America’s Land Auctioneer
Captivate and celebrate the dynamics of rural America, American Agriculture and inspire and teach others how to live a bold and abundant life in rural America. Background: The intrigue, endless opportunities, and romance of rural life in America have never been more on the minds of Americans. The recent pandemic and civil unrest have Americans of all ages earning for a more peaceful, less hectic life. Even billionaire Bill Gates is now the largest crop landowner in America. As many Americans look for peaceful refuge in the rolling hills and wheat fields they are faced with a richness of opportunities. But where do you begin to look? This show will highlight and feature endless opportunities in every state. What is it that is so unique about rural America, the land and what it produces? How can I live that life? The American Land Auctioneer will tell stories and weave into those stories a place for you to dream, live and enjoy the abundance of all that rural America has to offer.
America’s Land Auctioneer
From Land to Machinery: How Professional Auctioneers Handle Sales From Start to Finish
The agricultural auction landscape continues to showcase remarkable resilience despite economic uncertainties, with machinery and land values holding strong across North Dakota, Minnesota, and South Dakota. What began with cautious optimism has transformed into a season of exceptional results that consistently exceeded expectations.
High-quality farm equipment has commanded premium prices throughout spring auctions. From the Fent tractor at Harman's to the combine and four-wheel drive at Sheely's, well-maintained machinery continues to attract serious buyers both domestically and internationally. When a combine sold to a Brazilian buyer, it highlighted the increasingly global nature of agricultural equipment markets. Most surprising has been the strength of on-site participation, with one auction seeing just 26% of items sold online – a striking contrast to the typical 48-52% we've observed in recent years. This dynamic has demonstrably pushed values higher as buyers compete in real-time for quality equipment.
Beyond the mechanics of selling, what distinguishes professional auction services is the comprehensive approach to managing every aspect of the process. From washing and detailing equipment to handling complex logistics, marketing, and post-sale loadout, sellers often only need to "open the mailbox and take a check" when working with full-service auctioneers. This support proves invaluable for retiring farmers navigating emotional transitions after lifetimes of agricultural work. Many sellers lack exit strategies or tax planning, making professional guidance an essential component of the auction relationship.
Transparency forms the foundation of successful auction businesses. Honest representation of equipment condition, including disclosing any flaws or maintenance issues, builds trust with repeat buyers who follow specific auctioneers from sale to sale. As the summer progresses, specialty auctions continue even as traditional machinery sales slow during peak farming months. Looking ahead, the second annual Bowman Car Auction on July 26th coincides with Pifers' 25th anniversary celebrations, promising an exciting event featuring approximately 50 vehicle consignments alongside a 330-vehicle show spanning Main Street.
Have equipment or property you're considering selling? Visit piferscom to connect with experienced auction professionals who can guide you through the entire process.
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Contact the team at Pifer's
How about this? One, three, two, one. Welcome to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Jim Sabby, your host for this Saturday morning. I've got a great guest on here today. Christian Miller works on that eastern side of North Dakota and in the Mont or Minnesota. Excuse me, but we've got a lot of things to talk about today On all the auctions we've done so far this spring between the land and the machinery. But we've got a lot of great upcoming auctions Now. I know you just finished one over there in Minnesota here this week and then we move on to some great auctions coming up here in the month of in the May and then over into June. So just tell us what auctions that you're working on over there and see what else you can talk about with your auctioneering at land auctions versus machinery auctions that you're working on over there, and see what else you can talk about with your auctioneering at land auctions versus machinery auctions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on, jim. You're right. We have had a great string of equipment sales this spring. The entire month of April was full for us and then we just got done with another great sale here in Minnesota at the at the Buttenhoff sale, and we you're exactly right about that we have a whole list of sales coming up this summer and and into the spring we we do have the Steichen sale coming up. That looks like it's going to be another great equipment sale, jim you're you're more familiar with with the ranching side of things out in the western end of the state. There it looks like they have a lot of really great hanging equipment on there.
Speaker 1:Um, that, that looks to be another good sale out there you know, christian, just to touch on that just a little bit, the livestock equipment at every sale we do seems to be always selling very well. You don't have to worry about a crowd. I mean people come and they come to buy livestock equipment, which is a lot of fun, especially as a ring man and an auctioneer. You know we get to do some fast paced stuff there because these guys love their panels or gates and Steikens have a lot of this on there, so that Straight North of Steel up there folks get to that one. Just go to pyferscom and check out all the sales coming up.
