In Part 2, we shift our focus to how BigIron took the live auction experience fully online. This episode explores the transition from traditional, in-person auctions to a dynamic, virtual format that expanded accessibility and streamlined the auction process. It features the stories of the amazing partners it took to bring BigIron.com to life. We’ll dive into the technological advancements and strategic decisions that enabled BigIron to create a seamless and interactive online auction environment. Join us to learn how this bold move redefined the auction experience, making it more accessible and efficient for buyers and sellers alike.
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Transcript:
Mark Stock 00:20
Hello everybody. This is Mark Stock, and welcome to Gear Up with BigIron. And this is our podcast. Our special guest and co founder of BigIron is Ron Stock
Ron Stock 00:30
Hi, Mark.
Mark Stock 00:31
Hey. How's it going?
Ron Stock 00:32
Good
Mark Stock 00:32
Good. Are you hanging around today? Doing good?
Ron Stock 00:34
I'm doing really good. You know, I woke up, had a good night's sleep, and I'm positive. I'm optimistic about today. So
Mark Stock 00:40
Well, hey, last podcast, we talked about the history and kind of the startup of Stock Realty & Auction Company, which evolved in the first 25 years of the auction space, before, before BI, before internet, BigIron. You know, BigIron started.
Ron Stock 00:52
You had me with that one. Bi, I've heard of AI, yeah. BI, that's a brand new one.
Mark Stock 01:06
That's very the livestock divisions got a BI thing or
Ron Stock 01:10
Branding Iron
Mark Stock 01:11
Yeah, that's kind of like that too. But anyway, so we want to talk a little bit this time about how the internet had changed the face of Stock Realty & Auction Company, how it changed the trajectory of the way the company started to do business. And I'll lead off with back in the 90s, late 90s, we were having quite a number of auctions and getting a pretty big footprint. And we had a cousin, Michelle Stock, who married Brian Schultz. And Brian Schultz was kind of a computer guy, and he approached us one day when we were in the bedrock building, and he said, guys, I can write some software where you guys can broadcast these auctions over the internet. This was in 1998.
Ron Stock 02:07
I believe remember, he was selling his vinyl wares, his vinyl fencing and vinyl products online. But he was one of the first person I remember selling online, Yeah. But he was, he was a, you know, internet, can I say nerd without offending anybody, because it's what he liked. He liked to do that, okay? And I said, Brian, how in the hell will that ever work? Because we had dial up at our house, okay? And if you were on the phone with somebody, you couldn't dial up, so you had to hang up. And then you get on the internet through mega vision, took 15 minutes to download a picture. And for you young, young listeners out there, you have no idea, Don't tell me your internet's slow. Don't tell me.
Mark Stock 02:48
The internet was like, I mean, five minutes to download a picture that was real granulated. And when somebody would call you in the middle of the download, it would stop, and it would have to start all over again. And we're going, oh my God, this is ridiculous. We had fax machines. You know what a fax machine is Ron?
Ron Stock 03:04
I start using now. You know you should, you should use your fax machine to wire wiring instructions. You should not send them over the internet. Fax machines are coming back.
Mark Stock 03:11
Why is Tiktok gonna get the internet?
Ron Stock 03:14
I don't know about Tic Tac. Banks are using fax machines now to do wire, send wiring instructions. It's back, it's back.
Mark Stock 03:20
The fax is back.
Ron Stock 03:21
Fax is back.
Mark Stock 03:22
Let's tag that line that. Maybe we'll get a stool that says the fax is back.
Ron Stock 03:25
Don't send your wiring instructions over the internet.
