Auction Day

22nd September 2015

Earlier this week I took a day off to go to an auction in London. My mother had wanted to sell something, and we were both intrigued by the process, having never been to an auction before.

The whole sale was going to last about 4 ½ hours, so we weren’t going for the whole time, but in the end attended for about an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Because it was so long there were two auctioneers. In the morning there was a lady, who I soon began to suspect was still learning her trade. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, everyone has to learn sometime, but the interesting thing was that I could feel her lack of confidence, which in turn made me (and presumably others) less confident in the whole process. A few very minor mistakes were made, but on the whole most things were sold for in and around their estimated values. When we returned in the afternoon there was a new auctioneer who I immediately felt much more comfortable with. He was assured in his actions and speech, he was very clear about who was winning the bidding, and he was much faster in the whole process. He too sold most of the lots, but interestingly enough he achieved much more than the estimated amount on numerous occasions (5 x more in one instance).

Now this may just have been coincidence, but somehow I don’t think so. When someone shows confidence in themselves and their product you will tend to feel much more comfortable buying from them. It comes with familiarity and practice in your sales process. So remember if you want to sell more, know your product, know your process and above all portray confidence.

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