Speaker 1:But there are some sales in April that you and I need to visit about. First we started in March with the Bowman sale, which we had a tremendous sale, and then in April it just seemed like from Harman's, which we had a tremendous sale, and then in April it just seemed like from Harman's every sale we had just kept getting better and better and better and we hit some max values that we never thought we'd see. And you know you're young and I'm at the other end of that spectrum. But when we get to see all this, you know, within a period of 45 days it's really amazing what goes on out there in farming and ranching communities. But you know, let's start from the. You know, in April you know you did some auctioneering for us. You're a ring man, you helped set up a lot of these sales and so give us your perspective on what you saw this spring.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do participate in quite a few different auction settings, but with the equipment I thought we had a surprisingly strong spring. You know, we have a lot going on in our agricultural world right now with the tariffs and commodity prices and I think all of us as a group were holding our breath a little bit to see what spring was going to look like. We, we wondered if we were going going to have the same punch to open up our spring schedule as when, as we did. I mean, we ended the year last year on a six million dollar equipment sale down in in, uh, you know, fergus Falls. That was a big, big machinery sale down there and uh. And so we were all curious to see what spring would look like. And and it hasn't missed a beat, jim, I mean, we have no prices are are as strong as we could expect. You know, on on good used iron, we we saw that with the fent tractor at at harman's. We saw it with the combine and the big four-wheel drive at Sheely's and the same-.
Speaker 1:And their sprayer.
Speaker 1:And that sprayer went for huge money. So it's kind of fun when we start tracking this what transpires through all this. Like that combine at Sheely's that went to Brazil. I'm sure it's down at the port in Houston somewhere waiting to get on a boat to go to Brazil. But when we're selling all around the world and you know these brokers are calling us, you know they wanted to know about the equipment. We've had some sellers that have been exceptional to work with. Their equipment has been great have been exceptional to work with. Their equipment has been great. I mean I look at the Holt one and the Holti one and all these other ones the Lee and Sheelys and Harmons. I mean we couldn't ask for better people to work for them.
Speaker 2:Absolutely and I think it made a difference on their sale. Those farms that we did those sales for had excellent reputations in the area and asides from the internet bidding, the local crowd bid strong at all of our spring sales. I mean Andy and I were going over the statistics on that Lee auction and only 26% sold on the internet that day. Right that. That goes to show how much that having that live crowd there on site that really pushes value.
Speaker 1:And it does. And you know when we're normally we're at that 48 to 52% being sold on the internet. Well, now, all of a sudden you've got we get, and that's what we like is live bidding the live on the internet. Well, now, all of a sudden you've got we get, and that's what we like is live bidding the live on the internet. But you get that many people there on site bidding against the internet. That pushes that value up. In the end.
Speaker 1:We really appreciate the kind of equipment that we've had to work with this spring. It's been great equipment, well-maintained, clean. You couldn't ask for a better setup for all of us to push pictures out to everybody in the country, put in the sale bill, ads, the papers on the internet. And when people call they say is things this clean? Yeah, they are. You know where that combine went, to Brazil. The buyer called me and asked if they'd have to rewash the combine. I said no, you could eat off the floor, eat off the engine whatever you combine. And I said no, you could eat off the floor, eat off the engine whatever you wanted. And he said well, before it goes, went through that inspection. They always want it cleaner. And I said you won't get it any cleaner. So we're very fortunate on how that all works. And you know I can't believe the month of April is gone and here we are the 12th or the 15th or whatever 18th of wherever we're at in May.
Speaker 2:I can't even remember. I'm lost. We can't keep up anymore, can we?
Speaker 1:No, I mean the month of April. I was home four days so I'm just kind of wondering where I'm at. But you know, as we progress we've got sales coming up. You know I've got a really unique one going on down at Raleigh, north Dakota, which is south of Flasher Some older equipment the gentleman passed away, so it is an estate sale, but we've got everything in his shop and all the machinery and it's older stuff but it's also been very well taken care of. A lot of this really looks nice and we've got all the shop equipment. We've got his tools. This really looks nice and we've got all the shop equipment. We've got his tools.
