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Auction Listings Are Vital to the Success of Fundraising Auctions

Fundraising Auction Tip: You should always provide potential bidders with a printed Auction Listing of both your Live and Silent Auction items at any Fundraising Auction. A printed Auction Listing is vital for several reasons:

An Auction Listing informs bidders of the order of sale, and what is coming up next. If you keep your bidders guessing, they will simply not bid.

If bidders are not 100% certain of what they are bidding on, they will not bid. A printed Auction Listing should answer any and all questions about what is being sold in order to encourage bidders to bid as much as possible.

Bidders often need time to plan their bidding strategies, especially on multiple and/or larger value items. A printed Auction Listing helps them to do that.

Couples often need time to consult with each other about what they are willing to spend on something. A printed Auction Listing helps them to do that.

Potential bidders need to know the specifics, the benefits, and the restrictions on any item they are going to bid on, especially on travel and/or other higher value items. A printed Auction Listing should answer all of their questions, in writing.

After bidders see that they have lost an item to another bidder, a printed Auction Listing makes it easier for them to re-strategize on what else they can bid on.
Printed Auction Listings generally come in 3 forms:

Printed in the Event Program or Auction Catalog.

Printed on loose sheets of paper and hand-inserted into the Event Program or Auction Catalog.

Printed on loose sheets of paper and hand-delivered to all attendees, or left on each dinner table in the room.
Auction Listings cost practically nothing to produce and they can make the difference between the success and failure of a Live and Silent Auction. You should never conduct a Fundraising Auction without one.

A Case Study

Let me share a real-life experience with you. Once I was hired to conduct a Fundraising Auction for a nationally renowned organization. The event was held in a major hotel, in one of the country’s largest cities, with several hundred “black tie” participants attending. It was an extremely professional event, with the music, singing, lighting, speeches, and awards all perfectly timed and choreographed. Everything was done to perfection… exception the Fundraising Auction.

Although I had signed an agreement to serve as their Auctioneer nearly one year in advance of the event, no one bothered to contact me for any advice or help. Approximately one week prior to the Auction date, I contacted the group to see if they had replaced me with another Auctioneer. But they said that I was still their man.

Upon arriving at the event I asked for a copy of the Auction Listing. I was told that there were none. I’m not sure whether they felt that the Auction Listing wasn’t necessary, or whether someone forgot to have them printed. This was never made clear. When I asked what I was to use at the podium, I was told to copy the list of Live Auction items from a committee member’s computer. It took me about 30 minutes to copy three pages of hand-written notes in order to prepare for my role as their Auctioneer.

I knew that they had created a PowerPoint program showing the various Live Auction items. When I asked whether the PowerPoint slide order corresponded to the order of sale I had copied from the committee member’s computer, I was met with a blank stare. The committee member left to check the slide order, and returned to let me know that the slide order did not correspond my notes, and he provided me with the correct slide order… hand-written on a paper napkin. This forced me to re-arrange my three pages of hand-written notes before taking the podium.

There was a Live Auction Table with descriptions of the Live Auction items that were to be sold, but the table was not clearly marked, and it received significantly less attention than the Silent Auction Tables, which were clearly identified. Since the Live Auction Table was located adjacent to the “Raffle Table”, it appeared that most people thought it was part of the raffle and therefore paid very little attention to it.

According to the event program (which did not include an Auction Listing), I knew approximately when I was to begin the Live Auction. At the designated time the Master of Ceremonies announced the start of the Live Auction to the several hundred people in attendance, and introduced me as Auctioneer. As I approached the podium I realized that photographs of award winners were still being taken… directly in front of the podium where I was to stand… which required me to stand aside for several minutes until the photographers were done. Can we say “awkward moment”?

As the photographers cleared, I approached the podium and began my Live Auction introduction. Approximately one minute into my introduction, the “Raffle Committee” approached the podium and stopped my Live Auction Introduction in order to pull the 8 or 9 Raffle Winners. These drawings lasted about 5 minutes. Upon it’s conclusion I was allowed to resume the start of the Live Auction.

When standing at the podium two intense and extremely bright spotlights were pointed directly at the podium. The lights were so bright that I literally could not see the center 1/3 of the room. I could see the tables on the right, and on the left, but was totally blinded when looking straight ahead. It took perhaps five minutes before the spotlights were turned off.

While at the podium and describing Lot #1, I had to ask someone to start the Lot #1 PowerPoint Slide… because apparently no one was assigned that job.

So with only the Auctioneer’s verbal description, and a PowerPoint slide, it appeared that few people in the room had any idea about what we were selling… or when we were selling it… until it was announced by the Auctioneer. As a result, bidding was extremely light and the final results fell several thousands of dollars short of where they should have been
The learning experience is this:

The Live Auction is where you place your better items, and where the real money should be made at any Fundraising Auction. Let bidders know as far in advance as possible what you will be selling, and the order of sale, so they can get excited about the Auction, and plan their bidding strategy accordingly.

Auction Listings are absolutely vital to the success of both Live & Silent Auctions. In my opinion, revenues at this Auction fell thousands of dollars short of where they should have been, because no Auction Listing was provided to the guests.

If bidders are not perfectly clear on what is being sold, including both the item’s specifics, benefits, and restrictions, they will not bid.

