Hiring An Auction Company

Estimating your assets value:

Typically, one of the first questions a business owner will ask me is, “how much will the assets bring at an auction”. After taking the time to review the assets, the auctioneer should give the client a conservative estimate of the sale based upon his experience and the current market trends. It is important that the company give realistic expectations so the seller can make informed decisions based on their best interest.

Compensation and Expenses:

Is the company you are considering working for you or against you? The agreement you decide may determine this.

A business owner should carefully consider how the auction company is compensated. The most common commission structures include: straight commission, outright purchase of assets, guaranteed base with a split above to both auctioneer and seller, guaranteed base with anything above going to auctioneer or a flat fee structure.

In a straight commission structure, the company is paid an agreed upon percentage of the total sale.

In an outright purchase agreement, the auctioneer simply becomes your end buyer. The company purchases your assets and relocates them. While this can be an option in some unique situations, keep in mind that they will want to purchase your assets at a very reduced price to make a profit at a later date.

In a minimum base guarantee, the auction company guarantees the seller that the auction will generate a minimum amount of sales. Anything above that amount either goes to the auction company or split with the seller. While a seller might feel more comfortable doing an auction knowing that he is guaranteed a minimum amount for his sale, keep in mind that it is the best interest of the auction company to secure a minimum base price as low as possible in order reduce their financial liability to the seller and secure higher compensation for the sale.

In a flat fee structure, the auctioneer agrees to show up for the sale and call the auction. There is no incentive for the auctioneer to get the best prices for your assets. The auction company is compensated regardless of the outcome of your sale.

What is the best option for business owners? In my experience, an agreed upon straight commission structure. This puts the responsibility on the auction company to offer the best outcome for everyone involved. There is an incentive for the auction company to work hard for both parties, set up and run a professional sale, get the highest bid and sell every item on the inventory. Successful auctions translate to a higher bottom line for both the seller and the auction company.

Auction Expenses:

In most auction agreements the expenses to conduct an auction are passed to the seller. If the auction company pays for the expenses, it is simply absorbed in higher commission rates.

All expenses should be agreed upon in advance in a written contract. Typical expenses will include the costs of advertising, labor, legal fees, travel, equipment rentals, security, postage and printing. A reputable auction company will be able to estimate all expenses based upon their experience in previous auctions. An agreement should be actual costs charged as expenses, not an estimated amount.

Advertising is typically the highest cost in conducting an auction. The auction company needs to set up an advertising campaign that will promote the sale to its best advantage and not overspend to simply advertise the auction company.

Once the auction is complete, the auction company should provide a complete breakdown of all expenses to the seller, including copies of receipts within the auction summary report.

Buyer’s Premium:

What is a buyer’s premium? If you attend auctions regularly, you are very familiar with this term. The auction company charges a fee to the buyer when they buy an item at auction.

The buyer’s premium has been around since the 1980′s and is standard auction practice. It was first used by auction houses to help offset costs of running brick and mortar permanent auction facilities. Since then, it has spread to all aspects of the auction industry. It is prominent in online auctions and allows auction companies to cover added expenses incurred from online sales.

It is the responsibility of the auction company to provide clear disclosure of the buyer’s premium to both the buyers and the sellers. Those not familiar with auctions are often taken back by the buyer’s premium. They looked upon it as an under handed way for the auction company to make more money. Reputable auction companies will provide full disclosure within the auction contract, advertisement and bidder registration.

Typically, an auction company will charge online buyers a higher buyer’s premium percentage than those attending an auction in person. Extra fees are incurred with online bidding and are charged accordingly to online buyers. This provides the seller a level playing field for both online buyers and those attending the auction in person. Without the buyer’s premium, there is no way to do this.

Pre-Sales:

We’ve all been there. We’re looking forward to attending an auction only to find that some items were sold prior to the auction date.

As an auctioneer with over thirty-six years of experience, I can honestly state that pre-sales will hurt an auction. When a company decides to liquidate their assets, it is easy to sell off high-end pieces of equipment through online sources, equipment vendors or to other businesses. The seller receives instant cash and avoids paying a commission to an auction company.

Auctioneer’s find themselves appearing to acting in a self-serving capacity when potential clients say they are planning to sell off parts of their inventory prior to an auction. It’s hard not to consider the auctioneer’s commission when they warn you not to pre-sell anything. Yes, the auctioneer wants to earn a commission on those sales but it is more important that the auctioneer protect the sale from potential negative backlash that comes from pre-selling. The buying public knows when an auction has been “cherry picked” prior to the sale and it reflects in their bidding. It becomes a sale of “leftovers” and that impacts prices.