Speaker 1:Um, we got a 1970, I believe uh dodge charger that uh is going to be on. It's got a 400 engine in it, um, so it's, it's a really a nice car. So think about that when you're looking for your next car for your rebuild or do what you want to do. But we've got so many nice items coming up. And then we move into the June one. But also we've got Sioux Falls. That's just having a sale this past week. They, you know we're looking for that to be. I haven't got to see the numbers yet on that one. But you know we're getting so many people that are coming to these sales and being online. I know Andy told me one time that we had 300 at one of our sales. We had 375 people online or, excuse me, on site, and online was over 1400 people. So that means we're getting the word out there with our advertising.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of money sitting there on sale day and yes, there is. That makes a big difference when it comes to values. I mean, you're, you're a couple thousand higher than you know what it might have been with an older format of selling equipment, and you add that up throughout the course of the day and that can be a big, big difference on the gross.
Speaker 1:You know what we're seeing is. You know we've done a lot of sales in central North Dakota and western North Dakota and you know now we're kind of moving into the eastern part of the state with that sale you had the other day and then we're looking at all these sales coming up in June and we've got a lot of things to visit about. But there's also some big ranch sales that we've had. The land sales have been great, but we just had one this last week over in Medora, the landers around Sentinel Butte right north of there, and it was 3,000 and some acres that we had and we had 50 people at the auction. We did it at the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame. Want to give them a shout out and thanks for everything they've done for us to get that set up for us. But we had 50 people and I think there was only nine online, which was kind of unusual, but everybody wanted to be there, you know, and it was a.
Speaker 1:It was a great sale. I mean it was one piece after another sold. I think there were seven parcels and I think one guy took five parcels and then two other guys each had one and but what a great event. It's fun getting to visit those ranchers out there. You know, my my biggest thing is you get to visit with a Ted Tescher, a Bill Lohman, the cowboy poet, jim Lohman, who used to teach and coach in Scranton, and then you get to all the other guys. It's just, it's a fun crowd to be with and a bunch of great, great people that grew up in that area and know that area very well. So we had a great sale for the family and it was a lot of fun, but it was huge numbers for that area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've heard, I heard on. We had a company meeting here and I heard there were incredible results out there. Jim, it sounded like that was an incredible sale. I mean it goes right along with what we've done all spring. It seems like this market, you know, with all the uncertainty, this market continues to be strong, whether it's equipment or land, and is continuing to produce very, very solid results for us.
Speaker 1:You know the one thing I we got complimented many times at night about how we handle our auctions. But they always say you guys have got a great personality, whether it's your ringmen or your auctioneers. We're having a lot of fun with the people in the crowd and they like that. You know it gets them more relaxed, get them ready for the auction. But it's just fun visiting with those guys. When you get to hear their stories of why they're bidding on this or why they want to come and watch the auction, that's a lot of fun and some of these guys have got some stories that can't be told in the general public. But it is fun and I know you like that also. When we go around to all these sales, it's easy for us to go and visit. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we like that's what we like to do.
Speaker 1:All right, you know what I'm going to interrupt you here a second. This is Jim with America's Land Auctioneer. You're sponsored by all the great people at Pifers, whether it's land managers or auctioneers or the real estate agents. We'll be right back after these words. Hi, this is Jim with America's Land Auctioneers. We're in our second segment here. My guest is Christian Miller, from out of our Fargo office area. He works that whole side of the country.
Speaker 1:But we've been talking about a lot of things have been happening in the auction world and with things we're looking at. I want to say that the atmosphere has been good. Everybody's optimistic, except now we're short, some rain out in the western side of the state. But we've had a lot of people we've been visiting with and now we kind of want to move into that next segment of what we have going on in June and move into that. So again, people go to Piferscom. Take a look at what we have there. You can get a hold of any one of us salesmen that are out in the country. Christian and I seem to be the ones on the road a lot and we're running Minnesota and North Dakota and South Dakota and even out into Montana.
Speaker 1:So, christian, we've got some great sales coming up, some great, you know, a couple of retirements, we've got a couple of estate sales, but the one I want to kind of start with is the O'Neill up at retirement or estate auction, excuse me up at Crosby, columbus, north Dakota area, Be straight north, kind of northwest of Powers Lake, but they have a tremendous lineup of equipment and I've been back and forth up there and if you want to visit with a nice family they're unbelievable to sit and visit with.
Speaker 1:So, going through their machinery, you know they got a lot of really, really nice stuff but all well-maintained. They got this huge cold storage building that everything sits in. But you know one thing we got a cat payloader, a 924, that's got 5,000 hours on it. They and we've got a pickup. I think it was a 2015 Chevy pickup with a flatbed on it, a 2015 now with only 13,000 miles. And so you see what it looks like by going to our site, go to pyferscom, get under the machinery division, check out the O'Neill retirement estate. But unbelievable what this stuff looks like and how it's been treated.
