Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Blayr Barnard. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Blayr, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Almost every entrepreneur we know has considered donating a portion of their sales to an organization or cause – how did you make the decision of whether to donate? We’d love to hear the backstory if you’re open to sharing the details.
At Barnard Beef Cattle Company, we run about 17,500 head of cattle per year. When COVID hit, we started with 33 head of cattle to sell directly to the public and hoped to help our local community over the next 8 months. Instead, we sold out in 2 weeks. This started a new enterprise in our business that had a public side we had never experienced before.
When I started the Custom Beef side of our business, I wanted to make it different than anything I’ve ever done. We’ve always supported our community but usually very quietly. What I found over the years was that people would tell us that our scholarship or donation had inspired them to donate. Since this enterprise was entirely new, we decided to make it more of an outreach arm for our business.
In the last 2.5 years, we’ve supported 10 local food pantries, the Salvation Army, 3 local homeless shelters, 2 local military organizations, 4 schools, 2 community members with health issues 7 local Volunteer Fire Departments, the Uvalde Scholarship fund and donated thousands of pounds of beef to those in need. In 2021, we took 2 weeks after the horrible ice storm and just took hay to neighbors, fixed broken water pipes on homes around town, broke water tanks and troughs for people.
We are known for amazing beef with clear and affordable pricing, but most people rate our community engagement as their second most important reason for interacting with us.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I was a Business Consultant for 13 years in Montana, Northwest Texas and Indiana. I worked with small business from zero to 500 employees – that ranged from crafters at their kitchen table to joint ventures with Japanese companies that were suppliers for Cummings Diesel and everything in between. During that time, I always worked in Community and Economic Development and was a College Professor. I think this wide variety of work experience has launched me into a different mindset than most that are in my industry.
We are most proud of helping our community. I feel like we do that in two ways… 1) Donations of both beef, time and money 2) I am dedicated to providing incredible beef at a reasonable price.
If you were to buy a whole animal at the store the cost for that would range from $6,500 to $8,000 depending on where you bought it. I work with my suppliers and butchers to keep those costs down to between $2,500-$3,500. I feel like saving families $4,000-5,000 per year on their family budgets is doing my part to increase family wealth and relieve some strain on family budgets.
Let’s talk M&A – we’d love to hear your about your experience with buying businesses
I recently purchased a car wash that was a bit run down. I am consistently approached by locals to do consulting with their businesses because of my background. A local detail shop was having the hardest time finding a rental space and I was looking to do some investment in real estate that was not farm/ranch land or residential real estate.
I found the car was that had a small garage out back that would be perfect for the detail shop. It took me about 4 months but I purchased the car wash. After coming to a preliminary price, I inspected the premises and analyzed the financials before approaching my back.
The hardest part about buying a business is getting good information from the seller. I’m currently in the process of trying to buy a butcher and they have co-mingled their financials with both their personal financials and a construction company one of the owners runs. It might be helpful for their tax position, but it has made the purchase of the butcher shop almost impossible because I have nothing to show a bank.
My other big suggestion would be not to get toooooooooo in love with buying a business and pay over what your advisors tell you it is worth. Ultimately, when I ran the numbers, it would have taken me $1,000,000 to build a new car was of that size, but only $500,000 to buy this one and replace the equipment. If those numbers had been reversed, I wouldn’t have even entertained the deal if I had cash unless there was a patent or some other proprietary technology.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
My husband and I started out income tight. I had some savings for a house, but we were working for a school and a non-profit in Montana that had incredibly high living expenses. After living in an apartment with little heat for 2 months, we decided to take my savings and buy the most disgusting house on the lake in our little town. It was literally called the “poo palace” in nice terms because the owner had 4 large hunting dogs he fed in the middle of the floor and let poo all over the house. It was horrible – no flooring, siding with holes so deep you could feel the INSIDE of the kitchen cabinets.
We remodeled that house over 3 years and then sold it for a $100,000+ tax-free profit to purchase a new house when we moved to Indiana. Once that house was complete, we refinanced and pulled out all of the equity to purchase rental properties. Over the next 3 years, we remodeled 6 rental properties in Indiana that allowed my husband to be a stay-at-home-dad. I was considering retiring for 5 years when the kids were little before I came home to expand and take over the ranch.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.texasbestbeef.com
- Instagram: @barnardbeef
- Facebook: @barnardbeef
Image Credits
White Beard Photography Captured Moments By Tiffany