A buyer who purchases prior to the auction usually does not attend the sale. They already bought equipment at a good price with no competition. If they do attend the auction, they tend to let others know of their great pre-sale purchases which again, impacts prices and the overall excitement of the sale.

It is important to understand that auctions work best with a complete inventory. You want competition on your higher end equipment. The easy to sell items make it possible to gain respectable prices for hard to sell items.

When a business owner decides to liquidate their equipment assets, there is only one opportunity to do it right. Hiring a reputable auction company will assist you with a professional, orderly and timely liquidation.

Storage Auction: A Booming Business

While most industries struggled in the past months under a recessionary period, the storage auction business has emerged from the shadows to become the unlikely boom industry in the American economy. This sunrise industry is growing fast and is expected to become an important money-making activity in the future.

The storage auction field has broad appeal because it requires little seed money but yields an astounding amount of profit. Everyone can also make good at it whether you are a newcomer or an old-timer, a moneyed or penniless would-be investor.

You’re looking for a profit-making venture where the playing field is level? This is storage auction, which is worthwhile to go into even under a harsh economic climate.

What puts players on an even keel during an auction is the fact that nobody knows what’s in the unit being auctioned off until it has been bought and opened. A typical unit may be up for sale for a minimum of $10 up to a maximum of $600. But the bidding price is of course higher if the auction involves home lots, cars or antique jewelry. The auction is usually held because the owners have outgrown their use of these items, or they are getting rid of these items in favor of new ones.

Whatever the nature of the auction and its costs, it is always guaranteed that you can get your money back and even obtain five times more than what you paid for the auctioned unit if you know where and how to dispatch the items. There was a new player who paid $20 for a unit whose contents were later sold individually and gave a total of $5,500 earnings. The unit contained vintage clocks, cameras and rare vases.

There are storage auctions where the items being sold are announced beforehand and there are self-storage auctions where you have no idea of the items being auctioned off. It is the latter type of auction which promises the biggest reward for the least investment. It’s the element of surprise that enables players to get goods worth thousands of dollars at an auction cost of much less. In many auctions, the most valuable items such as antiques and vintage decor are in the box and cannot be seen from the outside.

The secret to making good in storage auction is to know the techniques of making quick calculations on which units will give the highest profit potential based on what your eyes can see. You can’t decide according to size because in many cases, it’s the smallest units that provide the most profit. As the saying goes, good things come in small packages.

The most profitable goods that come from storage auctions are those that require small boxes such as silverware and signature clothing.

At present, there are more than 60,000 storage facilities worldwide, of which some 95 percent are in the U.S. The rest are in Canada and Australia, with hundreds of chain storage and independent groups being opened every year. This means more and more storage units are going for auction.