When you have a committee of volunteers, especially volunteers having full time jobs and/or very busy schedules, the services of a professional Fundraising Auctioneer can help to keep the committee on track.

And once you retain the services of a professional Fundraising Auctioneer… use the services that you are paying for.

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Internet Fax – How Can it Benefit Your Home Based Business?

It’s hard to run a business out of your home, but it’s even harder when you’re not using the right tools. Home based businesses need to use technology as an equalizer. Most home based businesses usually have between one and three employees, along with smaller budgets. They often have to compete in markets with large corporations that have hundreds of employees and huge budgets. Luckily, the 21st century has provided a lot of great technological tools to deal with the challenges that home based businesses face.One such service is Internet fax, which has quickly gained immense popularity among businesses of all sizes – especially in home based businesses. Internet fax works through a user’s existing Internet service, and, as its name implies, allows all the functionality of a fax machine from the user’s computer. Faxes can be received, sent, archived and printed with ease, allowing for a high level of organization and functionality without a huge investment.There are many reasons that the Internet fax is such an appealing technology. For home based businesses, a well-implemented Internet fax system can give the impression of a very large company. Multiple fax numbers can easily be set up for a home company’s various “departments.” Additionally, since faxes are received electronically through broadband connections rather than through a dial-up modem, there’s no possibility of a missed or returned fax. Hundreds of pages can be easily and instantly sent to potential clients, less expensively than through a traditional fax machine. This is because no paper or ink is ever used when faxing over the Internet, unless a business owner should decide to print out a few pages to have a paper copy of an important document.Internet fax services also allow home based businesses to greatly improve their output and increase sales from the day they’re installed. Since Internet fax services can handle multiple faxes simultaneously and operate through normal email systems, any orders for products or services received via fax can be easily corralled into a home business’s normal workflow. This can greatly improve a home business’s revenue, especially when orders are received en masse due to advertising, promotions and other marketing efforts. For home based businesses that market through fax, an Internet fax service also provides a cheap, simple and highly efficient way to contact large amounts of potential clients. They enable creative ad campaigns, and a simple way to stay in touch with repeat customers and partners.Of course, a good organization system is a very important element in running a home based business. Internet fax services are a great aid in this area, as well. Faxes received through the systems are infinitely more search-able than their paper counterparts, as text can be easily scanned for keywords using typical word processing software. Received faxes from an Internet fax service can be easily and cheaply stored on a user’s computer, making large, unwieldy filing cabinets completely unnecessary. This also provides a form of insurance in case of fire or other natural disaster – a home based business owner can easily back up the faxes to an external hard drive, jump drive or through an Internet back up service, so that even major damage to his/her home and business won’t result in lost orders or records.As with any new technology, there are costs associated with the installation of an Internet fax system. These costs are low by most standards, and are paid back through lower faxing costs. Many business owners find the systems far less expensive than owning and maintaining a fax machine, simply due to paper and toner costs. In addition to cost, there’s also a very small learning curve when adapting to the new technology. This is because received faxes are opened in the same manner as email attachments and outgoing faxes are sent through an easy-to-understand computer dialog.Regardless of a home based business’ field, faxing over the Internet provides an inexpensive and flexible way to compete with larger companies on a professional level. The possibilities are only limited by the creativity of the systems’ controller. As all home business owners know, staying up to date on the technology front is an important part of staying in business. With that in mind, it’s difficult to recommend traditional fax machines while Internet fax services are available.

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Legitimate Home Based Business: How to Spot the Good From the Bad

Scams and frauds happen every hour and victims swindled out of their hard-earned money are piling up by the minute. Don’t be one of these people who had to fall for these scams. Take the time to study the home based business that you are planning to join to make sure that it is a legitimate home based business. Better take the time to research now rather than cry buckets for lost money later.If you don’t know how to spot a good legitimate home based business, here are some ways for you to segregate the good from the plain rotten.Look beyond the confetti marketingMost scams, frauds and weak businesses with weak products and services rely on the hype of marketing to attract would-be partners. This is why it is important for you to look beyond the marketing strategies of most businesses. Don’t just easily buy into what they say – whether it’s the number of members or just how much their members earn. Make sure that before you believe whatever they might say, you look for facts first. To begin with, how long have they been in business? Some members might be able to earn whooping amounts but can you replicate that success and do they equip you to replicate that success? Marketing will be their biggest weapon to blind you into joining them so always be wary of how they market themselves, particularly if they tend to over-market and give suspicious and unreasonable guarantees.Ask about the business planA legitimate home based business will have a solid and tested business plan that will help you navigate your way. You shouldn’t have to experiment on what works and what doesn’t, a legitimate home based business should have already studied this for you. As a newbie in the business field, you shouldn’t have to go around reinventing the wheel and fumbling your way through the business. It will be best if the organization or group can provide you with a system that is already proven to work and is simple enough for you to follow. A good business plan should include the marketing strategies, sales strategies and more that you will need in order to achieve your goal.There are even more ways to spot what’s legit and what’s not but in the end, you really just have to rely on your instinct. If you think that an offer is too good to be true, then it’s probably not. A good business system realizes that a successful one needs a great product or service but that it also needs a good, steady hand to manage it.

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