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Five Tips for Selling at Live Auctions

Ah, the old-fashioned country auction! The idea of a country auction conjures up certain images for people. The image of a fast-talking auctioneer offering up an antique table or chair is a popular example.

People who are buying household goods or collectibles are looking to get their items at the lowest price possible. However, the people who are selling their items at auction are hoping for the highest price!

Unless a person is in the business of buying and selling antiques or other items, not a lot of thought goes into how goods are prepared for sale via the auction process. However, if you are one of the growing number of people using auction venues to sell your collectibles or other inventory, there are a few things to learn first about how to sell at auction before you bring a truckload of stuff over to the next event.

Tip 1: Make sure the things you want to sell are a good “fit” for the auction house you’ll be using.

Never bring a load to an auction house without actually having been to one of the previous auctions. It’s important to get a feel for the type of goods that the house sells. For example, at one very rural country auction it was common for the owners to sell live chickens, pots and pans, car parts, and farm equipment.

After close investigation, this would not be the right venue for selling your daughter’s “Hello Kitty” collection. On the other hand, the spare John Deere parts that you bought at last week’s yard sale might be just the right thing for the buying crowd at this auction.

Tip 2: Be sure you clearly understand the terms and policies of the auction house.

Visit with the auctioneer ahead of time. Call to find out what the best days and times are to visit. One of the worst possible times to drop in for an informational visit with an auctioneer is the day of the auction. Call ahead and ask. While you’re at it, find out what are the best days and times to drop your stuff off.

Once you have a little time with the auctioneer, you’ll be able to find out what type of commission he or she takes from consigners (which is you), and what type of paperwork might be needed. Some auction houses send out Form 1099 tax forms at the end of the year. An auctioneer may need to see your identification and have you fill out a W-9. Be prepared.

Find out what happens to your items if they don’t sell. For example, some auctioneers may have a minimum starting bid. If, for some reason, one of your items does not sell, it may be grouped with another one of your pieces. Know the auctioneer’s strategy beforehand so that you aren’t surprised on pay day.

Tip 3: Make sure the auctioneer knows what you’re selling.

It might be perfectly obvious to you that the signed print you are consigning is a rare and valuable piece of art. However, the auctioneer may not know this particular artist. Make a note of anything particularly special about your items, and leave the note with the piece. Be sure to tell the auctioneer about it as well. He or she might determine that this is something to highlight on the company website or in the newspaper listing.

Tip 4: Present your items neatly.

No one likes to have to dig through a box full of grimy and greasy car parts to see what treasures might be in there. Separate the parts and lay them out on a flat, or use more than one box to de-clutter the lot.

There is no need to buy fancy display boxes. It’s easy enough to go to the local convenience store or supermarket and ask if you can have the emptied boxes or flats that they are discarding.

While it’s good to present clean items, take care not to ruin the value of anything by over cleaning. For example, if you find some old cast iron cookware, clean the obvious dirt and grime, but don’t scrub it to its original finish. For many people, this ruins the value of the item. So, clean and tidy and organized is the key here.

Tip 5: Don’t complain to the auctioneer if your stuff doesn’t sell for as much as you’d like.

The phrase to remember here is, “You win some; you lose some.” That’s just the way it is. There are some days where an auction house is loaded with people who all seem to want what you’re selling. There will be other days where the crowd is sparse, and the bidding is simply not competitive.

Remember that it’s in the auctioneer’s best interest to sell your things for the highest possible hammer price. But sometimes, it’s just not going to be a stellar sale. The auctioneer is only human, and is also disappointed if a sale doesn’t go as well as planned.

If you notice that every time you bring a bunch of goods to sell that you’re not realizing as much as you think you honestly should, try another auction venue and compare apples to apples. That is, bring the same types of items to the new auctioneer and compare the results.

Unless the auctioneer is particularly disagreeable or inconsiderate to you or buyers, there is no reason to confront him or her about a sale. If you find you just don’t care for an auctioneer’s style or methods, find another one. Believe me, there are plenty of them out there!

The primary thing to remember as you learn how to sell at auction is that the business is unpredictable at best. You will have good days, some not-so-good days, some great days. The more you sell, the more experience you will gain, and the more enjoyable the business will be.

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Why Plane Advertising?

It might not be an obvious choice for advertising, airplane advertising. We think of radio spots, newspaper advertisements, and – if our budget is large – billboards. We don’t often think of the plane advertising, but we should.

Airplane advertising has many advantages over more traditional advertising that makes it an ideal, if not obvious choice, for use of the advertising dollar. Let’s look at a few.

First, aerial advertising is relatively inexpensive compared to other forms of advertising. You can’t look just at the dollar spent, but the audience reached. That is, when you place a newspaper ad, you consider circulation. Well, you say, that newspaper has a circulation of 100,000, so that many people will see my advertisement.

Not so fast.

Unlike airplane advertising, not everyone who reads the paper will see your ad. That is, if the advertisement is placed in the local section of the paper, your advertisement will only be seen by those people who read that section (some might only read the front section and the sports page, while others might only read the classifieds).

Once people are reading “your” section, there’s no guarantee they will read the ad you want them to read. Many people don’t read the advertisements at all.

