MAKE BIGGER COMMISSIONS
Ryan helps auction companies look like marketing experts by clarifying their message, communicating that message well, and measuring its effectiveness.

102: Competing For (And Against?) Potential Clients

I’ll let other people debate whether Proxibid’s move was harmful or advantageous to the auction industry and whether or not their expansion happened in good faith. That’s not my fight.

What is my fight is making auction advertising so attractive and effective that people keep hiring auctioneers to sell their assets.

101: The USPS Program That Could Save You Thousands

For auctioneers, who often have limited budgets and even more limited time, Every Door Direct Mail may prove itself a long-overdue solution. And if your proposed budget can gain dollars on the postage line, you can spend those saved dollars on more marketing in places your competition can’t.

100: The Pinterest Effect

There’s a lesson there for every marketer. What makes content quickly absorbable is compelling imagery, imagery which Pinterest users tend to pull from predominantly-commercial websites. Words—even headlines—are secondary. As a culture, we don’t’ care about explanations and slogans, if we aren’t drawn to them through the picture(s) they accompany. As a marketer who helps other marketers, I can tell you that if the design of our marketing media centers around large, singular imagery—and those images are professionally staged and captured—our advertising will be far more effective than the current average of small business advertising media.

99: Who Should Manage Your Social Media Content?

The problem is that social media sites are relational environments—places to do online what we do offline, admittedly with both upgrades and drawbacks over in-person conversations. In most situations you wouldn’t pay another company to go have conversations with people for you at social gatherings. So, why would you pay a company to have your conversations with your prospects and peers online?

98: Learning From Public Perception

The fight to save and grow the auction industry is in the hands of us who market in it every day. Our success will require us to step out of our perspective, our conveniences, our assumptions. Our jobs will most likely continue to require more steps and a wider skill set. I’m in this, too. To maintain value for my clients, my responsibilities, packages, and services have changed over the past years. Have you found that to be true? If not, how long do you think your status quo will serve you well?

97: Putting a Price on Your Friends List

If I had a dollar for every time I saw or heard the words social media, my wife and I could go on an international vacation—and I don’t mean Canada. I’m sure the same holds true for you. Websites like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube are touted as marketing gold mines, the future of advertising, the magic answer for harvesting clients out of thin air.

96: Winning The Close Ones

Having helped auctioneers with proposals for over a decade, I’ve found that many auction proposals follow similar outlines and use similar selling points. So, how do you separate your plan from the competition’s one?

The way you present it.

Our culture is becoming more and more visually stimulated and educated; and your marketing materials need to reflect that—especially your proposals.