Mark Stock 03:27
Okay, there we go. Do it, some encrypted code. But anyway, so Brian said he wanted to write this program, and he says, I'll just charge a percent for the people that are going to use it. I said, Brian, with dial up, as slow as it is, it will never, ever work now, unfortunately, Brian a hell of a nice guy, had a young child and two young twins, gets killed in a car accident. Horrible, horrible. It was a shocker. And, you know, funeral with so many people because he everybody liked him so much. Six months later, I kept thinking about what he was saying. So just for fun, I wrote letters to several universities, to the computer engineering programs, and said, Does anybody want to take on a project of writing some software that you can broadcast over the internet, an auction going on in real time. And we had a couple responses, and one of them was from a group of guys in Omaha, Nebraska. And they said, would you come and meet us? Because we want to talk about this letter we received. And I said, Great. So myself and John Sorenson, we went to Omaha, and we had a sit down, and we talked about what our vision was, and they said, We think we can take this on. We got a we got some money from the Kiewit Foundation, $50,000 to develop something like this. And I went, sounds good to me. So for a period of about a year, maybe a year and a half,
Ron Stock 04:34
We were their guinea pig.
Mark Stock 04:59
We went back and forth because they wanted my perspective on how it would how this thing would work for our application. And eventually this program come into play, and we use the internet in real time in 2001 on an Omaha Public Power District sale, and I remember buying two big spools of phone cable. They were 1000 feet rolls, and we bought two of them. And I had these two football player kids. Their job was to roll out the cable, plug it into a wall jack, and plug it into the laptop that was in our topper so we could be broadcasting this auction over the internet. And we had one of the technical people there running the computer. Every time a bid was received, they would, you know, increment the bid so the people watching could see where the bid was, and they could click the bid button if they so choose. And then, when we went to the because in Omaha, public power just had four or five different lines, long lines of big trucks and machinery. We'd get to the one line. That's when we'd have to unplug the spool of phone cable, and the other one was laid out in the other roll, and then we'd plug that back in, and then we'd go down that line again. So we'd have to wait a minute to reconnect. And then the college kids, these football players, they'd roll up the other roll, they'd take it to the third roll, and they would unroll it again. And we did that back and forth and back and forth, and we had it all done, all for unbelievably, the three people that were watching, two of them were the computer engineers team, and one was a guy from Blair Nebraska. And I called him, I said, "How did you think that thing worked?" He says, "I'm kind of a computer nerd. So I just thought it was worked pretty slick." That was the first time. And then shortly thereafter, Ron Stock, they invented an air card that you actually plugged in that worked off a cell tower that was like, like months. That was just months after we were using this phone cable. So that was a huge change. So we said, now we can use this on remote sites, as long as there was a cell tower for close and then we started buying the Wilson boosters. I mean, this was a pretty heavy technology investment that we were putting forth all the time. And we had these boosters inside the sound pickup that we were calling the numbers out of, and that would boost the signal so we could get enough of a signal from the air tower, from the to do the air card, so the public could watch. And all of a sudden, we're having 30 people watching. I mean, just a few short months later, there's 30 people watching, then there's 60 people watching, and then there's 100 people watching. One year into this. So it grew rapid, pretty rapid, and the crowd was always because these were open outcry sales, hey, 370, 500 you know, doing this stuff like that. But the crowd, when they say the internet, we got the internet joining us online. And the crowd was always so PO'ed that. What the hell do you mean? You got these? It's, it's cold out here. It's hot out here. I said, Well, you know, they're in the comfort of their own environment. You know,
Ron Stock 05:13
The internet's here to stay. We used to stay. We used to say internet's here to stay. I remember saying that phrase
Mark Stock 08:04
So the internet would be bidding and buying and whatever. And it was growing. It was growing. And then this was early 2000 2001 2002 2003 everything was working right along. We eventually switched from the one provider that I helped develop into another provider that we also help that company develop, because they were looking for some, you know, good solid advice. And then in 2008 we're fast forwarding now, yep, from 2008 we're in 2008 ladies and gentlemen, Stock Auction Company was doing three and a half auctions a week, on average, from the first of November to the first of May. God bless Erica Werts for doing all that advertising.
