Estimating your assets value:

Typically, one of the first questions a business owner will ask me is, “how much will the assets bring at an auction”. After taking the time to review the assets, the auctioneer should give the client a conservative estimate of the sale based upon his experience and the current market trends. It is important that the company give realistic expectations so the seller can make informed decisions based on their best interest.

Compensation and Expenses:

Is the company you are considering working for you or against you? The agreement you decide may determine this.

A business owner should carefully consider how the auction company is compensated. The most common commission structures include: straight commission, outright purchase of assets, guaranteed base with a split above to both auctioneer and seller, guaranteed base with anything above going to auctioneer or a flat fee structure.

In a straight commission structure, the company is paid an agreed upon percentage of the total sale.

In an outright purchase agreement, the auctioneer simply becomes your end buyer. The company purchases your assets and relocates them. While this can be an option in some unique situations, keep in mind that they will want to purchase your assets at a very reduced price to make a profit at a later date.

In a minimum base guarantee, the auction company guarantees the seller that the auction will generate a minimum amount of sales. Anything above that amount either goes to the auction company or split with the seller. While a seller might feel more comfortable doing an auction knowing that he is guaranteed a minimum amount for his sale, keep in mind that it is the best interest of the auction company to secure a minimum base price as low as possible in order reduce their financial liability to the seller and secure higher compensation for the sale.

In a flat fee structure, the auctioneer agrees to show up for the sale and call the auction. There is no incentive for the auctioneer to get the best prices for your assets. The auction company is compensated regardless of the outcome of your sale.

What is the best option for business owners? In my experience, an agreed upon straight commission structure. This puts the responsibility on the auction company to offer the best outcome for everyone involved. There is an incentive for the auction company to work hard for both parties, set up and run a professional sale, get the highest bid and sell every item on the inventory. Successful auctions translate to a higher bottom line for both the seller and the auction company.

Auction Expenses:

In most auction agreements the expenses to conduct an auction are passed to the seller. If the auction company pays for the expenses, it is simply absorbed in higher commission rates.

All expenses should be agreed upon in advance in a written contract. Typical expenses will include the costs of advertising, labor, legal fees, travel, equipment rentals, security, postage and printing. A reputable auction company will be able to estimate all expenses based upon their experience in previous auctions. An agreement should be actual costs charged as expenses, not an estimated amount.

Advertising is typically the highest cost in conducting an auction. The auction company needs to set up an advertising campaign that will promote the sale to its best advantage and not overspend to simply advertise the auction company.

Once the auction is complete, the auction company should provide a complete breakdown of all expenses to the seller, including copies of receipts within the auction summary report.

Buyer’s Premium:

What is a buyer’s premium? If you attend auctions regularly, you are very familiar with this term. The auction company charges a fee to the buyer when they buy an item at auction.

The buyer’s premium has been around since the 1980′s and is standard auction practice. It was first used by auction houses to help offset costs of running brick and mortar permanent auction facilities. Since then, it has spread to all aspects of the auction industry. It is prominent in online auctions and allows auction companies to cover added expenses incurred from online sales.

It is the responsibility of the auction company to provide clear disclosure of the buyer’s premium to both the buyers and the sellers. Those not familiar with auctions are often taken back by the buyer’s premium. They looked upon it as an under handed way for the auction company to make more money. Reputable auction companies will provide full disclosure within the auction contract, advertisement and bidder registration.

Typically, an auction company will charge online buyers a higher buyer’s premium percentage than those attending an auction in person. Extra fees are incurred with online bidding and are charged accordingly to online buyers. This provides the seller a level playing field for both online buyers and those attending the auction in person. Without the buyer’s premium, there is no way to do this.

Pre-Sales:

We’ve all been there. We’re looking forward to attending an auction only to find that some items were sold prior to the auction date.

As an auctioneer with over thirty-six years of experience, I can honestly state that pre-sales will hurt an auction. When a company decides to liquidate their assets, it is easy to sell off high-end pieces of equipment through online sources, equipment vendors or to other businesses. The seller receives instant cash and avoids paying a commission to an auction company.

Auctioneer’s find themselves appearing to acting in a self-serving capacity when potential clients say they are planning to sell off parts of their inventory prior to an auction. It’s hard not to consider the auctioneer’s commission when they warn you not to pre-sell anything. Yes, the auctioneer wants to earn a commission on those sales but it is more important that the auctioneer protect the sale from potential negative backlash that comes from pre-selling. The buying public knows when an auction has been “cherry picked” prior to the sale and it reflects in their bidding. It becomes a sale of “leftovers” and that impacts prices.

A buyer who purchases prior to the auction usually does not attend the sale. They already bought equipment at a good price with no competition. If they do attend the auction, they tend to let others know of their great pre-sale purchases which again, impacts prices and the overall excitement of the sale.

