A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

Rachel CutrerRHD Blog

So here is a little fun fact about me: I am a total supporter of the Agricultural Extension mission. I am an Extension Service junkie. Yes, I had been a member of 4-H, but I really didn’t know what “Extension” was. When I was 18-years-old, I was fortunate enough to get a job working at Texas A&M for Dr. Larry Boleman and Dr. John McNeill, who at the time were two of the Texas beef cattle Extension specialists. Their job was simply to help beef producers in Texas – learn more, do better, get better.

From the very first day I walked into that office, I fell in love with all that Extension is about: Helping others, taking research based, scientific information and sharing it in a way that anyone at any education level can understand. I witnessed day after day how Dr. McNeill and Dr. Boleman poured their lives into always finding the latest information, and then passing it along to others. Always giving. Always helping. And I loved every minute.

I loved it so much, in fact, I went to Michigan State University where I actually got a master’s degree in Agriculture Extension Education. Here I was able to work with Dr. Harlan Ritchie, who, like those at A&M, literally made taking information and sharing it with others to help everyone succeed, his life’s passion. Like the old saying says, “A rising tide lifts all boats….”

So, even though I didn’t make a career in Extension education, I have always loved learning…and not just learning, but sharing that with others. That’s why, 7 years ago, Ranch House started holding educational workshops for ag producers and business owners about marketing. It was the same concept: take research based marketing information and share it with others, so that everyone can improve. At Ranch House, we are so appreciative of the many clients who put their faith in us to improve their marketing, and our goal is to share that information so that everyone can improve.

Through the years we have hosted so many great workshops. We started out with our first workshop here in Wharton, then went to Fort Worth, Oklahoma, Louisville, Denver, and many other places. This fall, we are bringing it back to Wharton in a totally new format, with lots of new perks!

I was scrolling through Facebook when I saw one of our past workshop attendees share this post:

Michael Viera, who is now a virtual celebrity for his White Angus herd, said this:

“I highly recommend going to this if you can. We went to their last year’s conference and didn’t even have a website, Facebook page, or didn’t even know what a hashtag was. A year later, we have two websites and an active Facebook business page with over 50,000 targeted followers. We are selling semen all over Latin America and have interest globally. On top of it, we met some awesome contacts, that have been an important part of our marketing team, including Maris Meris who does all of our Spanish graphic design and Jarrod and Becca Creasy who does our marketing here in the states.”

You know why this posts makes me so happy?

Because none of these 3 people that he mentioned are actually clients of Ranch House.

Yes, we would love to do all of your marketing work. We would love to have done Michael’s two websites, and done his ad designs for him. But, guess what? By coming to our workshops, Michael and his family were empowered to do things on their own. They learned the tools that they needed to grab the bull by the horns and get to work. And work, they did.

That, to me, is a definition of a successful workshop on our part. We gave great information, helped people connect, and helped give people the tools to get better. To do better. To learn more.

I do consider Ranch House a rising tide. I don’t mean that in a way to be bragging, or to try to make someone jealous. We are thankful for the amount of work we do. We are so thankful for the opportunity to work with some of the best ag companies in the world. Every year, we increase our number of clients, the number of websites we do, and we are bringing on some of the most exciting clients I have ever worked with in 17 years of RHD.

But with those blessings in our business, we are obligated to share that knowledge with others. And that’s what our workshops are about. Rising the tide for all boats.

Yes, we put a lot of time creating and analyzing our annual Livestock Marketing Survey. But, we share that information with everyone.

Yes, it takes a lot of effort to organize these workshops, find speakers, get everyone together, get a meeting facility, etc. But we love every moment.

And yes, we realize, that by holding these workshops, we probably are cutting ourselves out of some business, because we are teaching people how to do some of their marketing on their own. And that’s okay.

SO HERE’S HOW YOU CAN JOIN IN:

Our early bird registration for this year’s Ranch House Marketing Summit opened about a week ago. Those tickets are $127 per person and end on August 7th. After this, the rate goes up to $199/person until September 7th.

We also have 50 free tickets set aside for those who are website clients of RHD. These are available while they last. At the time of writing this blog, there were 28 remaining.

If you’re a student, you can also register for $97.

You can register for all of those tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ranch-house-marketing-summit-tickets-34891504429?aff=eac2.

We would love to have you at this workshop, and I promise you will learn something and have a great time!

– Rach