Ron Stock 08:47
I remember, I remember thinking in arrears, that if we had launched our first farm sale, you know, in 2002 2003 there were only 10% of the farmers online, and by 2008 you know, ethanol had kicked in. The machinery was worth more There was only 20% there was only 20% of the farmers that were not online. So I really believe that if BigIron had launched, the BigIrons first farm auction had launched in 2002 it would have been one of those ideas that failed. You know, everybody out there in listening land. We've all had ideas and tried them and they failed. It would have been something we tried in 2002 it wouldn't work very good. We'd put it back in the closet, and we would still be selling traditional sales, and probably wouldn't be here anymore. So luck and timing. I always say luck and timing is is the key to everything. You know, I recently read a book on the most successful businesses in America, and all the CEOs Top 10 said they had one thing in common. The author said they all attributed their success to luck and timing. And you know, that's really broad, but I'm telling you, timing has a lot to do with it. So I remember our first sale. If I talk about that sale we had west of St. Ed we had a guy who was, I call him a true American. He never wanted people on his place. He had called us up, like, three years earlier, and said, I would like you guys to show up and buy my cows. I got eight cows. I want $425 piece for him. You know, I don't like people on my place. So we showed up, bought his cows, brought him back, and he called us up five years later, about 2008 2009 and he says, "Guys, I'm settling you all my machinery. I don't want people on my place." So we went over there, and we says to him, we said, "Don I tell you what we got this thing. We're looking for somebody to do an online only auction called BigIron." And I said, "I don't think there'll be a lot of people here on your place." And he said, "I don't want nobody in my place." I says, "Well, I'll move the stuff across the road." And he goes, "That guy, don't like me." I go, "He likes me." I said, "I got it to get along with everybody. I'm in the auction business." So we moved everything across the road mark, and Erica did the advertising for the sale. I don't know, Erica, do you remember that first sale? And we did that sale, and the guy wanted us to buy his machinery. We explained to him, we don't buy machinery. He wanted 95,000 smart guys. Machinery is worth about 100 he says, I know you guys got to make a little money at 25 pieces. So we moved it across the road, advertised it extra, and had some people register. Had all the help in the office out to register for the sale. For the people that showed up, the thing that sticks in my mind, there was very few people showed up to kick the tires. We didn't hardly register anybody there. They all did it online, and the sale totaled 125 - $127,000 and I remember on the way home, I remember the hair you and I riding back in st ed and I remember the hair in the back of my neck going up, and I remember thinking, "holy, crap, this is gonna work." You know, that was my epiphany that this whole thing is going to change pretty damn quick.
Mark Stock 11:43
Well before that happened, let's talk about how it all started, because in 2008 previous we were doing all these auctions, and then ethanol got introduced, and the ag economy went from selling your corn from $1.60 a bushel to $3.60 a bushel, and all of the retirement sales that we were having, because they were just tired of grinding it out. They started making money, so they wanted to keep farming for a couple more years. So our three and a half auctions a week went down to three and a half auctions a month in 2000 in the at last of 2008 and and the people that wanted to sell stuff were calling us up saying, Hey, you got Freddie's estate sale. Can I bring my disc and my planner over there? Because I got a new planner and a new disc. We said, Ah, we really don't want to turn that into a into that consignment sale, because the seller, you know, the estate sale, doesn't want to have that. And they said, Well, when you're going to have a sale in the area, you know, put together some sort of an auction. I said, Well, you need to have at least a million dollars worth of stuff. Otherwise we can't adjust the afford the advertising and all the peaceful personnel for checking it in, gate check and all that stuff. And me and Ron just thought about, why don't we just try this timed only thing that we always had been kicking around in the back of our head? And we said, All right, we tried it. February of 2009 was the first sale we had where we had 21 pieces of machinery just from these people that had a few odds and end items. It was 21 items, but 890 people registered for that sale, which was unbelievable. And now remember, farmers had money, so they were willing to take a chance in buying something without touching it, without rubbing up against it, without physically driving out to look at it