How to Choose an Auctioneer
Five simple questions to ask when interviewing a potential auctioneer.
- How many charity auctions do you do a year?
- How many years have you been doing this?
- What is the range of auctions you do in financial terms, the size of the crowd and the types of organizations with which you work?
- What is your longest run for doing an auction?
- How many of this year’s auctions are repeats?
The answer to these five questions should reveal the essential facts about an auctioneer. The first three questions deal with overall experience. One of the challenges doing this work is that there are no rehearsal opportunities. You learn in front of an audience.
It is really the last two questions that are most important. There are several specific skills and characteristics that are either useful or essential for an auctioneer: a passion for a cause, a sense of humor and a facility with numbers are good examples. But on top of those there is an indefinable quality that makes all the difference; THE ABILITY TO CONNECT WITH AN AUDIENCE.
The best metric of this quality is being invited back over a course of years.
No Comments