Fundraising Auction Tip: You should always provide potential bidders with a printed Auction Listing of both your Live and Silent Auction items at any Fundraising Auction. A printed Auction Listing is vital for several reasons:

An Auction Listing informs bidders of the order of sale, and what is coming up next. If you keep your bidders guessing, they will simply not bid.

If bidders are not 100% certain of what they are bidding on, they will not bid. A printed Auction Listing should answer any and all questions about what is being sold in order to encourage bidders to bid as much as possible.

Bidders often need time to plan their bidding strategies, especially on multiple and/or larger value items. A printed Auction Listing helps them to do that.

Couples often need time to consult with each other about what they are willing to spend on something. A printed Auction Listing helps them to do that.

Potential bidders need to know the specifics, the benefits, and the restrictions on any item they are going to bid on, especially on travel and/or other higher value items. A printed Auction Listing should answer all of their questions, in writing.

After bidders see that they have lost an item to another bidder, a printed Auction Listing makes it easier for them to re-strategize on what else they can bid on.
Printed Auction Listings generally come in 3 forms:

Printed in the Event Program or Auction Catalog.

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

Printed on loose sheets of paper and hand-delivered to all attendees, or left on each dinner table in the room.
Auction Listings cost practically nothing to produce and they can make the difference between the success and failure of a Live and Silent Auction. You should never conduct a Fundraising Auction without one.

A Case Study

Let me share a real-life experience with you. Once I was hired to conduct a Fundraising Auction for a nationally renowned organization. The event was held in a major hotel, in one of the country’s largest cities, with several hundred “black tie” participants attending. It was an extremely professional event, with the music, singing, lighting, speeches, and awards all perfectly timed and choreographed. Everything was done 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, no one bothered to contact me for any advice or help. Approximately one week prior to the Auction date, I contacted the group to see if they had replaced me with another Auctioneer. But they said that I was still their man.

Upon arriving at the event I asked for a copy of the Auction Listing. I was told that there were none. I’m not sure whether they felt that the Auction Listing wasn’t necessary, or whether someone forgot to have them printed. This was never made clear. When I asked what I was to use at the podium, I was told to copy the list of Live Auction items from a committee member’s computer. It took me about 30 minutes to copy three pages of hand-written notes in order to prepare for my role as their Auctioneer.

I knew that they had created a PowerPoint program showing the various Live Auction items. When I asked whether the PowerPoint slide order corresponded to the order of sale I had copied from the committee member’s computer, I was met with a blank stare. The committee member left to check the slide order, and returned to let me know that the slide order did not correspond my notes, and he provided me with the correct slide order… hand-written on a paper napkin. This forced me to re-arrange my three pages of hand-written notes before taking the podium.

There was a Live Auction Table with descriptions of the Live Auction items that were to be sold, but the table was not clearly marked, and it received significantly less attention than the Silent Auction Tables, which were clearly identified. Since the Live Auction Table was located adjacent to the “Raffle Table”, it appeared that most people thought it was part of the raffle and therefore paid very little attention to it.

According to the event program (which did not include an Auction Listing), I knew approximately when I was to begin the Live Auction. At the designated time the Master of Ceremonies announced the start of the Live Auction to the several hundred people in attendance, and introduced me as Auctioneer. As I approached the podium I realized that photographs of award winners were still being taken… directly in front of the podium where I was to stand… which required me to stand aside for several minutes until the photographers were done. Can we say “awkward moment”?

As the photographers cleared, I approached the podium and began my Live Auction introduction. Approximately one minute into my introduction, the “Raffle Committee” approached the podium and stopped my Live Auction Introduction in order to pull the 8 or 9 Raffle Winners. These drawings lasted about 5 minutes. Upon it’s conclusion I was allowed to resume the start of the Live Auction.

When standing at the podium two intense and extremely bright spotlights were pointed directly at the podium. The lights were so bright that I literally could not see the center 1/3 of the room. I could see the tables on the right, and on the left, but was totally blinded when looking straight ahead. It took perhaps five minutes before the spotlights were turned off.

While at the podium and describing Lot #1, I had to ask someone to start the Lot #1 PowerPoint Slide… because apparently no one was assigned that job.

So with only the Auctioneer’s verbal description, and a PowerPoint slide, it appeared that few people in the room had any idea about what we were selling… or when we were selling it… until it was announced by the Auctioneer. As a result, bidding was extremely light and the final results fell several thousands of dollars short of where they should have been
The learning experience is this:

The Live Auction is where you place your better items, and where the real money should be made at any Fundraising Auction. Let bidders know as far in advance as possible what you will be selling, and the order of sale, so they can get excited about the Auction, and plan their bidding strategy accordingly.

Auction Listings are absolutely vital to the success of both Live & Silent Auctions. In my opinion, revenues at this Auction fell thousands of dollars short of where they should have been, because no Auction Listing was provided to the guests.