Speaker 2:You know you bring up a good point there, Jim about you want to visit with a great family. You know, I think in our business the one thing that really sets us apart is our willingness to have the buyers talk to the sellers. You know we get there's days it'll be 50, 75 phone calls. On a busy day it seems like the phone will not quit ringing and we want those to run through us because we don't. If there's something simple that we can answer, we would like to answer those. We don't need our seller to be on the phone all day. But for the serious buyers that when they come to buy a combine or a sprayer where they're spending a considerable amount of money I think that's the one great feature about Pipers is that we have no problem connecting people with the right people to make sure that their questions are answered.
Speaker 1:No, and we don't. And you're right. Everybody says, well, why don't you put the client's name or the seller's name on the website or on all the advertising? They don't need to be taking 90 phone calls a day. We can answer the majority of them. But there's guys that just want to talk to the owner. So we, kind of, you know, get them lined up so they can talk to the owner, which is fine, the owner's kind of fine with this also, because, again, they see how many times we answer our phone and you know we just want to be very polite and make sure we get them directed, like you said, in the right direction.
Speaker 1:But a lot of times the amount of pictures we put up in our descriptions, people like they said man, you got there. And there's some of us that take more pictures than we probably should and there's some of us that take less than what we should. But it gets to be quite a bit. But you have to be able to show what this piece of equipment is. The other day I was taking pictures of an older air seater and the wings were up on it and the owner come up to me and says make sure you get a picture of that, that front axle up there. We got a crack in the frame on that. That's how honest. And these guys, they want everything represented right and that's how I've done that with that. But we'll all through the spring. Everybody's the same way. They want those flaws to show, if there is any, so we won't have people coming back to us later and say, you know what? Um, this wasn't shown. So we try to get pictures of all of that yeah, yeah, you make a.
Speaker 2:You make a great point there. In our business, transparency is key. We we operate on a, on a reputation, and I think you and I both deal with a lot of the same buyers at different sales, you know, and in order to keep a good reputation, we obviously we work for the sellers, we represent the sellers, but we have great buyer relationships and we've built those relationships that those buyers follow us from sale to sale and they buy and sell a lot of equipment through Pifers and I think that all comes back to the transparency side of things. I've had guys call me and they said what's that combine worth? And I tell them well, you know, this machine should be worth X amount, but here's something that we need to disclose on it and the combine won't bring what it would if it was 100%. But that transparency and letting the buyer know, letting them calculate what that repair bill would look like if they end up buying that machine, If there is something that needs to be fixed, I think transparency goes a long ways in the auction business.
Speaker 1:It does. And we had an issue with one tractor here this spring that there was something in a module in that transmission that wasn't right and it wasn't letting the tractor do what it needed to do at different speeds. So we announced that day that you know what it's on warranty. We'll get that fixed for you and you won't have to worry about it. And I think being transparent made that thing bring more money than it probably should have that day, but still had warranty.
Speaker 1:But the owner said I want this to be known to everybody who's bidding on it. So the other thing also we want to visit about is you know, in this segment it's kind of fun when we get to do load on. A lot of people don't like to do load out. You know, I don't want to sit there and load people out and you and I kind of like this because this is where we get to visit with our buyers and see what they need, you know, see what else they need. Or are they at the age where maybe in a year or two they're going to be wanting to sell their equipment also? But sitting there and visiting with these people some of them again we always listen to their story, but why they want this piece of equipment. You know, and you normally sit there for about two days on site to get rid of the equipment and get it loaded out, but they're so much fun to visit with?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, they are, and you're right about that. How many times has somebody said, well, they come to pick their item up and well, I'd like to buy this or that. Well, that's coming up on a sale the following week. And they had no idea you?
Speaker 2:know, I think with the amount of farm sales we have it can be pretty easy to miss one or two of them. You know, communicating with those buyers on loadout, I've sold quite a few pieces of equipment where I see that same buyer two weeks later and here he went and bought that item.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really nice to see and fun. And then you know you get to talk to a lot of different truckers and the family that we just did the sale for. They also get to see how we handle the backside of the sales and they really like that because you know I have guys pull up on our lot and say, well, I can't believe you guys are here loading out. Usually you know your competitors make the clients or the families load themselves out and we don't do that. We try to at least do two days there the day of the sale and a full next day, and if we've got to stay a little bit longer, we do. It's something that we want to make sure that is handled to take the pressure off the family.
