How to Find Great Live Auctions for Resale Items

Hi, my name is Walt. I’m an auctioneer with 25 years of experience in the auction business and licensed in the state of MA. I own Quick Auction Service, a company that specializes in building and running custom auctions, I’m also the webmaster of my own site and have been on eBay for 8 years. Besides eBay, the types of auctions I run most frequently are antiques and on-site estate auctions, although I’ve run everything from business overstock auctions to charity & special event auctions.

I enjoy sharing my knowledge and stories of the auction business. My goal for article is to help folks get the absolute most out of their auction experience.

Whether your fresh out of the package or a seasoned dealer I think I can offer something in this article to help you with your auciton adventures.

There may be as many reasons to attend auctions as there are types of auctions to attend. Maybe you want to attend an auction to buy items for re-sale on eBay, or some other market. Maybe you want to furnish your home with wonderful antiques, or you want to furnish your home as inexpensively without sacrificing quality.Some folks are just looking for a fun night out. With a little perseverance all these things are possible.

There are antiques and estate auctions, auto auctions, overstock auctions, absolute and no reserve auctions, real estate auctions, specialty auctions where only one genre of items are sold, tailgate auctions, live auctions, online auctions, sealed bid auctions, silent auctions, charity and fund raising auctions and many more.

Can you really buy for pennies on the dollar at an auction? You bet! Many times I’ve seen folks buy and re-sell at the same auction on the same night for a good profit, although be advised, this should only be done after the auction is over.

There are a lot of ways to find an auction, but here are some tips on how to find and attend the best ones.

Visit the genre of shops in the area that apply to the type of auction you want to attend. IE: If your looking for a good antique auction to attend, stop in the local antiques shops and ask for what there are for good auctions in the area. Sounds obvious right? But listen to what they don’t say as well as what they do say. Oftentimes when a dealer speaks poorly about an auction he or she attends, it may be likely that they are trying to keep a good thing secret. Think for a moment, why would a dealer keep attending a lousy auction?

Newspaper ads: I personally like to find ads in the classified ad section rather than flashy display ads. Flashy ads are usually indicative of an auction that will be high priced, may have reserves, (a set price on an item), and usually an enormous crowd. While any auction can be profitable to attend, it is usually best to steer clear of the glitzy ones, at least for the beginner.

Here’s the minimum you want to find out before you go. If there is a phone number in the ad, call and ask for the terms of the sale. What forms of payment do they accept? Is it an absolute auction? An absolute auction is one that has no minimum or reserve bids on items. These are the best auctions to attend! Is there a buyers premium? A buyers premium is like a tax that everyone who makes purchases at that auction must pay above the winning bid price. Most auctions these days do charge a buyers premium, 10% is not unreasonable but I feel much more than that is greedy, and the auctioneer that charges over 10% is counting on most bidders not doing the extra math as the bids quicken in pace.

A fair auction will have ample time to inspect the merchandise, usually at least 2 or 3 hours. Find out when inspection starts and make sure to attend! Never attend an auction if you can’t make the inspection, not unless your prepared to gamble. Most auctioneers sell at a rate of about 100 items per hour, which is why they sell “as is”. They simply don’t have the time to give a detailed description of all the items. Since almost all items at auction are sold AS IS, there are sure to be some damaged, refinished, fake and incomplete items at any given auction. Beware of any auctions that offer very little or no inspection time.

Good auctions will usually have 150 to 400 lots. A lot may be one item or a group of items. The exception to this are specialty auctions, auto auctions, real estate auctions etc.

When you attend your first sale, take note of the 1/2 dozen or so dealers that buy the most often. See if you can find out about other area auctions they attend.

When you do find an excellent auction, attend it as often as possible. By frequenting good sales, you help increase the bottom line of that business. It’s difficult for many auctioneers to keep the quality of merchandise consistent, so good attendance certainly helps. And when an auctioneer gets to know you as a buyer, he/she will go out of the way to accommodate you, to keep you coming back.

3 Ways Edgar Allan Poe Can Supercharge Your Marketing

Marketing is the lifeline of your business and you need a dynamic marketing program for your business to grow. As a business advisor, the constant complaint I get from clients is that they just can’t afford the marketing they need.

To help your marketing be more effective and get a higher return on investment, I’d like you to remember Edgar Allan Poe with my little parody of The Raven:

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

Over so many ways to help my business grow.

Marketing ideas I was creating, but my budget’s so berating,

Media exposures are begetting expenses as my constant foe.

Finding ways to spread my story with finances low

Big ideas, so little money, then I discovered POE.”

Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favorite authors, but POE is also an acronym for the 3 categories of media marketing. Though a common practice in large enterprises, POE is often overlooked by smaller businesses. The term media marketing is most often thought of in the context of mass media but, in reality, media marketing is simply communicating your story, whether to a mass market or to one individual. Recognizing and understanding the many forms of media and utilizing each category of POE will increase the overall effectiveness of your marketing.

• Paid media marketing. OK, this one is obvious; it’s when you pay third party marketing companies to get your message out through media such as print, TV, radio, and online advertising. No other type of media can guarantee the immediacy and scale of paid media. Paid media is usually what we think of as mass media marketing but it also includes trade shows, sponsorships, organization memberships, and sales expenses. The pros of paid marketing is that you have control of the content and the target audience. You can start and stop it when you wish. The cons are the high expenses and the fact that advertising is not as effective as it was once was. You are paying for everything, and smaller companies with tight budgets find it difficult to get effective results for the costs incurred.

• Owned media marketing is when you leverage a channel you create and control. From a digital standpoint, this is your company website, email announcements or newsletters, LinkedIn, blog, twitter, YouTube channel, and your Facebook page. Each allows you to project your brand and personality as you chose and when you chose.

