Silent Auction Listings Are Vital to the Success of Fundraising Auctions

Fundraising Auction Tip: You need to continually offer potential bidders with a published Auction Listing of each your Live and Silent Auction gadgets at any Fundraising Auction. A printed Auction Listing is critical for several reasons:

An Auction Listing informs bidders of the order How does Silent Auction work of sale, and what is coming up subsequent. If you keep your bidders guessing, they will genuinely now not bid.

If bidders aren’t one hundred% sure of what they may be bidding on, they’ll not bid. A printed Auction Listing ought to solution any and all questions about what’s being sold that allows you to encourage bidders to bid as a lot as viable.

Bidders often want time to plan their bidding strategies, mainly on more than one and/or larger cost gadgets. A published Auction Listing enables them to do this.

Couples often need time to visit every other about what they’re willing to spend on something. A printed Auction Listing enables them to do this.

Potential bidders need to understand the specifics, the advantages, and the regulations on any object they’re going to bid on, in particular on journey and/or different better cost objects. A published Auction Listing have to solution all in their questions, in writing.

After bidders see that they’ve misplaced an object to any other bidder, a broadcast Auction Listing makes it less difficult for them to re-strategize on what else they can bid on.
Printed Auction Listings usually come in three bureaucracy:

Printed inside the Event Program or Auction Catalog.

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

Printed on unfastened sheets of paper and hand-added to all attendees, or left on each dinner table within the room.
Auction Listings fee nearly nothing to provide and they could make the distinction between the success and failure of a Live and Silent Auction. You have to in no way conduct a Fundraising Auction with out one.

A Case Study

Let me percentage a actual-lifestyles enjoy with you. Once I was hired to conduct a Fundraising Auction for a nationally famend organisation. The occasion turned into held in a major lodge, in one of the us of a’s largest cities, with numerous hundred “black tie” participants attending. It turned into a very expert event, with the track, singing, lighting, speeches, and awards all flawlessly timed and choreographed. Everything become achieved 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, nobody to touch me for any recommendation or assist. Approximately one week previous to the Auction date, I contacted the group to peer in the event that they had replaced me with some other Auctioneer. But they stated that I turned into nonetheless their man.

Upon arriving at the event I requested for a duplicate of the Auction Listing. I was instructed that there were none. I’m now not certain whether they felt that the Auction Listing wasn’t necessary, or whether or not a person forgot to have them published. This became by no means made clear. When I requested what I become to use at the podium, I turned into advised to copy the listing of Live Auction items from a committee member’s pc. It took me approximately half-hour to replicate three pages of hand-written notes that allows you to prepare for my function as their Auctioneer.

I knew that that they had created a PowerPoint software showing the various Live Auction objects. When I asked whether the PowerPoint slide order corresponded to the order of sale I had copied from the committee member’s pc, I became met with a blank stare. The committee member left to check the slide order, and again to permit me recognize that the slide order did now not correspond my notes, and he supplied me with the precise slide order… Hand-written on a paper napkin. This compelled me to re-set up my 3 pages of hand-written notes earlier than taking the podium.

There turned into a Live Auction Table with descriptions of the Live Auction items that had been to be offered, however the desk became not definitely marked, and it received significantly much less attention than the Silent Auction Tables, which had been absolutely identified. Since the Live Auction Table was positioned adjoining to the “Raffle Table”, it regarded that the general public notion it was part of the raffle and therefore paid very little attention to it.

According to the occasion program (which did no longer include an Auction Listing), I knew approximately when I become to begin the Live Auction. At the designated time the Master of Ceremonies announced the begin of the Live Auction to the several hundred humans in attendance, and delivered me as Auctioneer. As I approached the rostrum I found out that pics of award winners were nonetheless being taken… Directly in the front of the rostrum in which I changed into to stand… Which required me to stand apart for several minutes till the photographers had been finished. Can we say “awkward second”?

Posted by Alberto