7 Internet Marketing Secrets That the Internet Marketing Guru’s Will Not Share With You

You know, it never ceases to amaze me how much people want there Home Business, MLM, AND Internet Business to succeed, but they will never seek out the proper expertise and Knowledge that will Turn there Business around and bring change to their lives.Even when the world could be falling to pieces around them, because of there ‘Old Ways’ of doing things… humans will still continue to HANG ON for dear life, and to their ideas or habits, out of pure fear of the unknown.The sad part is (for those who do that), the other side of that equation are usually $35,000 Per Month, Online Part Time”.The fact of the matter is, if you are going to succeed in any business On-line, You must first be willing to do two Things:1) Be willing to try New Thing and Tactic, if the one you have right now is not working.
2) At the beginning stages of your internet or Home based business, you must be willing to invest as much time as possible. You must be willing to research and find out what is out there that is working for other Internet Marketers in you Niche.This Article is meant to help reduce your mistakes and stop you from wasting your Money, Time, AND Resources, buying Internet Marketing programs from Guru’s that hardly know what Internet Marketing is all about. Before we continue, I want to take a little time, to thank you upfront for reading this ARTICLE. I’m sure you will enjoy it and find it beneficial to your business. But first, and foremost who am I? and Why should you even listen to me? What can I truly offer to help you and your business?I was involved in Internet Marketing for a number of years barely making ends meets; in fact, my Expenditures outweighed my profits by a few thousand dollars over the course of three+ years. No matter what I was told at meetings, /trainings, from On-line Guru’s I’ve Subscribed to or, from the company who’s product am selling; nothing, was working. I was told to i.e. make a list of 100 people I know (family, friends, colleagues), maintain your company website, hand out 5 DVD’s every day with sufficient brochures to supplement, business cards, etc., etc., etc. These techniques were fruitless and frustrating. Lots of time and energy was invested for little or no results. Nothing worked for me, and it hardly worked for anyone I knew. That’s why I am providing this information today. I spent thousands of dollars on tools that always over-promised and under-delivered (and I have a closet full of souvenirs to remind me…ugh!). So I want to give you some great information to help you put some cash back in your pocket OR before you spend it unwisely. Beyond this article, I will be discussing many other subjects and strategies to help you grow you business. Things like:– A functional outline for the online marketing of your products and services– How to use the 3 greatest business growth tools that you have at your fingertips to your greatest advantage– How to position yourself as an expert in your product or service– How to find THOUSANDS of people that are demonstrating a need and desire for what you have– How to master copywriting skills that will have your prospects watering at the mouth…But before I get ahead of myself, the first step is to Show you 7 thing you can do now to Place you Home Business, MLM, Network Marketing and Internet Marketing Business on the Fast Track. Enjoy it, and stay tuned for more great Knowledge information to turbo-charge your business.”7 Simple No-Fail Methods To Earn Yourself Towering 5-Figure Monthly Commission Checks And Rake In Piles Of Cold Hard Cash…Marketing ” Whatever You Want!” Does that sound impossible? At least a little unbelievable? It’s not. It’s more than realistic, even conservative. And I’m about to show you why.1. Target Your Market! Since you can’t rely on your warm market for long-term growth, who are you supposed to talk to about your business? The answer: Your target market. Who is your target market? It depends on what you are marketing. Your target market are those people who are most likely to buy from you. You have to resist the temptation to be too general in the hopes of getting a larger slice of the market. That’s like firing 10 bullets in random directions instead of aiming just one dead center on the mark – expensive and dangerous if ignored, lucrative and rewarding if heeded. Here are some questions to get you started:o Are your target customers male or female?
o How old are they?
o Where do they live? Is geography a limiting factor for any reason?
o What do they do for a living?
o How much money do they make? This is most significant if you’re selling relatively expensive or high-end products. Most people can afford a $20 bottle of health juice. You can’t say the same of a $500 anti-aging treatment.
o What other aspects of their lives matter? If you’re marketing a telecom service, your target market probably already have some sort of phone service.
o What is important to them? What are their fears, hopes, desires? Once upon a time, business owners thought it was enough to market their products or services to “18- to 49-year olds.” Those days are a thing of the past. These days, you have to be specific, and you have to understand what your market looking for.2. Stop Selling — Start Sorting It’s easy to slip into the habit of convincing people that what we have is legit. We are taught that we have to “sell” everyone on our product and opportunity. We have to beg, plead, and follow up endlessly, until they finally relent and say “yes”. That’s a great way to burn out fast. Convincing and selling take a lot of time and energy. It’s a painstaking process, and it’s very uncomfortable for most people to try and “sell”. I hate selling. I never sell. I sort. Here’s the difference: Selling is trying to create demand, and convince people that they need what you have. Sorting is about finding people that are already interested, and simply creating the urgency to buy from you. Sorting is fun. And it pays much better than selling.So how do you sort? You sort by filtering your prospects. In your Sales funnel, you design different “check points” that require a prospect to take an action before proceeding on to the next phase of the sales funnel. That process weeds out the people that are NOT interested, and leaves you with the people that are interested. When starting, the top of your sales funnel should be a prospecting script