Hammer Time: The Trade

I don’t believe in charity. I believe in help and I believe in profit. A sick or dying child may need my help… and I’ll give them everything I can. But an able bodied human being will only get one simple thing from me. A trade. Knowledge, money, work, things, emotions. I’ve traded everything in my life as did my father and grandfather. Horses, mules, cars, houses, fancy foods of every flavor you can imagine. It gave us an education. A family. A “happily ever after”. Everything we ever desired in our lives came true from the pursuit of profit and the willingness to trade… and of course share…

99+% of the car dealers and auctioneers in my business value money above all else. Whether they pretend to be a Christian or fool their customers into believing they have a giving heart, at the end of the day it’s all about the money. For me, money was my absolute number one for my first two years in this business

If my tips as an auctioneer or ringman weren’t more than the pittance I was given from the auto auction, I was pissed off as hell. Every day I worked my ass off to be the absolute best in my work. I didn’t always have the right ingredients. But I constantly took good notes and studied the best auctioneers and ringmen I could find. A nice conversation. A befriending and a lot of practice lead to career and success. I helped them with auctioning in Spanish or investing in good companies (an easy thing in 1999). They helped me with building relationships and finding opportunities. Within six months I had regular weekly gigs at six different auto auctions in four different states. It was a beautiful time.

But it wasn’t enough in the end. Auctioneering is like a merry go round. You get up and go on your horse. Go through all the highs and lows of the ride and when it’s finished… the horses are still there. Sure my horses were cars and it appeared that most of them did actually leave the barn. But they were replaced every week with horses that were exactly alike from Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota, Nissan and every other nameplate in this business. It was a nice ride. But I wanted to own the amusement park. Not be an old man stuck in the same rut of ups and downs using the same tricks and selling the same types of cars to the same dealers. So after receiving a $200 cash tip from an old friend who later built his own auction, I went forth in all my youth and arrogance to the green pastures of Duke University.