I am Doug Ferguson and I grew up in southeast Nebraska on a multigenerational farm that had dry land row crops and commercial cow/calf. When I was a sophomore in high school I made up my mind I was going to raise cattle for a living. I had heard all the conventional wisdom about the need to be diversified, or how cow/calf operations only make a profit three years out of ten years, and that cattle feeding is break even at best. I wouldn’t have any of this nonsense. I had it in my head that it had to be possible to profit consistently. I just had to search to find the way.
While searching for the answer I worked several different jobs. I worked on a ranch in the Sandhills, a custom feedlot, and a feed mill. Despite some harsh working conditions I loved the jobs I had that involved cattle, and hated the 8 to 5 of the feed mill. This solidified what I was supposed to do in life: raise cattle.
I had a registered and commercial herd of cows. I also started going to the sale barns and buying the cheap cattle no one else wanted and finishing them out and found some success with this. Without realizing it I was capitalizing on buying under-valued cattle and capturing the value I added to them.
In November of 2005 I attended a Sell/Buy Marketing School taught by Ann Barnhardt. The material taught there was unlike anything I had ever heard before. I immediately knew I found the answer I was looking for. This was how to consistently earn a profit in the cattle biz, and my life took a different trajectory. I implemented sell/buy marketing right away, and have never looked back. Since that day in 2005 I have studied sell/buy marketing with the drive to really understand it, and to be the Best.
Things have not always been easy and on an uphill trajectory. Mistakes were made and there were failures. I believe we must examine failures closely in order to harvest the lesson. This is where experience comes from. One of the things that comes as a result of learning from failures is we then ask better questions, and I needed to find answers.
I know if you want to be the best you must learn from the best. This was the beginning of other journeys. There were other things I had to learn. I learned about business management, and ecology while attending a Ranching for Profit school. That school helped to improve my grazing program, but I needed to learn more so I attended grazing conferences and learned from top notch producers. I needed to improve my stockmanship ability, so I attended a Bud Williams Stockmanship school, as well as learning from Dr. Tom Noffsinger at Ann’s level two marketing school. Not to mention the stack of books I read and reread.
As I reflected back on my life and the journey I’ve been on I noticed something mysterious, every teacher, or mentor I ever had, came into my life at the very moment I needed them. I became curious how I could be so lucky and that is when I discovered the Law of Attraction.
The discovery of the Law of Attraction lead me to study it with a great intensity for several years. A break through happened while studying during the Bob Proctor Coaching program. I learned that the Law is made up of several other immutable laws of the universe. I realized these laws perfectly overlaid into the philosophy and the algebraic equations of sell/buy marketing. By being in perfect harmony with these laws and never fighting them we can profit every time. This has given me supreme confidence in sell/buy.
I have had a long list of teachers and mentors that have helped me on this journey. Without their willingness to share their knowledge and experience none of this would have been possible. As a result I get to live my childhood dream of raising cattle, and I get to share it with my wife, Amber, and our awesome daughter, Rozlyn.
It took some nudging from friends and one of my mentors, Wally Olson, to convince me to do a marketing school. The cattle biz has been good to me and now I realize it’s time for me to give back by helping others.
Mr Cattlemaster 