If bidders are not perfectly clear on what is being sold, including both the item’s specifics, benefits, and restrictions, they will not bid.

When you have a committee of volunteers, especially volunteers having full time jobs and/or very busy schedules, the services of a professional Fundraising Auctioneer can help to keep the committee on track.

And once you retain the services of a professional Fundraising Auctioneer… use the services that you are paying for.

Home-based businesses are extremely popular nowadays, what with the money making potential of the fast-paced technology that is the Internet. This gives Christians the opportunity not just to earn income at the comforts of their own home, but also to spread the word of God. Hitting two birds with one stone is one great advantage of having a Christian home based business. What is more, it requires just a minimal capital. All it takes to start your home-based business is a computer, Internet connection, and a Christian support group.Any home-based business starts with a set of ideas, and a Christian home based business is no exception. There are plenty of ideas that guarantee you huge profits and steady income for a long time. Listed here are some of the ideas to help you decide the best way to start your own home-based business.* Online Christian bookstore – If your mission in life is to evangelize the non-believers and strengthen the faith of the believers, then setting up a Christian bookstore on the Internet is the perfect way to do it. It gives you the chance to tell people how to apply the teachings of Christ to their daily lives.* Christian day care – Is your home large enough to accommodate 10 to 20 young children? Are you fond of kids? If so, you can make a living out of running a Christian-based day care center. You are assured of income with this type of Christian home based business because there are Christian parents who prefer to leave their kids under the care of their fellow Christian.* Online fund raiser – Sell products online and benefit from it in two ways: earn income for yourself and raise funds for your community or parish church.* Stained glass – People who are into arts and crafts will find creating Christian-themed stained glass windows in homes and churches a very worthwhile and profitable activity.* Inspirational merchandise – You can sell religious products online. A wide variety of merchandise including crosses, figurines, necklaces, and home decors can be sold. Of course, there is a market for them.* Tour guide – Over the Internet, you can start your own Christian touring business. This is a potentially profitable idea especially if local and foreign tourists frequent your town. You can offer sightseeing tours focusing on old and modern churches in your area.* Christian bakery – Is baking your cup of tea? You can incorporate Christian theme into your cake and pastry business right at your home. Use your imagination, and you will come up with many exciting Christian-themed pastries and cakes. You can create Christian scenes or cross figures with cakes and bread. Promote your bakery through the Internet to maximize your reach. Soon, orders will come one after the other.Take your passion and interests in consideration when you choose the kind of Christian home based business you want to start. And just like other types of home-based businesses, it entails patience and hard work.Want to know how to how to start your own Christian Home Based Business?

Advertising on the net is much different than advertising offline in newspapers, magazines or even radio and TV. If you approach internet advertising as you would traditional advertising you may end up losing your shirt very quickly.

There is a misconception people have when it comes to advertising online. Since advertising online is less expensive than offline marketing methods you can simply place and ad, brand your company, product or service and begin to see results. The problem with this mentality is that many others are thinking the same thing and the marketplace becomes inundated with ads that people tend to give a blind eye to.

Consumers these days are bombarded by advertising on tv, when they open their email box, when they are visiting their favorite website, virtually everywhere they go they are being marketed to.

Advertising on the net can be effective if you approach it with the intent of providing value or education in stead of flat out advertising. The majority of people on the internet are looking for information so rather than blast your message in front of them when they are in the middle of another task, a.k.a interruption marketing, a different approach will provide much better results.

In my opinion, one of the best advertising techniques is the “camouflage ad”. This is when you create an ad that does not look like an ad. As an example say you are promoting an eBook on healthy weight loss.

You could easily write an ad that says something like, Lose 30 pounds in 30 days without dieting”. This would get some attention but there are many of those types of ads saturating the internet’.

If you were to change the ad title and body to reflect more of a story with an invitation to learn more the response will be more than double the first method.

Here is a subject for the same eBook camouflaged.

Indiana mother of 5 loses 30 pounds in 30 days without dieting. Shocking free report blows the lid of the diet industry scams. Grab a free copy of the report and protect yourself from greedy marketing companies.

So here are 5 keys you can use to create camouflaged ads to increase your leads and sales when advertising on the net.

1) Use text ONLY no colors or banners. If it looks like an ad people will generally ignore it.

2) Instill curiosity in your ad so people will want to learn more.

3) Offer something FREE rather than just ask a prospect to make a call or contact you to learn more.

4) Try and avoid advertising in groups with other ads. Use ezine advertising or blog advertising that will blend in more with content.

5) Focus on no cost or low cost marketing to test response rates and return on investment. Unlike offline advertising advertising on the net can actually generate a profit if done properly. In fact if you are not paying for the ad at all even one sale puts you into profit. Free online advertising is your best solution if you know how to get it.