Spring is here and summer will soon follow. The warm weather is bringing blooms across the landscape – the floral variety and the blossoming of numerous auction signs, too. With the former, it is a season of color and beauty. With the latter, it is a time for sales and, for some, costly mistakes.
Have you ever gone to an auction and come home dissatisfied, upset, or even mad because of bidder’s remorse?

Was it because you bought something you later regretted?
Did you buy some lot and end up feeling like you paid too much?
Did what you buy turn out to be not what you wanted?
Did you fail to buy something that you really did want?
Did you feel like you should have bid for an item when you didn’t, or you stopped bidding when you shouldn’t have?

Auctions are a lot like a game with bidders vying against one another to buy the lots they want. Auctions offer some great buying opportunities, but they are also perfect fields for the unschooled, unaware, and unprepared to make mistakes that can cost them, and this happens frequently to bidders and buyers. The answer to avoiding an unpleasant auction experience is simple if you know and practice it. We are going to cover that here.

Paul “Bear” Bryant coached the University of Alabama football team for 25 years. Coach Bryant said that success was achieved the same way in both football and life – it came to those who planned for it and dedicated themselves to achieving it. Look at about any photograph or artwork picturing Coach Bryant on a gridiron sideline and you will see him gripping the written plan that he would meticulously prepare for each game.
Any eventuality that Coach Bryant could envision arising w
as listed, along with the best choices for responding.

Auction bidders need the same approach for winning in auctions.
They need a plan of action.

Successfully bidding and buying does not result from mere happenchance and much more is required than simply bidding and thereafter relying on good luck or the favor of fate to realize a favorable outcome.

Let’s consider the three most common pitfalls bidders tumble into at auctions. Each can prove damaging.

The first threat is to know too little about auctions. A bidder has got to know what to expect and what to do to properly participate. Some of the folks who happen upon auction signs and follow them to these events have never bid in an auction before, or have done so only infrequently and maybe a long time back. These people are high on the risk pole for making errors, because they don’t know what they are doing.

An auction is a unique selling venue with different practices than will be encountered elsewhere and bidders have got to know the ins and outs of the process to understand what is occurring and when they should jump in and when they should sit quietly and watch. The naïve and unknowing will not fare favorably in this accelerated selling environment when try to do what they don’t know how to do and do so during a hurry-up mode with little time for analysis and decision making.

The second threat is to not know enough about the auctioneer’s character, practices, and procedures. The cornerstone of any good auctioneer is honesty. Sadly, examples of honest and dishonest auctioneers can be found across the auction markets. Consequently, bidders must learn whether an auctioneer is a straight arrow who can be trusted, or a con man who throws curves at bidders in the form of shills, phantom bids, and misrepresentations. Bidders ought to limit their involvement to only the former and steadfastly avoid the latter. A naïve, unprepared bidder who walks blindly into an auction is at risk for being blindsided by a crooked auctioneer.

The third threat is to know too little about the goods. An auctioneer is a salesman. His job is to do the best that he can for the seller and that means selling the lots for the highest prices he can get, while doing so legally and ethically. An auctioneer is not available to assist bidders in protecting their interests. Bidders must protect themselves. An auctioneer will almost always use puffery to build up the lots to look their best and bring the most money. Bidders must exercise the diligence necessary to learn all they can about the lots that interest them – things such as the authenticity, condition, and value of the goods. Not knowing these answers, or relying solely on what an auctioneer says from the block, or leaving the result of bidding to luck or fate, is never a winning strategy for a bidder.

Once a bidder has done the research to confirm that the auction will be a fair and not stacked one, the bidder needs to create a good plan for bidding. The plan could be written or might exist only in the bidders’ mind, but it should be fixed. By the way, nothing is more fixed than a writing put to paper. The plan is the next step to blocking out the threats that would derail auction success. When it comes to significant lots, a bidder needs to identify what the bidder might want to bid on and the important characteristics of these lots. The bidder then needs to establish a bidding limit for each lot to ensure the bidder doesn’t fall victim to the twin traps of: (a) impulse buying which occurs when emotional want overrides rational patience and causes a bidder to buy what isn’t needed, and (b) auction fever which strikes when emotional fervor knocks out reason and results in the bidder overpaying for what is bought.

Once a bidder is armed with a good plan for bidding, the bidder needs to employ two additional tools to have the best chance for success. Coach Bryant was a strong believer in both. The bidder needs the determination to execute the plan. The bidder also needs the discipline to stick with the plan and see it through to completion, or to change it only when evolving facts provide a reasonable basis for making a modification. If a bidder sets $1,000 as the bid limit for a lot, the bidder must stop bidding at that point or fail to adhere to the plan. The only exception would be if some compelling, new information supported revising the original bid limit. Even when that occurs, the bid limit should be adjusted to a new amount and not discarded and replaced with a blank-check mentality.

Bidders help themselves avoid costly auction mistakes when they approach auctions with a well-thought-out plan, exercise the determination to execute it, and practice the discipline to stay with it when others are bidding emotionally and unreasonably. That is the approach Paul “Bear” Bryant used for 25 years at Alabama and it worked wonderfully for him and the Crimson Tide. Given a chance, it will work just as well for you.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Steve Proffitt may write to him in care of this publication.