Five Key Principle Elements of the Phoenix Auction Business

The Reputation Institute conducts business reputation research, has identified five key principle elements of a business reputation. This article is designed to provide you with these elements and how they affect a Phoenix auction business. Specifics may vary from auction to auction; however, the following information includes helpful and important guidelines from which everyone can benefit.

Distinctiveness - Does your company stand out from your competitors? When people think of your company, do they have a clear image of your company or do they get you confused with other companies in your industry?

Focus - Is it clear to your customers what your company's goals and strengths are? Strong reputations are built when your company focuses its efforts around a central theme that it shares with its customers.

Consistency - Is your company consistent in its actions and communications? Does your company send mixed messages or have occasions where words do not match deeds? Reputation applies to every part of your company and therefore, everybody in your company has to assist in building that reputation. All employees need to understand the company's values and live them. It is not enough to teach individual behaviors but also teach the underlying values.

Identity - What is your company's emotional appeal to its customers? Identity is the positive or negative emotional appeal that your company has for its customers. It is the sum of their emotional experiences with your company. Do they have good memories, bad memories, or indifferent memories of your company? Do they remember your employees as helpful and friendly or cold and aloof? Do they trust your clerks and cashiers or do they double-check every lot and carefully count all change?

Transparency - Do your customers believe that, when it comes to your company, what they see is what they get? Or does your company openly share information and engage in dialogue with customers? Do customers take your company's actions at face value or are they always looking for ulterior motives? Does every customer experience the same company or does your company show a different face for each customer?

Not only is reputation of individual Phoenix auction businesses critical but also the reputation of the auction industry as a whole. Most auctioneers are very concerned with their business reputations because the auctioneer's name or their family's name is highly associated with their auction businesses. But the cumulative reputation of all auction companies is what creates the reputation of our industry. And in the same way that an individual company's reputation is hard to earn and easy to lose, so is the auction industry's reputation.

Why is the reputation of the auction industry as a whole so critical to the success of our industry? Unlike most industries, there are many alternatives to the services provided by auctioneers. There are many different ways to sell or purchase merchandise that don't involve hiring an auctioneer. You can hold a yard sale, consign it, open a retail storefront, have a going out of business sale, sell it outright or donate it to charity. If people are hesitant to use auctioneers or, worse, do not trust them, they will take their business elsewhere.

I think the reasons why the Phoenix auction industry and auctioneers should be highly concerned with their reputations were well summed up by Alan Greenspan during a commencement speech at Harvard University in June, 2000. "In today's world, where ideas are increasingly displacing the physical in the production of economic value, competition for reputation becomes a significant driving force" manufactured goods often can be evaluated before the completion of a transaction. Service providers, on the other hand can only offer their reputations."

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Comments

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 at 3:30 AM, by Lewis Baer
Your comments are quite impressive, coming from an auctioneer. I am a third generation antiques dealer and have great sympathy for your reasoning on the buyer's premium and other facets of some auctioneers' deceptive practices. The most objectionable were all started by the Sotheby's/Christie's duopoly that set the standards for auction conflicts of interest and deception. I applaud your candor and honesty.

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