Drought won't stop GLM delivering top service

Hannah and Brendan Gilliland are making moves with Gilliland Livestock Marketing, and are showing no signs of slowing down.

TEAM GLM: Brendan Gilliland, Hannah Gilliland, Richard Bumstead and Lachlan Gay. Picture: Ange Stirling Photography

BRENDAN Gilliland can't remember a time when he didn't want to work in the livestock agency industry.

Now that dream has come to life with Gilliland Livestock Marketing.

Brendan and his wife Hannah have been in operation in Dalby for almost 12 months, and are already making moves in the industry.

The Gillilands have a selling position at the Dalby Saleyards, but also conduct private sales to domestic and export processors.

The team also supplies several local feedlots.

Mr Gilliland said he's wanted to work in the industry from as early as he can remember.

"I don't think I've ever wanted to be anything else but a livestock agent,” he said.

"I started in the livestock agency business straight out of high school.”

Mr Gilliland said he is grateful to be working in Dalby.

"The lucky thing about myself here in Dalby is that I work with like-minded people,” he said.

"I find it very community orientated. There's a lot of opportunity, I believe, in Dalby for young people who want to strive to go forward.”

The agent said one of the most important things to remember in his business is to remain positive.

"I say to my clients all the time, and our staff particularly, if we go out in our role and we're pessimistic and whinge and whine about the weather, it doesn't put a good vibe on the whole thing with our clients,” he said.

"If we can go out there and be positive and say, we agree it's dry and it's tough but we've seen it worse.

"And we have.”

The business has not been without its struggles.

Like many businesses, the drought has affected sales as they try to cater for an "over-supply and under-demand” of cattle and livestock.

"We're selling a lot of cattle but you could say that we're selling them prematurely,” Mr Gilliland said.

"There's a bottleneck at the moment. With the dry weather it's bringing a lot of cattle to the market, and the livestock industry is a very supply and demand market.

"It's impacted our business as such that we're selling a lot of cattle that we probably shouldn't be selling this time of the year.”

Despite the severity of the drought, Mr Gilliland said he is not letting any adversities get in the way of providing quality service to his customers.

"Our motto within our team is 'we don't want to be the biggest, but we want to offer a very good private service to our clients',” Mr Gilliland said.