Don’t overlook the importance of emails. Though thought of as “old tech” by many, a surprising new survey by the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company states that email is nearly 40 times more of an effective way to acquire customers than all that tweeting and posting and “liking” you’re doing on social media Facebook and Twitter combined.

But owned media marketing is not just in the digital world, it can also be your hard assets such as your bricks and mortar facility, your delivery trucks as well as your employees’ uniforms, as each of these helps create an image and brand that promotes your business. A simple example of owned media is my local tree service company who has their phone number in 3 foot numbers on the sides of their large trucks. Their trucks are now mobile billboards that can be seen from 100 feet away. They enjoyed more than a 100% increase in calls after they did this.

• Earned media marketing has been around forever. It’s an old PR term that essentially means getting your brand message noticed for free rather than having to pay for it through advertising. Public relations (PR) and word-of-mouth are examples of earned media marketing. With Earned, the press and the public share your content, speak about your brand via social media or word-of-mouth, and otherwise discuss your brand. In other words, the mentions are “earned,” meaning they are voluntarily given by others, such as testimonials.

There’s an old adage in marketing: “When we say something about ourselves, people tend to disbelieve it but when others say something about us, people tend to believe it.” Positive earned media is a result of brand behavior. Many consumers don’t trust advertising, but they do trust peer recommendations. This is why earned media is so important to your success. One positive testimonial can have more value than an expensive advertisement.

When you have done something so well or interesting that people want to use their own media to tell others about it, you’re earning media. More importantly, earning media is about engaging with consumers on their terms and gaining trust based on genuine understanding of what interests them. Building relationships through strong networking is also earned marketing. Build your networks by joining groups, attend events, do public speaking, write articles or an eBook, and meet people one-on-one.

Here’s an example of how one small business combines paid, owned and earned marketing to expand their exposure using POE: The small family-owned business where I take my cars for service does a great job of combining all three areas of POE. They spend money on a professional direct mail piece that goes out regularly to area homes and businesses (paid). They have a user-friendly website where you can set an appointment and get tips on caring for your car (owned) and they send regular emails with service tips and specials (owned). They have an attractive clean facility with a family-friendly waiting area (owned).

Great customer service is one of the best forms of owned/earned marketing, and they do a terrific job of following up every service job with a personal phone call and a thank you letter (owned). This sets them apart and gains them valuable testimonials (earned), some of which are posted on their website (owned).

No marketing is free. Remember there’s a cost to each category of marketing – time, money or both. Many small business owners underestimate the cost of their precious time invested in the marketing they do in-house. Owned and earned marketing takes effort and creativity to develop and leverage at any scale but it’s worth it. If you want your content to spread through social media and for social discussions to spring up around your products or services, you have to put effort into developing your social media channels. You must build your social media profiles, engage with customers and create interesting content. You must also do it consistently, week in and week out. Paying attention to your Twitter account once every 5 months will not accomplish much.

Everything you do is marketing. Regardless of the size of your business or budget, the strength of POE comes from the constant realization and reminder that nearly everything you do in your business creates a form of media marketing that falls into one or combined categories of POE. From an expensive TV ad to how you answer your phone, you are creating your brand that will affect the growth and success of your business.

What Do Customers Say About Aerial Advertising?

The aerial advertising companies think that airplane messages are incredibly worthwhile. Advertisers might be enchanted with the novelty of having their ad flown over a busy beach or festival.

But what do consumers think? It would seem a waste for advertisers to spend a good deal of money on advertising that won’t be worthwhile, that consumers won’t respond to, that won’t bring customers and money to the door.

Advertisers will be happy to know, then, that consumers think highly of aerial advertising. They enjoy watching the banner ads, and they remember the ads long after they are gone.

In 2004, a Miami Beach survey of 2,194 beachgoers backed this up. After seeing airplane messages in the sky, they were asked some questions about the advertising. The results were interesting and useful to potential aerial advertisers.

Other forms of advertising might be remembered for a short period of time, especially if the message is unique, but most consumers don’t recall the information for very long.

So what’s enlightening is that in the survey of beachgoers a stunning majority of people not only remembered the banner ads they saw, they remembered them for a long period of time.

Beachgoers were asked if they remembered the banner that passed over in the past 30 minutes. The response? 88% of them had. It’s hard to imagine another advertising medium that could boast of 88% of the people remembering it 30 minutes later.

In fact, most people pay little attention to advertising, unless the message is unique or the way of communicating the message is unique (as in a duck, cavemen, or something similar). But sometimes how you present that message is what’s unique (as in aerial advertising) and that’s what people pay attention to. Once you have that attention, you can get your message across in a clearer way than you might think.

The advantage of airplane advertising is that it is unique. It’s not like all the advertising that we see on any given day – billboards, radio ads, and newspaper and television ads. When that plane flies over, towing a banner and a message, we all look up. We pay attention. We remember.

And this statistic bears that out – 79% of the people questioned remembered what was being advertised on the airplane banner. This is 30 minutes after the banner passed over. This backs up what aerial advertising companies already know – airplane messages work. The medium is unique enough that people notice it and they remember it. An advertiser can ask for little more than that.

Finally, the best news for advertisers – 67% of those beachgoers surveyed said they remembered at least half of the message of the airplane advertising. When people remember the message, they remember the advertiser. They seek out the product or service being advertised.

The bottom line is, consumers respond to aerial advertising. They enjoy looking at it, they pay careful attention to it and (best of all) they remember it. Whether alone or combined with other forms of advertising, an advertiser’s dollar goes far when used for plane advertising.