As I take in what’s happening around the auto auctions these days and marvel at all the technology we have at our disposal, I often think back to simpler times before the industry became so high tech.
The business is now dominated by large well-organized multinationals, but it wasn’t always like that.
In the early 1970s, some clever individuals saw opportunities to start new niche businesses and a series of small individually owned mom-and-pop auto auctions cropped up all over the U.S. and Canada.
In the beginning, the facilities were simple affairs: rented arenas, converted barns or unused warehouses.
The first car dealers to use the auctions were not overly concerned with creature comforts; they had found a quick and easy way to exchange vehicles. That was all that mattered.
Specifically, it was the speed with which dealers could transact their business that nurtured a phenomenon that might not be instantly apparent to the casual observer.
In the formative years of the auto auctions, if you had done a survey of where the auctioneers worked or lived when they were not doing their one-day gig in the city, you might have been surprised to learn they were primarily farmers and ranchers who were also livestock auctioneers.
The use of these fast talkers from rural areas was not a regional peculiarity. Whenever groups of auto auctioneers got together at annual competitions back then, the participants would hail from all over North America, and they were all country boys.
There wasn’t a city slicker among them.
On the surface it seemed strange that a bunch of hay shakers should be trusted with the huge responsibility of negotiating millions of dollars worth of business but there was and still is, a perfectly good reason for it.
The first auctions were met with instant success. In fact, they were overwhelmed by the amount of business they were getting from the dealers.
The city estate auctioneers they first employed were incapable of selling the endless stream of cars at the necessary speed to do the job. Almost simultaneously, auction owners across the U.S. and Canada hit on the solution.
The answer was right in front of them and had been all along. They headed to the one source of the fastest talking men, capable of selling hundreds of items in the short window of opportunity afforded on sale day: the livestock auctions.
Once the auction owners figured this out, the first item of business for opening a new location was to scout out the local livestock auctions for likely candidates. The recruits had to possess two rare skills: top notch chanting and the ability to negotiate deals between some of the strongest willed businessmen on the planet: car dealers.
The owners also knew that people liked and respected a good musical sounding auctioneer — there is definitely a show biz component to the job. Nobody likes to listen to a lackluster auctioneer droning on all day.
There was stiff competition among sale owners to hire the best, and the rewards to the auctioneers were commensurate with their abilities. Once the new auctioneers got a handle on some product knowledge, there was no stopping them.
So it was that this strange marriage of the country and the city began and, although somewhat changed by the introduction of city car buff types taking up the profession, the bond remains solid.
The original livestock auctioneers established a benchmark of excellence that continues today.
Many talented urban men and women learning the trade have joined the old hands and, to their credit, most of them have adopted the chants, licks and styles of their rural mentors.
A strong new breed of auctioneers is emerging, comfortable with the rapidly changing technology and market preferences.
Had they been around at the time, many auctioneers would have made the grade back in the good old Wild West days of the car auction business.
Armed with only red rubber hoses for gavels and a small posse of talented ring men back then, the auctioneers made the wheels of the auto remarketing business spin into the future.