before it sold. So they were gambling. They were taking they were taking a shot. Luck and timing, luck and timing. So when that sale first went on, we had all those people registered. We put a couple ads and a few local papers, and we picked a few towns. One was Stanton Nebraska, one was Wakefield Nebraska. One was Wayne Nebraska. And we started in St Ed in our hometown, and we said, if you want to learn how to bid or how to sell or buy on the internet, come to this free informational meeting St. Ed Nebraska. Course, that's where we're from. We had the Legion building, and we didn't think, you know, maybe 10-20, people show up. It was standing room only. Lonnie Korus was to put together the presentation for the 10 people that we thought were going to be there. And here comes these large groups of people, all wanting to know how it works. And we were doing a step by step instruction on how the website worked, how you register, put your name, your address. You know, a lot of people, they didn't, they didn't want to do that because they didn't want the IRS. They didn't want the IRS invading their personal space. And I remember the question that we would ask when we started after the first one, you know, we say, Okay, how many people in here have a computer? Because we wanted to get to idea of how, what, what type of group of people, were we going to be training? Do we have to start from square one? Did we have to whatever? So we'd say, "How many people in the room have a computer?" I remember in Wayne Nebraska, there was like 25 people in there. Most of them were couples, you know, and the guys would not raise their hand. And but the wives would. So I'd look at the guy, and I said, you don't have a computer. He goes, No, I don't have a computer, but the wife does. I said, Oh, okay, so do you know how to use a computer? He goes, No, I don't know how to use a computer, but the wife does. So I knew right then and there, we had to be talking to the wives.
Ron Stock 13:27
Luck and timing. Right on.
Mark Stock 15:15
But they were, they were asking good questions about how it all worked, and these rooms were full. And then so we said, well, let's try another sale. So one month later, we did another one of these online auctions. The first one, remember, was 21 pieces. The second one was 64 we did them every month, and the third sale was over 200 and that's when we said, you know, there's enough people calling us. We need to get some more reps to go out to take all these pictures. Let's try them every two weeks. And that's when Mr. Mr. Bob, called us up and said, You guys, I heard about this on
Ron Stock 15:47
Don
Mark Stock 15:48
Yeah, let's I heard about this.
Ron Stock 15:50
Bob is his brother, though. You're right.
Mark Stock 15:51
Yeah, that's right. So I want to sell that. There's a bunch of them. There's a
Ron Stock 15:54
Big family. Don't make them mad, big family.
Mark Stock 15:57
Anyway. So we had, we had that sale for him, and we were shocked because we brought our trailer out. I don't even remember if Erica was on site. We were thinking we're gonna have to register a lot of people. I think three people walk through that stuff the morning of the sale. Now, before that, there was traffic, sure there was people driving out to look at this stuff. And I remember last year, I remember he had a tractor as a four wheel drive tractor, an early international like a 4386, Yeah, something, something like that. And the shock for me on that sale was the co-bidder was from Pennsylvania, okay, and it brought $11,700 and of course, Don was just unbelievably satisfied his neighbor two miles away buys it. Fast forward, that neighbor passes away a year and a half later. We didn't do the sale. It was an open outcry sale. That same tractor that brought what it did on Don's sale sold for less than $7,000 because they didn't have it broadcasted over the internet, and we were just noticing that this internet had such a wide reach of people, and people were they weren't scared to give it a try.
Ron Stock 17:11
So we had the sales back in that time, we definitely were doing more traditional sales than we were doing our monthly online auction. And people would ask me, Ron, should I do my sale online, or should I do my sale traditional auction? I go, it's all ends up at that time, at the same dollars. And I put my finger like this, and I use this. I said, on your traditional sale, there'll be highs where people look at each other and they're mad and they'll overpay it. There'll be really bad lows, lot of waves, but you'll end up at the same on the internet auction. They're more educated buyers. The waves are going to be smaller, like this, highs and lows will be less predominant. End up the same dollars. Well, it only took a couple years where study in the market. I couldn't say that anymore. I'd say on your traditional auction, you're going to have highs and lows, and it's going to end up here on your internet auction, there's more audience you're going to get at least 10% more.
