Johnny, put it in the show notes. The Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It’s like this huge book is probably got to be this thick because it’s like 48 hours of listening and I play it on 2X.
Jason Beyer: If you invest enough money, by the time you get to the end of it, you will be rich.
Neil Dudley: Stacey and I are this way, Cody and I are this way. We make a good partnership because if I chased every rabbit that runs across my brain in a day, there’s no way I could ever get one caught. And they kind of say, let’s chase that rabbit more, or there’s no way, we’re not going to go chase that rabbit. So, you got to have that kind of, so by the way, what a go read Rocket Fuel. It talks about an integrator and a visionary, and those two players on the team or in a business, you’ll find them in every scenario. Like you think about Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs didn’t make it all. He didn’t have all that. There was somebody beside him. They talk about the Disney brothers. I can’t think of his name right now – he’s the Microsoft guy – Gates, Bill Gates. Well anyways, let’s just think if you have an idea, you need to find that yin to your yang or that other side of the coin, because it’s very important. So, D.L., we’ll get in here and rebuttal and see how risky you’d like to get on that.
Jason Beyer: No, he’s been a great partner, him and his family, and he’s there every day. He’s there anytime I need him and anybody needs him. And he will put you in perspective, I guess, or perception, he’ll put it in- how do you say it?
Neil Dudley: He’ll put whatever your idea is in perspective.
Jason Beyer: And he’ll make you look at it a different deal, and then he’ll go, “Do what you want to.” But he’ll tell you his side.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. And that’s frustrating to me, like in pure honesty, I just want everybody to say yes, let’s do it, figure it out. We’ll make it happen for you, Neil. But the truth is I have to have, I so desperately need somebody that’s not going to just give it to me. Hey, you got to earn it. That’s what’s part, 90% of the problem I have with bankers – they make me earn the money instead of just giving it to me. And in my story, the truth is, just, I’ve had people kind of always behind me. I’ve never actually had to just go hit the bottom because my parents were there, my in-laws were there. Somebody’s kind of always kept me- So, I’ve had to, I feel like I’ve got slow to where I am today because of that. I needed to probably feel that pain a little harder than I did a time or two. What about the dollar? I mean, so tell me a little bit of what you think, what’s your philosophy on the value of a dollar. Where does that come from? I ask this question because my granddad had a very particular viewpoint on what a dollar was worth. Tell me what you know about those things or what you think the value of a dollar is.
Jason Beyer: Hell, it’s pretty powerful. I’ve got some old sayings that I’ve learned over the years from-
Neil Dudley: Are you getting permission? See, I love to try to paint a picture – Jason right now is looking at Christie, like, can I say what I’m fixing to say? Cause she knows what’s coming.
Christie Beyer: Well, he’s got two sayings that he says, and he gets a little frustrated with me sometimes because he says I spend too much money, but one of the sayings that he has said to me most of our married life is we’ve got lots of problems, but money’s not one of them. Although we know that, yes, money can be a definite problem. But the other one that he says is there’s only two people that don’t make money in the world. It’s a scared gambler and a jealous pimp.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, right. And I think there’s such a deep insight into that statement that we might have a lot of problems – or how’d it go exactly? – but money’s not one of them. I don’t think you two have to have money. I mean, that’s the truth in life. It’s like you have to be in a position to where you realize, well, I’m fixing to kind of jump all over. I still want you to expand on that in any way, what a value of a dollar is to you or a Bitcoin.
Jason Beyer: Okay. Well, I mean, to those two statements, we’ve got a lot of problems, but money’s not one of them. We can work through those problems. Those are the easy problems. Family and friends and things like that, those are problems that hurt you. So, you can always make some money if you work hard enough. But as far as a scared gambler and a jealous pimp not making money, well, they’re not going to because they won’t stick their neck out there and take a risk. So, that’s kind of the way I see it. But as far as the value of a dollar, I’ve been fortunate my whole life to make some good decisions and have a good network of people and team around me. And I focus on how do I grow that dollar? So, you got to water it, and you got to pick the weeds out, and you got to just keep working.
Neil Dudley: The dollar doesn’t have much value until you start getting some friends. I mean, and my granddad said almost that same statement is you have to value and understand how to take one dollar and turn it into two and build it. There’s no clear, straight one answer to that. We all have to figure that out for ourselves. You keep totally ignoring Bitcoin.
Jason Beyer: Well, you didn’t mention Bitcoin.
Neil Dudley: Yeah, I did. I said, what’s the value of a dollar or a Bitcoin?
Jason Beyer: Oh, I don’t even know what Bitcoin is except it’s an expensive stock.
Neil Dudley: Well, I mean, I had this episode a couple back, maybe three, with a guy named Cole Parks, who happens to be standing in the room. And he just said the Bitcoin, it’s valued based on the dollar, and it’s got all kinds of fun to it. But at the end of the day, it’s a pretty scary reality with it being tied back to the dollar. And in almost every way, that’s how it’s valued. So, to me, it puts the dollar as the front runner of importance.
Jason Beyer: Well, I was just sitting here thinking you want to know the value of a dollar, and I mean, I love money, I love the dollar, I will work to grow it, but I wish I could put my network and my friends and people like that on my financial statement, but they won’t let me. Because that’s what makes it-
Neil Dudley: Sure. The value of that is not, it’s unquantified. It’s impossible to really put a dollar to it just because you never know the next conversation you have with someone in that network, where it might take you.
Jason Beyer: I think the dinner bell’s ringing.
Neil Dudley: Okay. Dinner bell’s ringing. Hey, everybody, we’ve got to go have birthday dinner. Thanks for listening. It was an awesome conversation, Jason. Thanks for having it with me. And TCP Nation, hasta luego.
Well, like Jason said, the dinner bell rang. Matter of fact, we had a great dinner. We went over to Newton at the Cellar. If you’re not familiar with that place, go check it out on the internet or Google it. Newton’s Cellar – Chef Mike Newton has a little restaurant there in Stephenville and they do a great job. Well, heck, we had a great time at that dinner. We talked a lot more about this, that, and the other thing. Heck, we had a glass of wine or two. And it just made me appreciate friendship. I hope each and every one of you have a chance to make good friends in your business and your life and appreciate them, because I certainly do. Thanks for listening to the Cowboy Perspective. I count you as a friend. If you’re lending your attention to anything that me and my guests are talking about, you’re helping this show. Please, if you’re listening on iTunes and you found some value, rate me. They say that helps the thing get out there. The truth is I’m not doing it for ratings, but I can’t help but want to compete. So, if you enjoyed it and you don’t mind helping me out, well, I’d sure appreciate that. Leave a review on the episode, tell people that come check out the Cowboy Perspective what you thought, and it’ll give them a chance to know if it’s worth their time or not. Thanks, everybody. Until next time, the dinner bell’s ringing.
The Cowboy Perspective is produced by Neil Dudley and Straight Up Podcasts. Graphics are done by Root & Roam Creative Studio, and the music is by Byron Hill Music.