Speaker 1:You know they just had a great sale. It's very emotional for what they did, just to sell their equipment or everything out of the shops. You know what grandpa had and great grandpa and them and and you know so it gets kind of emotional for them and and that's why we like to handle a lot of that and and treat them with some respect and and hey, we'll handle it Anything after that. If you could help us here, this would be great.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's why you hire the professionals. That that's why you hire Pipers to come do your farm sale is to have that process handled from front to back. When we book the sale we wash the equipment and when the sale's done we load out the equipment. So it's a full-scale service at Pipers with the equipment team. I know you and I put in a lot of work there.
Speaker 1:You know, on the next segment, we'll get into the services that we provide that maybe some other companies don't, or maybe they do, but we'll tell you why we provide them. But again, this is Jim Sabby with America's Land Auctioneer. I got Christian Miller with our host here today or with our guest. Excuse me, christian Miller, but we've had a lot of things go on and you know what Nobody does it better than Pfeiffer's. Get a hold of our land management team, our auctioneers, our real estate agents. I tell you what nobody can do it better than Pfeiffer's. And you know, in our next segment we're going to talk about what we want to do, how we want to help our clients out. But it's just a big success story that we've been having here through Pfeiffer's. Kevin Pfeiffer taught us right when we first started. You know what let's do, what we're going to say. Let's do what we say we're going to do, let's get it done. And so, folks, let's get ready for that next segment and we'll be ready to roll talking about our next jobs.
Speaker 2:Jump in where we left off.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're ready. Three, two, one. Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Jim Sabby, your host for today. Christian Miller is my guest. Three, two, one. Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Jim Sabby, your host for today. Christian Miller is my guest from the eastern side of North Dakota, minnesota and wherever he wants to go, and you know we've been having a great morning visiting about a lot of things with Pifers. You know we do a lot of land sales, a lot of machinery sales we're in the heart of machinery sales season but let's talk about what we do when we go to meet a client and what we try to do for them with their machinery.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, we're not just a. We don't just show up and do an online only auction.
Speaker 2:When we get a phone call from somebody looking to do a farm retirement sale, there's generally one of us will go out and meet with the family and there are times when this retirement sale can involve land being sold.
Speaker 2:It can involve land being managed, involve land being sold. It can involve land being managed and there's a farm retirement with the equipment at the same time, and so sometimes it's one agent that'll go out, but if it overlaps, there's times two or three of us will go out and we sit down with that family and we want to know what their timeline is, when they're looking to have this done and where they want to have it at. Are they comfortable having it at their farm? Does the equipment need to be moved? And we discuss those types of details. The big thing I think with our crew is that we have the capability of loading, of doing the auction from front to back, so we can wash the equipment, we can line it up, we can detail the cabs, we handle all of the marketing. Essentially for our seller, at the end of their sale, really, the only thing they should need to do is open the mailbox and take a checkout.
Speaker 1:You know and that is it's very fortunate with the people we work with that it happens. Some of them they want to be hands-on all the way through the process and others say, no, please handle everything. You know I'm just not capable of getting things done. You know, just cleaning out the shops. And you know we always ask them to be there so they can kind of see what they have that they didn't know they had, and uh, same with some of the equipment. But when you you see what we do and we're sitting at that table, we always want to ask them do you have an exit plan? You know what with your money, the taxes and, and um, we're, what are you doing with it? What do you plan on and how do you want to handle that Cause it's a big end of the year or end of the life, um deal, what we're doing here is this is what they need to live on for retirement for the rest of their life. We want to make sure they get that done right and get everything set up. So we do ask that you know what? What's your plans? You know, do you have this exit plan? You know? Have you been talking to attorney? Have you been talking to your accountant. This is what you need to do. Talk to your banker, get that taken care of.