Mark Stock 18:04
An example of that is when we had a sale in Blue Hill, Nebraska, a gentleman that owned the grain elevator elevator, passed away, and his daughter was the executor, and she called and said, Hey, come and my dad was a visionary. He invented a lot of things. This internet thing has just got my attention. And in honor of my dad, I want you guys to sell all his stuff on the internet. That's what I want my dad's legacy to be, because he was such a forward thinker. I said, Yeah, I'll meet you there. I went to do his Quonset building. He had a 1468, you know, the V8 and
Ron Stock 18:38
Wish I had one.
Mark Stock 18:39
Yeah. And he had a whole bunch of he had a whole bunch of other smaller items, tractors, and he was in a had a lot of fencing supplies. And I remember he had three hand dig postal diggers. They're just like new. And we were gonna have this, Just manual post hole digger. Man, manual postal diggers. Everybody's got a blister from a postal digger. If you don't come over to my house, I let you use one. Okay, in fact, I got some fence posts that need to be installed next weekend. Anybody wants to respond to this podcast? I'm looking for good men and women.
Ron Stock 19:10
It's fun!
Mark Stock 19:11
Let's do it. And the staples. You can even drive the staples in with a staple. I got a trick.
Ron Stock 19:17
No. . .
Mark Stock 19:18
The staple pliers has two little grooves in him. You can put the staple in that so you don't nail your thumb every time you hit it with a hammer. I just, I'm 57 years old. I just learned that
Ron Stock 19:28
In the old fence puller?
Mark Stock 19:29
The old fence, yeah, the fence and pliers on the fence and pliers, yeah, the fence and pliers has two little holes in it. You put the staples into there.
Ron Stock 19:36
I've never used it for that.
Mark Stock 19:37
To pound the post hole, to pound the staples in the post. It is unbelievable, and I don't have any blisters now because whatever. So come on over
Ron Stock 19:45
Never too old to learn.
Mark Stock 19:47
But anyway, so this seller had a bunch of fencing supplies, new roles of barbed wire and these postal diggers. We were having an open outcry sale by Clarks, Nebraska a couple days before this scheduled online sale, because all these online. Sales were on on a Wednesday, but this was a we were standing on the rack, and they had three post hole diggers on this open outcry sale that were just like new. And we're holding up these post hole diggers. And I had the microphone, I said, Let's sell them choice, because I knew we were selling three of the other sale, and they brought $10 or $12 a piece, a total of, you know, $35 maybe $40 total. And on the sale that we're selling online, they brought $170 when we sold all three of them together in one pallet, one bid.
Ron Stock 20:32
So $170 versus
Mark Stock 20:35
$40
Ron Stock 20:35
Yep,
Mark Stock 20:36
You know was that was the shocker to me
Ron Stock 20:39
On a post hole digger
Mark Stock 20:40
Because people were at home doing their research by what that costs where you're on site, you're only you're only able to get who's there. When you're on the internet, you're getting everywhere. And we've recognized the same thing we've been doing the Behlen auctions, Behlen Manufacturing, Columbus, Nebraska, for close to 30 years, and it took us a long time to get convinced them to try just to put a few of the items online, because they're a typical bail in sale. Would you know when we had microphones in our hand and two auction rings running, we might total a couple $100,000 well now they sell every week
Ron Stock 20:40
On BigIron
Mark Stock 20:41
On BigIron, and and before, they just did three auctions a year. And if you do couple $100,000 times three, that's 600 now, their sales are getting close to $2 million and they're actually selling less stuff because a gate now is bringing within a few dollars of what you can buy it at a Tractor Supply.
Ron Stock 21:38
They like it better too, because the loads
Mark Stock 21:40
And it's got a scratch and a dent on it -
Ron Stock 21:41
- the load out, spread out over 30 days.