that screens and qualifies your prospects. If you design a script that sorts out people that are curious from people who are serious, then you can qualify your prospects, and put the odds in your favor that you are spending your time with a future associate. Really, prospecting is all about sorting, about qualifying, and about spending your time with people that truly want what you have. At this point, you’ve probably been taught to talk to anyone who will listen to you about your business opportunity, and that’s the wrong mindset to have. You should never spend your time with someone unless you know that they are interested or have the tendency to purchase what you are offering. This is why your friends and family doesn’t work — you don’t qualify them, and they don’t respect your time.Most of them don’t have the heart to tell you flat out that they aren’t interested, because they probably care about you. They just don’t want anything to do with your business. That’s a good thing! There are too many other qualified people to be speaking with that would like to do business with you. Besides, once you are successful, most friends and family members will actually approach you, and want to know how to get involved. Let’s say you are marketing a travel service and business opportunity. You could use a very simple script that goes through, qualifies your prospect, and then you can ask them something like “if I could show you a way where you could travel to Hawaii for free or even get paid to travel, would that be worth about 30 minutes of your time to learn how to do that?” Then, you know that they have an interest in your business, and in your service.3. Leverage The Internet OK — so the Internet gets hyped up all the time about how amazing it is, how fast it can explode your business, blah blah blah. Well – it’s true! Make no mistake about it — the Internet has the ability to explode your business faster than any other tool on the planet. Before we even talk about the Internet, let’s talk about your company. Many companies will tell you that they forbid you to advertise, that they have to approve of anything you do if you market on the Internet or anywhere else. This is absolutely true — if you use their trademark names or the name of the company in your advertising.That’s how you market online without having to have everything run through the “company” -you just don’t mention the company. You position YOURSELF first, and talk about the benefits that your product can offer. For example: Let’s say John Doe is a distributor for XYZ company, and they offer a health juice that helps diabetes. John’s natural inclination is to put up a website that says: “Hi, I’m John Doe, and I’m a distributor with XYZ corporation. XYZ is a great company that is changing lives. They have a juice that cures diabetes! Call me for a presentation!” This is bad. Really bad.You might think that John would have to be an idiot to put this kind of stuff on a website or in an ad, but Major businesses have to prevent their distributors from doing this all the time. Their distributors get carried away, and make all kinds of crazy claims to market their product. Let’s say John Doe has the good sense to talk to me before he publishes that ad or website. After we chat, he changes things so that it reads: “Hi, I’m John Doe, and I provide people with powerful information that has been shown to dramatically reduce the chances of developing diabetes. If you are suffering from diabetes, and if you would like to know of a way that could drastically reduce or even eliminate the symptoms, then call me for a free needs-analysis report”Now this is a totally different ballgame. First, John Doe is not speaking in the name of his company — he is speaking in his own name. He’s not making any crazy product claims, he uses words like “has been shown to reduce” and “could reduce”. He’s not blabbering about the company at all, which is good – people like to buy from expertise, and it does John no good to talk about how great his company is, because at this point, HIS PROSPECT DOESN’T CARE. Remember, his prospect is just thinking WIFM – what’s in it for me? John is also offers a compelling reason to take action – he is giving a free needs analysis. This is 100% legit with any network marketing company or home-based business. So long as you don’t mention your company and make claims in their name, you are protecting them from being sued and legal liability, which is why they publish their policies and procedures in the first place. Now let’s talk about the Internet. There are two parts to succeeding with the internet — the traffic, or your web visitors, and your website. Let’s talk about traffic first.The power of the internet is that it allows you to dramatically leverage the number of people that are exposed to what you are marketing. You can drive hundreds or thousands of visitors to a website every single day, and you can target it so that only people that are actively looking for what you have see your site. There are 3 primary ways to drive traffic: PPC — or “paid traffic” SEO — or “organic traffic” Social Media — or Web 2.0good news is… First, PPC is one of the fastest and easiest ways to gain massive exposure and drive high quality visitors and prospects to your site. One of the key steps here is that you need to know how to buy your traffic wholesale. Paying full price on Google Ad words or Yahoo Sponsored search will drain your bank account. PPC is all about using their paid advertising networks to expose your ad to targeted visitors. The best part about pay per click is that only people who want what you have right now are exposed to your ad. That way, you can qualify your prospect before you ever pay a penny, and they have to respond to your message before you pay.There are some very simple strategies you can use to master PPC, but you must know what you are doing, because you can also get hurt if you just start buying traffic ignorantly. The second way to drive targeted traffic is with SEO, or search engine optimization. This is powerful because it is free traffic, but you must have the technical skills to understand what a search engine is looking for when it ranks websites. Search engines have bots, or web crawlers, that go out and search the websites out on the internet. And if you know what these web crawlers are looking for, you can blow by your competition and get ranked at the top of the search engines. There