It is important to understand that auctions work best with a complete inventory. You want competition on your higher end equipment. The easy to sell items make it possible to gain respectable prices for hard to sell items.

When a business owner decides to liquidate their equipment assets, there is only one opportunity to do it right. Hiring a reputable auction company will assist you with a professional, orderly and timely liquidation.

Every business owner starts his or her business with the view to earn maximum profit from his business. Profit maximization remains the main goal of the business owners throughout the life of the business and advertising is the best and most important tool to achieve this goal. Advertising creates awareness in the target market about the product produced or the services provided. There are many sources to advertise a product or service and the best among those is internet. Internet advertising is the best way that a business owner can use to take his products and services to thousands of consumers in less time.

Internet Advertising by an expert advertiser

The business owners should hire experienced advertisers to create effective advertising campaigns because an experienced advertiser can produce much better results as compared to a novice. It can be costly to hire the expert service providers for internet advertising but it can also be more fruitful in terms of bringing new clients because an expert advertiser is well aware of the tips of internet advertising. On the other hand, if the business owner takes the responsibility of internet advertising then this decision may waste both time and money if the business owner does not know how to get an advertisement noticed by millions.

How to hire an expert advertiser?

Before hiring an expert advertiser, you should know his knowledge and capability. You should check his rating and reviews posted by his customers. Checking of previous projects and comments posted by the customers is the best way to check the capability and knowledge of a service provider. Ask the service provider about the previous projects that he completed successfully and if he or she is not able to tell anything about his previous projects then you should not waste your time with him. Ask the service provider to do some assignment and if he or she refuses to do so then do not waste your time with him.

Set the terms and conditions of the project and also explain the details of the project to the service provider. Hire the service provider only if he agrees to work according to the terms and conditions. Do not miss the opportunity to hire a right service provider so it will be OK to make few compromises regarding payment or deadline if the selected provider has a proven track record.

How to work with the advertiser?

You should regularly track the performance of the advertiser. Check the results of the advertising campaigns created by the advertiser. If you will not monitor the performance of the advertiser regularly then things may not go well at the end. In the beginning, explain your requirements clearly to the service provider make sure that he or she sticks to the requirements. Follow the advices and you will be able to create successful advertising campaigns with the help of the selected service provider.

Maybe you’ve tried some home-based business ideas or maybe you’re just thinking about getting something started. Either way, if you’ve spent any time researching your options, you will have by now seen many different schemes that promise to make you money. Some of these are undoubtedly good ideas from reputable companies, while other offers are suspect at best.In any event, one thing is for certain – there are no magic bullets. No matter what home-based business model you choose to pursue, you will need to be prepared to apply yourself and roll up your sleeves to do the work that is necessary to make you successful. A lot of people don’t want to hear that. They want to hear that there is an easy “set it and forget it” scheme for making lots of money. But I’m not going to blow that kind of smoke at you. So if you’re willing to use a little elbow grease, please read on.Now that we have that little bit of reality dose unpleasantness out of the way, let me get to the point of this article. I would like to submit to you that leveraging the best investment tools is the basis for the ultimate home-based business opportunity. You might be thinking, “Wait a minute, investing is something I do after I’ve made money with some other home-based business model.” But the truth is, you should approach investing as a business. You need to apply the same kind of focus and discipline to investing as you do to any other business you might manage.By “investing” I don’t just mean buying some stocks. Investing opportunities encompass a wide variety of things such as real estate, Forex, and gold – just to mention a few. Keeping in mind this idea that investing opportunities are vast, these opportunities have some distinct advantages over many of the other home-based business ideas you may have considered – or even tried.1 – There are powerful tools you can leverage to increase your chances of successWhen it comes to investing, one of the biggest obstacles to overcome is the sheer amount of information you need to process to make good and timely decisions. The good news is that computers and software can process a lot of information very quickly and help you make decisions. A lot of the knowledge the pros have used for years is coded into these software solutions.2 – Many pros are writing How-To guides to walk you through their investing systemsIt is easier than ever to publish and deliver information over the Internet. Many investing pros are creating How-To products that expose the knowledge they have acquired and succeeded with in investing. Rather than reinvent the wheel or learn by trial and error, you can benefit from their hard learned expertise right out of the gate.3 – You don’t need to find customers; You are your customerTo be sure, there are some investments that include customer relationships – such as investing in commercial real estate. But there are many investing opportunities that only involve you. The only person you have to sell to is yourself. You may be your toughest customer, but that can be a good thing.I’ll leave you with a final bonus reason why using the power of investing tools is the ultimate home-based business model; investing is something you can get into without quitting your day job at first. Imagine yourself trading currencies at midnight – or placing an order for some gold bullion coins. You can have the satisfaction of managing your own home-based business without a lot of the baggage that comes with other schemes.