Mark Stock 21:43
It's got a scratch and a dent,
Ron Stock 21:44
Yeah
Mark Stock 21:44
Paints falling off, but there, but there's people that are in their office and you don't do this. Ron, you don't when you're working. You're not,
Ron Stock 21:51
I'm not a smoker. No.
Mark Stock 21:53
You're not a smoker. You're not watching some auction somewhere when you're working. Or you're not on. What is that face time? Facebook face? What does that call that thing? Face, something
Ron Stock 22:02
I'm easily distracted. So next question, please.
Mark Stock 22:04
No. But anyway, while people are at work. They're participating in these online auctions, and they're buying stuff. They're in the dentist chair. They're at their accountant's office. They are bidding on their phones. I think it's over 60 some percent or 70% I got to get the statisticians out here that keep updating us that are bidding online from a mobile device.
Ron Stock 22:27
Online, online early at BigIron, a neighbor called me and he said, Thank you for that BigIron. He goes, I was going to drive out to Gothenburg, Nebraska to watch this grain cart sell. And he goes, I would have done it two years ago on your traditional sale, but that grain cart sold for way more than I was willing to pay. I was in line unloading. I got two loads of grain in because of the internet. I'm so dang glad I didn't drive all the way out there. Thank you for saving my day.
Mark Stock 22:53
Well, that's the thing that people ask me all the time back in the day. Now we're talking in the early teens. You know, what's the difference between the internet and a traditional sale early on, I said, pie. And then what do you mean pie? I said, we don't have a lunch stand on the internet sale, so you can't get a piece of pie, and they'd go, damn. But other than that, it's the same. And then, as your example was before, we noticed pretty quickly that the dollars were always higher over the internet, and we didn't want anybody else to know that, so we kept our cards close to our chest, right? And a big change in the game was when Covid happened, right? Covid shows up, and it's a terrible thing in our history, but, you know, we lived through it, and we empathize with all those people that lost somebody. We lost some good friends.
Ron Stock 23:41
Yeah,
Mark Stock 23:41
Too, you know that through that horrible time in our history, but explain Covid Ron Stock and how that changed the internet?
Ron Stock 23:49
Well, going back just a little bit before that, you know, we had to figure out what we were going to call our traditional auctions, because the still the industry calls them live auctions. So we said the live auction is the inner is the BigIron. It's live happening in real lifetime. Live auction is the one out on the farm. So we, I think we're the only ones that use this word. Traditional is an on site, open outcry auction.
Mark Stock 24:15
Hey, right there.
Ron Stock 24:16
BigIron is our online auction platform. But to this day, I'll hear people say, Well, I thought I'd just do a live auction. And I'm like, so you want to put it on BigIron? No, I want to do a live auction. Well, that's a traditional auction, the old way of doing it. We recently have a guy in Wheeler county who we who wanted to do a traditional sale, and when we explained to him the difference, it was a like light going off that he needs to put it on BigIron. But Covid, there'd be a group of people. Covid helped us with registrations. Registrations went up. If you recall, 40%
Mark Stock 24:52
They didn't have any other option. 40% sales weren't happening.
Ron Stock 24:55
But they go to the the people at the at the coffee shop, every coffee shop in America. Because the same as, you know, there's six guys, sometimes eight guys show up. Two of them are the, know it alls one of them is a quiet guy with all the money. They say he's got all the money. The two guys that are BS'ers, they're real people person. The other guys are just listeners, and we go and they go in the coffee shop, and then one or two of those guys would be a self proclaimed internet expert. So he'd have his phone. So he'd show up at the 2019
Mark Stock 25:26
Did they have a flip phone or a smartphone?
Ron Stock 25:27
2019 he'd show up some of the guys in a coffee shop really good. They'd bring their iPad, and they say, look what this sold for. So then other six guys that weren't online, they were really entertained by that guy. So then all of a sudden Covid could, they couldn't go to the C store. So they say, Hey, Martha, Martha, yes, Harold, I need to get online because I can't talk to Bruce anymore because damn Covid. Can you get me on that BigIron I want to see? Because when they talk on the phone, they wanted to talk to talk. So these 75 year old guys were getting registered on BigIron, and now they're instantly a computer
Mark Stock 26:03
Expert.