really is a formula for this, and it works time and again. Finally, the third way to drive traffic is with Social Media, which is commonly called Web 2.0. These are popular websites such as Squidoo.com, MySpace.com, YouTube.com, and many others that have become popular online hubs. What is interesting is that social media traffic is some of the highest-quality traffic online today, but it is a very different kind of marketing.In order to succeed with Web 2.0, you have to learn how to provide quality content, and build a loyal fan base with your material. If you do this right, you can have 200, 300, or even 500 people per day reaching out to you, asking for more information about what you have. This type of traffic can be presold, so that when they actually see your website or your web message, they are ready and eager to work with you personally. You are already positioned as an expert before you ever even speak with them. There is a downside to web 2.0 though – if you don’t know what you are doing, and just start blasting advertising on these sites, then you will be shut down and lose your account. Like ppc and seo, there is an art and science to using these tools.But the good News is… Anyone, with the right knowledge, can take these tools, dominate their market, and separate themselves from the competition.4) I know you want your On-line Business to grow quickly, and one of the best way to do that is to start bogging. A blog is a website that you can update with quality content on your particular area of expertise. It is highly recommended that you update your blog regularly, whether that is once a day, once a week, or once a month. Whatever the case, we highly recommend that you are consistent with your updates. This is the KEY to success with the blog – consistency. On top of that, you can make money off your blog! If you host advertising on your blog, then advertising networks will pay you for it. So you can blog about the benefits of your product, service, and opportunity, generate leads that are reaching out to you, AND getting paid for advertising. It’s a nice tool to haveSome of the best advertising networks: Google Ad Sense Ad Sense is a must have to make money from a blog. Google displays simple text and image ads on your blog that are targeted to what you’re writing about. You can sign up for a free account at: AdSense.Google.com Bidvertiser Bidvertiser is one of the best ad networks. They sell text links that you see under “Featured Sites” on websites. Bidvertiser is a CPC ad network that competes with Google Ad Sense. The good thing about Bidvertiser is its low $10 payout. With AdSense, you will have to reach $100 in ad commissions before they will pay you – with Bidvertiser, you only have to hit $10 before they pay out. You can get an account at: bidvertiser.com NetKlix NetKlix is another great CPC ad network for publisher (bloggers) to get paid. They pay out each month directly into your checking account. You can get an account at: NetKlix.com Blogging can be very lucrative, and if you are able to build a fan base that frequently visits your blog, you can generate a significant income. I know bloggers who pull in $40,000 per month just from the advertising revenue of their blog. It’s no joke, and it should be implemented if you hope to make money from home. Now there is one last thing I want to talk about – and it’s the most important business growth tool you’ll ever have. And that is — a successful mindset.5) “Someday”? Do you know how to tell a successful person from an unsuccessful one? The easiest way is by how they talk. When you talk to a successful person about their goals and targets, they will tell you what they plan to do and when it will be done. When an unsuccessful person talks about their goals (assuming they even have any), you’ll hear something along the lines of “I hope to do this someday” or “I really wish this would happen”. Here’s a clue for all you losers out there — “someday” never comes. You know why someone with a loser’s mentality always uses words like “someday”, “I hope” or “I wish”? They do it because it gives them an out, and allows them to not be accountable for their words. If they have to place a time limit on the goal and they don’t do it, they fail, and a loser hates to fail. Winners have no fear of failing, because they know success is made from strings of failure. Everyone has dreams and goals. Do you know the only difference between a goal and a dream?A goal is a dream + action. We all have dreams, becoming financially independent, having a family, helping charities, making an impact on the world, etc. Have you ever made a goal to achieve your dreams? If so, did you place a time limit on it, or did you just say “I hope it happens someday”? Can you imagine buying a presale home and not knowing when it will be completed? Can you imagine if the developer just kept telling you “I’ll get it finished someday”. Don’t be afraid to fail. Failure is required in order to succeed. You won’t find a successful person who doesn’t have a few stories to tell about their failure (I know I do). Making a tremendous income with your home-based business is something that lots of people would like to do. Something that many people dream of doing. The question is -Will It Happen “Today” or will it happen “Someday”?Are You Ready To Make It Happen — Starting Today? If so, then You need to know something about the law of Attraction. I can only scram so many strategies into one Article. There are some basic laws of attraction that you have to follow and know to start making your dreams and goals a reality.6) One of those laws is VISUALIZATION Visualize Your Goals Clearly If you consciously believe that you have the ability to be successful and achieve your goals and Dreams, then you need to hold a picture of those goals clearly in your mind long enough and hard enough, till eventually your outer world is correspond with your inner world.7) Finally, guard your thoughts carefully. Whatever you think about, combined with the emotions of desire or fear, you will attract into your life. Be sure that you are attracting what you want by continuing to think only about what you want. keep feeding your mind with new information, ideas and pictures of the person you want to be and the life you want to live. By creating this inner attitude of mind, you change the outer aspects of your reality. The success of you business is dependent on you Positive mental State.