Speaker 1:So a lot of them, I'd say 80% of them, don't have a plan. So we want to mention that to them and then they can start working on that, because normally we like at least 60 days of advertising and getting things done. Now we can do it earlier in 30 days, but we like our 60 day period just for marketing and and let's say, we get a bunch of weather and we can't go out there and inventory like we want to. You know, this winter there's a couple of times where we were up at the O'Neill place and it was 25 blowout and we were trying to do inventory and I tell you what nothing works. Even my brain did not work during that.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of things that goes on before the auction that we need the family to get done and then help us with some of these things. There's times where we got to bring in 25 batteries to put new batteries in everything. You know we're bringing in transmission oil, hydraulic oil, engine oil to help these people out, but most of them are so grateful when we bring our team in. You know I'm saying this last week I was up in Minot area and I'm bringing five guys to help get equipment sales set up and they're so happy that we can bring that many people in to get this set up for them. So there's a lot of things that transpire when we're doing this.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think, having good communication with that seller. You're right. Every situation is different. Some sellers I had a sale up there in that birth hold area and I hardly had to do anything. I'd show up and everything was palletized and it was on trailers and there was so little to do.
Speaker 2:But we also have situations that are polar opposites of that where the seller might be in tough, you know, whether it's a financial position or health, plays a big role on what they're able to do, and in those situations we're more than happy to make a phone call and make sure we have a full crew pulling up on site, you know, on that day to get everything set up. And that's, I think, for the sellers that are not capable of participating with their auction. I think that's a big relief to know that the job gets done right.
Speaker 1:You know and you said it earlier in your conversation communication. You know it's so nice that these people want to communicate with us. We communicate with them. But you know, a lot of times after the sale, when we're months gone, they'll still call us and sit and visit. And that's what we like to hear is you know, when we're in that area we will stop and visit our, our clients that we had earlier and people just are amazed that we have time to do that. But it's fun and we've created a lot of friends throughout this and we may do a sale for them and then all of a sudden two, three years later we're doing it for the neighbor. They saw how everything was handled and that's kind of how we like to have that. We treat everybody with respect. We like to have that. We treat everybody with respect. It doesn't matter if they have a $300,000 sale or a $100,000 sale or a $2.5 million one. We treat those people all the same with the respect and the kindness to get them through the process. What needs to be done?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the size of the sale doesn't dictate the effort that you get from our crew. Yeah, the size of the sail doesn't dictate the effort that you get from our crew. We treat them all the same and we put in the same amount of hard work to make sure that they're all ready come sail day, Because that's what it boils down to. We put in a lot of work for one day, don't we?
Speaker 1:Yes, we do. The other key is when we come to sale day and you know and it depends on the sale too how many people are along. But we got, and I'm going to say, at least six to eight there. There's sometimes on some of these sales we have 10 to 14, 15 people there that have Pfeiffer's attire on and they come in oh wow, you're bringing everybody in. We say, well, yeah, this is what we do. We want to make sure nothing's left that we missed. And also I said we bring other people on just to sit and visit with people in the crowd. I mean, they want to see what we're like.
Speaker 1:Well, now we've got our land management team there. That's, you know, just kind of sitting around visiting, maybe buying coffee for some people. And then all of a sudden you got the real estate agents, you got the auctioneers, and then you've got our clerking staff. And I want to give a shout out to Allie and everybody that does the clerking, because that's a huge thing that's gone on. That a lot of people don't.
Speaker 1:That's behind the scenes. You know, you've got two platforms. We're using Equipment Facts and NextLot and all of a sudden you're hearing this yelling coming out of the topper. And here's Allie getting bids that way but um, or sitting in her booths, but I mean unbelievable what she does and what they do in that topper. So and then the people in the clerking trailer. You know the, the people we get that come out for each auction. Sometimes it's different western North Dakota we got a different set of clerks than they do in the Central and Eastern North Dakota but it takes a team to be able to get done what we do, yes, it does, yeah, and it certainly does.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of people I think a lot of people see you and I out on the road, but we have a small army behind us that makes sure that the things that we're doing are organized and that when we make a phone call, we can have answers pretty quickly and efficiently, and that is due to our team. You brought something up, jim with sometimes Allie will be heading to an equipment auction clerking a land auction in the pickup while somebody else is driving. I mean, that's a dedication, absolutely, and it takes a lot of coordination and a lot of communication to make sure that those things, that all the right pieces, are there at the right time. And our team does an exceptional job of working together and making sure that these sales are a success and most of everybody goes above and beyond.