Ron Stock 26:03
Expert is like, Yeah, I'm on BigIron all the time. And you talk to the wife, and the wife says that guy's on a computer all the time, on BigIron, just scrolling through. When he's done scrolling through, he'll look at an old sale, look at a new sale. So Covid helped us tremendously.
Mark Stock 26:17
That's when we started the Covid support club for all the women out there, because they couldn't have a conversation with their husband because, you know, the BigIron was now the shoe shopping for men.
Ron Stock 26:29
Right. I think some of the women give us a thank you. You know, give him, give him something to do. So then, so then Covid also forced every traditional auctioneer into going to Walmart and buy an auctioneer in a box. And we've seen that happen last few years. You know, the auctioneers that go Auctioneer in a box, they come home, they put it, put it in their computer, and say, I'm an internet auctioneer. They put their stuff online to their three or 400 registered bidders.
Mark Stock 26:54
Do they have that many?
Ron Stock 26:56
I don't know. And then they come back to us now and say, you know, guys, we tried it. We tried to internet in a box, you know, auction Walmart in a box, internet in a box. And it didn't work out very good for us. So we're back. So they really the key is, is the registered bidders. You know, right now, I used to have a deal in my office. You've seen it. You've all seen it, but it's got a picture of the Husker stadium that Henry Nuxoll hand painted all the hands - painstakingly, painstakingly painted all the people yellow. And so just a short time ago, when we had 80,000 registered bidders, I would say selling your equipment on BigIron is like driving it through Memorial Stadium with mostly men, some women, no children who buy machinery. So when you take your tractor and drive it in this side and drive it real slow, and there's an announcer saying, Hey, he's at the 10. He's at the five touchdown. When that tractor goes out the end, it is full retail. Fast forward. Now, with our current registered bidders, you're driving your tractor through twelve, TWELVE, Memorial stadiums. So it drives through this one full of men, some women, no children that buy machinery. So you go through the first one, it's already at a fair market price. Then just to make sure you're not getting cheated out of Mr. Seller, you drive it through 11 more Memorial Stadiums. When it comes out the other side, you're so damn happy with the price, you had plenty of people look at it. So you know, even if it sold for less than what you're hoping for. It's like you had 12 freaking Memorial Stadiums bidding on your tractors, and so that's where we got ahead of the game. And I remember us talking about it, saying, Okay, this internet's coming. Everybody's going to have it, and it's going to be, like, right now it's a little buzz, like, but there's going to be a time Mark Stock when that thing is so loud and Covid did it, auctioneer in a box. I mean, you go out there in the public and you can look any different direction and find an online auctioneer. Now, go to Walmart, pick up the program. It's not hard, but you've got, you've got to have the buyer base. And so that was our claim to fame race. Push it as hard as we could, because I knew the competition was coming. You knew the competition was coming. And all I wanted to, all I wanted to do my dream was, when you think about selling something, we wanted to be one of the top three names. You thought of, there's always going to be competition, competitions good. Wanted to be top three names. And so I'm awful happy that we can provide our buyers and our sellers that service.
Mark Stock 29:22
Well, you know, there's a lot of people that make up this organization, and it's not just one silver bullet. There's a wide variety of things, and our company has a lot of experts, and at the end of the day, that equipment is going to sell for the highest price of anything that's out there, and you're going to net more total dollars. And that's what's important. You can't get hung up on a fee structure. You just have to focus on what the bottom line is going to be when it's all done. And that's the way we've that's what you got to do at farming. Farming, if you don't know what your input cost. Costs are, if you don't know what your seed corn and your fertilizer and your chemicals, and if you don't know what that cost of production is, and if you don't know where you need to be, start selling. So you know what your bottom line is. You're just a pig on a poke, you know? And we look at business in the auction business just like we did when we were farming, you know, we have to know where the bottom line is going to be for our customers, because they have to have the best return, and that's what we're after. That's that's what we focus on, the best return for their dollars.