How is plane advertising different? It’s different in many ways. For example, you don’t ask potential customers to see your advertisement, you make sure they do. You don’t wonder if they read the airplane message; you know they do. You don’t even have to wonder if they remember the advertisement – studies show they do, when it’s sent to them via banner towing.

Airplane messages are the ideal form of advertising because advertisers don’t have to wonder if their ad was seen, they don’t have to worry that it wasn’t read and they certainly don’t have to wonder if it is remembered.

Aerial advertising has a nearly 100% “seen” rate, in that the majority of people will look to the sky when they are greeted with some plane advertising in the air. The majority of the people who see and read the advertisements will also remember them, so advertisers can be confident that their ads aren’t just seen, they are remembered.

Also unique is that advertisers don’t have to worry they are invading on their potential customer’s spaces. That is, there are no advertisements to place on car windows (which just get thrown away), no living rooms to invade through the television and no billboard to distract driving. While lying on the beach or enjoying a music festival, the potential customer only has to look to the sky to get the message.

Best of all, they remember the ad because it’s novel and creative. They don’t feel as if their lives have been invaded. Certainly, if they want to ignore the banner advertising, they can roll over on the beach, or not look up from the music festival activities, but since most people report a positive response to banner advertising, it’s safe to assume the majority of people won’t do that.

Why do banner advertising? Because it works. Your aerial advertising has a greater chance of reaching the intended audience more than any other form of advertising.

2 Solid Ways To Create An Easy Home Based Business

Are you looking for an easy home based business? A business that will allow you to work at the comfort of your home?An “easy home based business” will allow you to skip the long drive to work, sitting in traffic, stressing during the busy lunch period, and to get home exhausted and barley proud of what you’ve really accomplished that day.You can avoid all that, and you can get started today.I’m going to tell you about 2 easy home based businesses that will allow you to quit the job you hate and be your own boss, pick your own hours, and create your own income.How Did I Get Started In My Easy Home Based Business?I’ve been in Internet marketing for over a year. I used to do Internet marketing for companies on a local scale. I would do Internet marketing and SEO for companies and businesses in my city.I started this at home part time. But it quickly grew into what I thought I was trying to avoid.I thought by starting an Internet marketing company, this would eliminate phone calls, in person meetings, long drawn out sales pitches to clients face to face, and other things that involve a basic brick and mortar business.I was wrong though. The more successful my business became. The worse my life got. I would get emails, phone calls, meeting requests, and sales meetings. And they were getting more and more frequent.I started this business to gain more freedom but I quickly got the freedom sucked out of me.So I quit. I joined something that actually offered what I was really after, and that was freedom.I could see my business growing and being very successful. But I could also see the life I would have to live if I were to continue down that road.I saw that road my entire life. My parents have owned a small business ever since I’ve been born. I lived with it day and night, and on vacation.My parents had about 10-15 employees in their small business. Their business was very successful but they were always busy with it.They always had to check up on employees and stats, even when they were on vacation.I remember they would come back from a phone call a little irritated when we would be out to dinner on vacation, and they would say something about how stats were down in their business. And it’s because they, the business owners, aren’t there to motivate and produce.I always knew I was going to be an entrepreneur but I also knew I didn’t want to go down that road.That’s why I am going to show you 2 ways you can start your own business, and you can keep your freedom.Easy Home Based Business #1 – BloggingThis is the way I currently do business. Blogging has become powerful in the past 10 years as the Internet has grown.Other ways of making money online have come and gone with the times but blogging has remained. And there is a solid reason why it has stayed, unaltered.And that reason is relationships.When you blog you create a relationship with your readers. You talk to them as a person and they get to know who you really are as a person.You see, people don’t like to buy from companies, people like to buy from people. Especially people that they really like.Now that’s not to say when you start blogging you need to start getting everyone to like you.Quite the opposite really.What you really have to do is share your opinions, your life, your struggles, your successes, and your dreams.Share who you are and the people that really like you will stay and read, and the people that don’t will leave.You notice celebrities have people that really love them, but you may also notice they have a lot of people that really hate them.And that’s because they are being who they are, and they don’t care if people disagree with them. Because there are people that do agree with them and they love them for it.So be yourself when you blog.There is a blogging system that I use that will help you get started. It’s instantly setup with no technical hassles. You can start blogging in minutes.Easy Home Based Business #2 – VideosAnother easy home based business is to create videos. Videos are a solid way to gain an audience for what you are sharing, and it allows people to see the person behind the writing.Some people prefer just to write blogs, and some people just prefer to create videos.I believe they are most powerful if combined, but you can choose what you are most comfortable with at this point in time.To create your easy home based business using videos you need to know how to create videos that are interesting, entertaining, informative, inspirational, and educational.There is a way to actually create a video where the person is super engaged in what you are saying through out the entire video. Almost like they are watching their favorite movie.To create an engaging video you need to follow these 5 steps:
Grab Attention
Be Yourself
Tell a Story
Command Action
Teach Something valuable
There is a more advanced 6th step that you can use but to explain it would take a series of blog posts just to explain it.To see the 6th step in detail get in and get the 15k Formula training and watch lesson 4 Selling Through The Power Of Video.Watching this entire video will transform the way you create videos and thus, transform the way you influence your viewers.An Easy Home Based Business Does ExistIf you are looking for an easy home based business, then realize they do exist. I use one right now.