Speaker 1:You know, like this past week my Bowman office is pretty vacant. Andy and Allie headed to Sioux Falls and then they headed to your sale up there in Minnesota. So they went from Bowman to Sioux Falls and down there for two or three days and then up to Fargo and then they went over to your sale and Boutenhof sale and you know they they're going to get home Friday, you know. So that's a lot of dedication. Everybody's got families, you know education, everybody's got families. You know and sometimes we forget about that when we're on the road that oh yeah, I got a family. I need to visit too every once in a while. But you know and I'm going to again Allie has done a great job for us clerking everything and lining up the people that she needs to help do all that. And then you and I, when we're out in the field and I'm going to give credit to John Soraiti, also out here in the western side, he does a great job of going out procuring these auctions Then we get to steel and then you're looking at. You know, albert Rorick is there, darren Peterson is the head of the steel office. He does a great job there. So get ahold of Darren anytime you want for your machinery or land deals. But Darren's been running that thing and they've had a tremendous sale here this spring that they've got things back on track and I think they're going to get their yard worked on, try to keep those mud holes out of there here this summer. But they've done a great job. So, anyway, we are looking at a little bit of time here.
Speaker 1:Let's get ready for our next segment coming up. So let's talk about next segment. We're just going to reiterate what we've done. We're going to talk about upcoming sales and you know what? Nobody does it better than Pifers. This is Jim Sabby with America's Land Auctioneer. Chris is on the other side of the screen looking at me saying, hey, we've got to get out of here, but we got one more segment left. Nobody does it better than Pifers, and contacts can contact us for any of your needs. Thank you Now. We'll see you next segment. Three, two, one. Welcome to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm Jim Sabby, your host for this Saturday morning. I got Christian Miller on from the eastern side of the state. He goes into Minnesota and North Dakota and South Dakota. He's all around the country, but I'd like to thank him for being on here this morning. We want to talk about what we have upcoming and I just want to bring this up.
Speaker 1:We have a great auction coming up in Bowman, north Dakota, july 26. It's our second annual car auction Lenny Sadler Car Auction. We have a car show here in Bowman, north Dakota. It's a great event. Now it's turned into a two-day deal. Friday and Saturday is a car show and the auction.
Speaker 1:If you need to consign anything now, you were here last year you saw how this thing worked. But if you need to consign your vehicle to this car auction, we had some huge numbers hit and also we had about 35 vehicles I believe we auctioned off last summer. Well, we're hoping to get around 50 this year. But Christian and our team will be in Bowman celebrating. We've got two great bands coming in, one from Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, the other one's out of Las Vegas and you will enjoy the southwest part of North Dakota. But when you're in the southwest North Dakota you need to also go to Marmoth, north Dakota. We have a great museum over there that's Old West style and it's got a lot of cars in it Dory's Car Museum. That is probably one of the nicest in the upper Midwest and it's hidden over there in Marmoth, north Dakota, which is straight west of Bowman, north Dakota, right before you get to Baker, montana. So again, let's talk a little bit about that car auction and what you thought about it last year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great time, Jim, if you're looking for whether it's with friends or you want to take family for a getaway, that is a great weekend thing to do. If you take some family and the amount of cars there, I mean whether if you're into the 60s muscle or that 50s era with the big uh, with the big spoilers and things, the big fins on the back uh, those there is a little bit of everything, stuff from the 30s and and the early 20s. I mean there there is every type of car you can imagine and and motorcycles and motorcycles and yeah, Motorcycles and motorcycles and yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:And 330 vehicles in the car show last year, is that right? And you went from one end of Main Street all the way to the other and of course it happened to be kind of a hot day but our sale was right on Main Street in front of the Ford garage. Now we're going to move it just a little bit down the street but we're moving our sale to 11 o'clock in the morning kind of, so we're not in that middle of the heat day on that pavement. But you know, I don't remember how many people from Pifers we had there. We had quite a crew and it was just a fun two days that people come out here relax. Our crew got to relax, we got to sell vehicles and memorabilia and don't forget, we sell a lot of memorabilia with this show.
Speaker 1:So again, Bowman, july 26th. You know, just contact any one of your Pifers guys you know, or get ahold of me personally at 701-523-6283 and be glad to help you out with any vehicle you'd like to get sold. One other thing we want to bring up is Friday. I believe Friday of that week is the 25th. We're going to be doing a Pifers 25th anniversary celebration. We're going to have that out here in Bowman during the car show. We're going to do it all weekend, from Friday and Saturday, so we'd like to welcome everybody here. We're proud to be that Pifers has been in business for 25 years. I'm on my 19th year, so that tells you how old I am Christian. You'll probably get some of this gray hair sooner or later, but you've been with Pifers for 19 years.
Speaker 2:I think I'm on the right track.