Ron Stock 30:28
Yeah, there's many stories about some companies in any facet of the United States doing business for less, and they just don't survive. So how is that good for our customers if we don't survive upturns and downturns? So you know, we're being fiscally responsible and keeping the rates as low as we can. But it is exciting when someone calls you and they tried another auction company and sold their single axle truck, grain truck. They had an advertised, real story. They have it advertised in Omaha World Herald papers asking $6000 for it. They tried. They knew how much those papers cost. They tried a online auction company that was an auctioneer in a box at Walmart, and no sale. It for like six grand, and they put it on BigIron it brings $11,500 I mean, we got stories like that all across the board. But I don't want to tell people that you're going to get full full retail for every piece. You know there's going to be a cheap piece once in a while, and that's what keeps it going.
Mark Stock 31:24
Alright, well, the Internet has changed the auction profession, not only in the United States, but across the world. And, you know, a real quick story, some people said, Where did BigIron come from? And we thought and dug and looked for a long time on the name of what our internet company was going to be, and I remember having one of those white boards in the office, and we had how many of them, 50 of them we'd write down, we'd have to go trying to search and find one that was available. And I had a friend of mine call me up and says, Hey, what did you ever think about for BigIron? We got online and we looked for BigIron, and a guy in Texas had the domain name, and we negotiated out the purchase of BigIron and but it was it took every bit of eight months before we found the words BigIron, and there's no rhyme or reason to it other than and we didn't know we were going to change the company name, from Stock, Realty & Auction Company, to BigIron. We didn't know. But it took off so fast. It's truly a garage success story that started out in 1984 working hard in the space, trying to understand the profession, dealing with people, buyers and sellers, providing good customer service. Relationships over time, grew to referrals over time, grew to business modeling and planning over time. That turned us into a time period when ethanol actually invented BigIron for us. Because without farmers making money, we would have never thought of it, because our auction business declined. And if they say, when you're when your business has a hill in front of you, you got to figure out how to climb over the hill. Well, we tried the internet thing. And by the grace of God and a lot of good friends, we got lucky, because it gained some traction. But it gained traction because we understood the business, we understood the importance of being honest and integrity, and we we understood that you have to provide real good descriptions, and you, the unreserved is what made it for us,
Ron Stock 33:40
And we were auctioneers.
Mark Stock 33:41
Yeah
Ron Stock 33:41
We know the auctioneer and a box guys that start up, they're not auctioneers. And you got to understand the business to make it successful, in my opinion.
Mark Stock 33:48
So, so that's how big iron evolved over time, and today, with you know, close to a million registered users, we're on a trajectory to get there sooner than later, and the largest viewing audience on a weekly basis, as you had mentioned, the football stadiums are full every time we have a sale. That's been not something that we can put Ron and Mark's name behind. It's all the people that we've done business with, and all the people that we have worked with, and all the people that have been here have helped us build. Well, I remember our Monday morning meetings. We'd get around a round table, we talk for hours on what worked, what didn't work, and we're still doing that today,
Ron Stock 34:36
Safety meetings, we called them.
Mark Stock 34:37
Yeah, safety meetings, prayer meetings. But I will, I will say that we don't take BigIron for granted. I mean, we are at the helm as hard as we've ever been, and we are making sure that our next sale isn't our last sale, and there's no sign of that. It looks like it's really strong going forward, but and we are really not if we ever have your sale, we're not taking it for granted. We're going to work as hard as we can to make sure it's the best sale we ever had. So we're geared up, and that's our sign off, right there. Pay attention to the next week's episode of Gear Up, brought to you by BigIron. We want to thank you for listening. Have a great week.
Ron Stock 35:11
Thanks.
