Change for the sake of change, is not always good.

I had an interesting phone call today. A guy called me from Boston, said he found my website, and thought we would be a good fit for the service he was trying to sell. Basically they provide the software to allow for on-line bidding in addition to our live auction.

I told him I wasn’t interested at this time, and as a good salesperson, he asked why. I told him I felt our business was doing well, because we were NOT doing on-line sales, or on-line bidding. He started to laugh (at this point he was NOT doing what a good salesperson should do).

I explained to him, I thought there are now too many on-line auctions, and our strength, is continuing on with the tradition of live auction, no on-line bidding.

I told him we were filling the hall every auction,, and business continues to be very good.

I could still hear him chuckling, and he wished me the best of luck moving forward.

Truth is, I don’t need him to wish me good luck. We are doing fine thank you. We are moving forward. All he proved to me, was that he did not understand, what traditional, live auctions are all about.

If you want to “bid in the comfort of your own home”, there is nothing wrong with that. For some people it works. However, I am an auctioneer,, and I want to do live auctions. I spend enough time on my computer, doing photos and marketing on-line. I want to continue to work in front of a live crowd.

There is an excitement, atmosphere, and social interaction in a live auction, that cannot be replicated in front of a computer screen.

Also, if I were to bring in on-line bidding, in conjunction with our live auction, I don’t think that would go over well with the people who make the effort to attend the live auction. You wait a few hours for the piece you want, and then you lose out to someone bidding on-line? That would not sit well with me, and I don’t think it would sit well with my customers.

So we continue to very deliberately, hold off on the on-line auctions and on-line bidding.

I want to see you in person. I want to hear you laugh at some of my lame jokes.   I want to hear you laugh when my staff make fun of me, or I make fun of them. I want to see you have a good time, and go home with the items you really wanted. So we will continue to do things as we have, for the last twenty years.  Follow the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.