Speaker 1:You are, you are. But we've got a lot of auctions and you know we talk about the upcoming auctions. I just asked Christian this morning about helping out with an auction over in Pearl, minnesota. We're going to have an auction out there around the lakes, so it's some real estate, uh also, and boats and recreational type of stuff and uh. So check out piperscom and uh, you can get to that at. I think it's the 27th uh of june, somewhere right there, 27, 28th, um, but check that out. And and uh, then we're getting ready for the fall run. I've already booked a machinery sale in August up at Sherwood, north Dakota. So we're battling through the thick of things and here we are You're getting close to now talking about fall auctions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and we do have that transition period during the summer, don't we, where it's almost too late to do a machinery sale. So then we start booking stuff for fall and building up that fall schedule. We do need one, one little glimpse to come up and get some air before we go back into that fall schedule.
Speaker 1:But you know, the one thing I also want to say about this is you know, a lot, of, a lot of auction companies will do sales on Fridays, saturdays or Sundays, but they aren't full-time like we are. Everybody here is full-time. We work Monday through Friday and a lot of times we're working Saturdays and Sundays also getting things set up. But when you look at the, everybody says, well, I'd like to have it on a Saturday. You know what Our people have worked all week and sometimes it does work for us to have a sale on Saturday, like the one out in Minnesota now that we're doing. That's going to be a Friday sale and you know, we know it's summertime, but in Lake country that's kind of when you want to have those sales. So it kind of dictates where you're at in the country Out west. You know everybody here is either hanging in the summertime or they're out rodeoing or they're going places and they're not here on weekends. So that's kind of how we look at that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and it does matter. I think that's a good point. With that sale being in the lakes country, you'll probably have much higher attendance having that on a Friday. That lakes country almost doubles come Friday at 10 am they start to see traffic start to come in. No, you're exactly right Jim.
Speaker 1:That doubles and Fargo loses a lot of people. Fargo cuts in half. We don't see that out here. It cuts in half. You know, we don't see that out here. We don't have enough lakes, mainly because they're usually dry or got a lot of algae in them. So people don't go to the lakes as much.
Speaker 1:But they go different areas. You know they'll run to Rapid City, they'll run to Billings. You know, and I tell everybody I'm closer to Billings, montana, than I am Fargo, north Dakota, I'm closer to Denver than I am Minneapolis. So people out here we kind of migrate in different directions and but they're they're taking weekends off also and so we try to have a. I know we tried having a weekend sale one time and it just wasn't as good as what we thought it would be. And the other thing is, when we are selling stuff a lot of people do the wire of funds to our company and that has to be during the middle of the week and before three o'clock or two, 30 in the afternoon, and on weekends they cannot wire funds, you know you you read my mind on that, Jim.
Speaker 2:I was just about to say something about payment. That's a big deal for us. You know we've talked in the earlier segments about how how we handle things from start to finish. That's another big portion of what we do at Piper's is collecting payment. You know, 10 to 14 days after the sales over, our sellers are receiving their check for their proceeds, and so it is vital for us to collect those funds immediately, and our accounting staff, the minute the auction's over, the buyers, are getting phone calls wondering where payment is at.
Speaker 2:Yes, they are we're working on closing that out for our sellers.
Speaker 1:And that's why we say you know, nobody does it better than Pifers. You know we've got a great staff. Look at our salesmen. We got scattered around, you know, in Sioux Falls and Steele and Bowman, and then other guys. You know, corey Longnecker up at New Rockford, jim Ocker up there at Lakota, like he always says, but we're very fortunate with the people we have in steel and scattered all around the upper Midwest. I mean, we have people in Wisconsin and we're very fortunate to be able to have all that.
Speaker 1:But to make it work it takes a big wheel and you know leadership from the top to be able to have all that. But to make it work it takes a big wheel and you know leadership from the top to be able to make that work. And we appreciate all the help we get. But again, it's the agents out in the country that are driving this wheel making it work. And you know we just want to say thank you to everybody. But if you need anything, just get a hold of pyferscom, look on there or call any one of our agents. We're all listed on the website and we'd be glad to help you out.
Speaker 1:So, folks, this is Jim Sabby, the America's Land Auctioneer, this segment and this whole America's Land Auctioneer show this morning was brought to you by Pifers, the land management, the auctioneers, the real real estate agents and everybody that's involved with it. We're very fortunate to have them and nobody does it better. Like we said before and again, I want to thank christian miller for being my guest here this saturday morning. I'm jim sabby with america's land auctioneer and I'll see you in a couple weeks.