A Change in Careers: Consider Becoming an Auctioneer

Do you need a new career path and, if you do, can you succeed as an auctioneer? Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons. Since you cannot just run out the door and start auctioning, the time and expense involved in becoming a licensed auctioneer has to be considered.

Are you currently employed and able to meet your financial responsibilities? In many states the training requirements are somewhat flexible. Depending on your location you may be able to qualify for an auctioneer’s license by serving as an apprentice to a licensed auctioneer. Since most auctions take place in the evenings, your training should not affect your regular work schedule.

If you are already unemployed but have enough savings to get by for six months or longer, you could still do the apprenticeship program or you could opt for the more aggressive choice of attending an auction school full-time. Should you chose the school, you can become a licensed auctioneer much faster than you can by serving as an apprentice. Each state has different timetables for its curriculum. Auction school can take as little as two to three weeks full-time while an apprentice program, because it is part-time, can take as long as two years.

There are only 29 states that require an auctioneer to be licensed. Check the official government website for your state to learn about the specific professional requirements that may apply to you. Most of the states that do require you to be licensed may have their own accredited auction school or schools.

The most famous auction school in the country is the Missouri Auction School, which offers different classes at different times in different cities within Missouri. They offer classes geared to each state’s licensing requirements. All states accept graduates from the Missouri Auction School. They are considered the “Harvard of Auctioning” and there are nearby hotels that offer reasonable rates.

Becoming a licensed auctioneer comes with an honorary title of “Colonel.” You may have seen this rank on business cards, other advertising or on Internet sites that belong to brick and mortar auction houses. This dates back to the Civil War. At that time, only military officers with the rank of Colonel or higher had the authority to disperse the “spoils of war”. More frequently than not, they would do so by taking bids on these “spoils” which technically made them auctioneers.

In order for you to be called a Colonel one day, the first thing you must do is your “due diligence.” Carefully research the area in which you live. Use the phone book to find out how many auctioneers are in your vicinity. You may find that auctioneers are not as plentiful in your town, county or state as they are elsewhere. As with many professions, people follow the jobs. You cannot assume that because there are not many auctioneers in your area, you will therefore be successful. If there are only one or two, you need to examine the reason for this.

1.  Will your city or town not support another auction house?

2.  Are the auction houses there doing good business?

3.  Are they doing more business than they can handle?

4.  Are there a lot of antique malls or antique shops in your area?

Investigate -- attend an auction at each of the auction houses in your vicinity.

1.  Do they run every week or just once a month?

2.  If they run every week, do they have a lot of merchandise in their sales?

3.  Are they drawing good crowds to their auctions?

Answering these questions will help tell you what you need to know. If a weekly auction is selling a lot of items each week then you can assume the merchandise is easy to come by. If they draw a good crowd then you can also assume people are interested in auctions as a venue for either buying personally or buying merchandise they need for their malls and shops. This information should help you ascertain if there is room for another auction house or another auctioneer in your area.

If you are unsure as to how well they are doing based on the crowds or the amount of merchandise they have to offer, further research is needed. Find out if there were any other auction houses in your area that may have recently gone out of business. This would most likely mean that your location is not able to support anymore auction houses at this time. However that does not necessarily mean that it cannot support another auctioneer.

Some auction houses are owned and operated by auctioneers and they usually do their own auctioning. Other auction houses hire auctioneers to call for them. If you would like to be an auctioneer, you may not be able to get a full-time job right away. You may have to work either part-time or as an independent auctioneer filling in for the regular auctioneer if he or she is ill or out of town. Not all auctioneers own or call for a traditional auction house. The more traditional auction houses deal in art, antiques and collectibles. There may be many other auctioning venues available depending on where you live.

Other auction classifications include on-site business liquidations, bankruptcies, estate auctions, personal property, automobile auctions, storage units, residential and commercial real estate, police seizures, airport lost and found, livestock, exotic animals, repossessions, charities, fundraisers, the very glamorous television auctions, etc. In many of these venues, the auctioneer travels to the merchandise.

There are a number of auctioneers who advertise as independents and they get many of the on-site auctioning jobs offered by businesses that don’t want all the trappings that come with hiring an actual auction house. They want it done in a particular way and all they need is an auctioneer to show up, call the sale and go home.

For new auctioneers, charity and fundraising auctions are a good way to garner some experience even if you won’t garner any money right away. Most auctioneers don’t charge to call a charity auction. They do it as a public service. In many states, it is not necessary to have an auctioneer’s license to call a charity event. Anyone can do it.

However, organizations putting on such events usually prefer to have a professional auctioneer to help them get the most money possible. Even if you are a new auctioneer, you may not have much experience but, having graduated from auctioneer school, you have more than anyone else in their organization has.

 
Written by Anne Benedetto, Auction House Talk
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