Ep. 47 - Sarah J. Bohnenkamp; Coach, Advocate & Leader
Today’s guest joined us at the start of the quarantine lockdown in March and we must have had some wicked good forecast to reach out to her about leadership, public speaking and being an advocate for ranching and rodeo. Sarah joins Katie Schrock and Rachel Owens-Sarno on the podcast!
Sarah’s Journey
“My journey has had a lot of twists and turns,” says Sarah who grew up in Pocatella, Idaho. Always in love with horses, she got her first horse in the fifth grade which opened up a cornucopia of new adventures through 4-H and rodeo. Spending most of her youth involved in the activities that 4-H encouraged, she lived in an apartment and struggled with stereotypes as she lived in an apartment but did everything she could do make it work.
“Nothing would keep me away from [rodeo],” says Sarah who used her competitiveness and love of rodeo to set herself up in the real world. A degree in communications later, she wasn’t sure where she would go next in her career and one day, while cruising through the newspaper she saw a job training for a credit union.
“For some amazing, magical, and God-given reason, I got it!” Despite not being a teller, knowing what collections were or how to read reports - she ended up moving to Arizona working in the credit space. Doing the training she found her calling as she got to help people win at their jobs and feel awesome.
“Let’s move to Colorado!”
Her husband told her that he wanted to leave Arizona because it was too hot there so they headed to Colorado. The financial world was all that she knew and looking through the job market in Denver she couldn’t find anything that really fit or wasn’t too much of a backstep.
“I have always believed, ever since I was a little girl, I wasn’t mediocre,” says Sarah and found on Craigslist. They liked what they saw and, after a few months, they asked her to be the National Executive Director. There were so many “why’s” that Sarah asked herself but what she learned was that sometimes different is exactly what people need.
Her love for the industry and helping people advocate for the things that they love was something very special. Especially in today’s world, with how conflicted people are about food, we definitely need a lot of that.
Executive National Director
Traveling often to Washington, D.C., it began to be taxing on Sarah’s young family and a meeting with a leadership coach taught her that that was what she wanted to do; coaching, consulting and more for organizations and people in the western lifestyle. Connecting the beef world with the CDC, talking antibiotics, talking about human/environmental/animal health, connecting producers to the next level, and many more passionate relationship building opportunities.
“I just love it, I love sustainability, I love all things rooted in people and strong histories,” says Sarah.
Advocacy
Advice to Start
The best advice to get involved when you didn’t start in the industry that you want to be a part of is to just put away the inner critic and do it. There is a lot of stories of the underdog that came in and just “crushed it,” and you need to see what the Lord has put on your heart and just go for it. It’s that simple - it’s a choice.
You are needed to be there and to shake things up! Join clubs, be on the rodeo team, get involved!
Public Speaking Advice
To become a better speak you just have to speak. That’s really what it is - you’ve got to “do the dang thing!” Whether you want to be a speaker or a horseback rider; you got to get in the saddle and spend the hours.
Video: Being able to watch your game film back to see how you can improve is a start.
Small groups: You need to experience some success at a small level before you can get on to the next level.
Find mentors: Just like if you’d want to tool leather, you need to find a good mentor. If you want to learn to ride cutting horses, you need to find a mentor to train under. You need to call, ask, and see what you can do to learn. You have to make the ask and sometimes you have to pay because time is value - you have to be willing to put the skin in the game.
Read as much as you.
Show up and do the work.
Engaging an Unengaged Crowd
Something that Sarah has seen a lot with her thousands of hours in the classroom, especially in afternoons when people want to take a nap after lunch. Her simple solution is to stop talking, to ask a question, etc. Silence can be uncomfortable and it will gain attention and bring them back.
Social Media
A big part of the social media advocacy that Sarah brought to the Cattlewomen was through twitter as they began hosting twitter parties to get more people engaged and involved. Social media, at the time, was still kind of fresh, and they started talking to moms that were blogging about cooking and having “twitter parties” to talk about beef, promote beef, and giveaway beef. In essence, it was influencer marketing before influencer marketing was a thing.
They trusted Sarah enough to let her run with all of her energy through these actions - energy works!
Understanding Policy Better
If you’re intimidated by the policy world, always know that it is driven by money. That can’t scare you!
Start learning acronyms that have to do with policy and regulatory groups. When it comes to Washington, D.C., it’s about negotiations, relationships and those longstanding relationships. Beef is the number two PAC (Political Action Committee) behind sugar if you didn’t know.
“If you truly want to impact social change, the way that people interact and behave, you can’t ignore policy,” says Sarah. “If I don’t go to Washington, it’s not going to work. As much as I don’t like it, you have to lean into it - it’s the way it works and the way we live in this world to make it work.”
Advocacy Tools Rodeo Athletes Should Have
The people driving the anti-policies to our western ideas are against all of us so we need to be together from rodeo to ranching. Posting on social media isn’t going to get the job; not posting a meme, not sharing here and there, etc. You need to pick up the phone and have communication with the staffers, your representatives, and those working on policy. Really make friends with the staffers as they are young and come from all over. Giving influence to them means that when they are consulted by their representative that they work for they are going to feel comfortable and confident talking about what is going on.
The second thing is that you need to be really clear on what your ask is and what you want them to do. You can’t go in and be a mud-slinger saying why other groups are wrong. You need to help tell the story and connect it to a personal level and the heart-part. The love for the animals, the people, etc. You also need to put the economic impact on the equation and share that when rodeo’s come to town that this is what happens from the volunteers to the revenue from fans at hotels, restaurants, farm stores, and more. The value that it brings to community, the legacy, and the people that show up. You have to lead with values versus the facts.