Up for Auction at Heritage Auction House July 16, 2011 (Estimate: $7,000 – $12,000)

Dear Estate Sales Professional,

I think that most of us are, to our core, honest and forthright in both our dealings with our clients as well as with our customer bases. Most of us have been in the business for years, and have developed a strong belief, that the longer we are in business, the more valuable it is for us to realize just how important it is to be forthright – direct in our client communications, and integrous when it comes to accounting for our actions on their behalf.

Public Enemy No, 1 Movie Poster Sold at Auction Here: $550.00

There are many new Estate Liquidators out there…

I address the following to you…

As a new Estate Sales Professional, you must remember that there is only one end, or goal for you to serve, and that is for you to pursue the best possible economic outcomes for your clients.

There is nothing else that matters…not your profit or whether you can buy something from them for very little, and later resell for a much higher price, or that you now have the opportunity to sell to and impress your dealer friends.

Clients and the preservation of their goals is everything…

In The Estate Sales Business Trust Is Of Paramount Importance

Never split your focus from doing the best for your client: All better outcomes for you and your business flow from how well you do for them. Remember, you are in an unregulated business, that your actions on the local level will have an effect on our industry as a whole. Anyone who hurts a client in Houston, hurts the chances for some other estate liquidator to help a client in Chicago.

Here Is a Filter For Your Actions: Imagine how your actions will be viewed, if read in tomorrows newspaper…

News Travels Fast and Bad News Travels Even Faster…

Take Care Out There…

Here’s Our Deal of The Day: Vintage Rafael Melendez Sterling Brooch Was $275.00 Now, and Only For Today: $200.00

All The Best,

Martin Codina

I have spent the last 16 years selling and marketing Antiques and Collectibles for clients throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

In that time I have sold every conceivable kind of item that you can find in a home – endless stacks of Tupperware, dishes galore, burnt Teflon pots and pans, and especially treasures…

I have been fortunate to have had the wonderful opportunity to sell Quarter Million Dollar Paintings, Sterling Daggers for close to $100,000.00 and Coin Collections for as much as $358,000.00

I have found money, sometimes stacks of it, in the strangest and oddest places. I love a treasure. I expect to find them. I never doubt that I will.

I act solely on behalf of others, their big picture, their goals, what they want. I am a Professional Estate Liquidator; modern in every sense – the internet, and the myriad ways it can be used to further my clients goals is where I spend more time then I’d ever care to admit.

Whether To Sell at Auction Or In An Estate Sale Depends On What You Have

If You Have A Valuable Painting

Painting of Early Berlin by Eduard Gaertner ($243,000.00)

Then You Sell It Through An Auction

This is a painting we sold for a client in Antioch CA. We found it the most average of track homes, out in the suburbs, in one of the last places you might expect to find something so valuable…

But If You Have A Cabinet Of Sterling Silver

Sausalito Estate Sale (See Pictures)

Then You Sell It Through An Estate Sale

Of course there are some exceptions to this rule…but it is mostly better to sell your sterling through an estate sale rather than at an auction, unless that sterling is in a rare pattern, or by a significant maker.

Here Is What Auctioneers Won’t Tell You

1. Big and Prestigious Auction Houses Only Want Your Most Valuable Stuff.
2. Small and Medium Auction Houses Want Your Most Valuable Stuff Too, But Can’t Really Hope To Get The Big Bucks These Items Deserve!
3. Auction Houses Charge You To Sell Your Items and They Charge Buyers a “Buyers Premium” In Order To Buy From Them – This Could Mean That Buyers Are Willing, Only To Pay Less At Auction…

Auctions are best when you have an item that has so much hidden or not so hidden value that it needs a larger marketplace of buyers in order to generate that value. Most things in most houses don’t have that kind of value.

Use Caution: If your estate has a few items of high value and you consign those items to an auction house in order that that high value may be realized, then you may run the risk of devaluing the estate so much so, that the rest of what you have is not easily marketable, because your estate’s residual items will be too costly for a Estate Sales Professional to organize and stage an estate sale on your behalf.

Solution: Hire someone who knows how to separate Auction Items from Estate Sales Items.

Here Is What Estate Sales Professionals Won’t Tell You

1. That They Pick Or Pre Buy From Estates They Represent (Ask them, and if true never hire them)
2. That They Don’t Have Sound Accounting Practices.
3. That They Pre Sell To Dealer Friends.
4. That They Really Don’t Know How To Conduct Effective Research.

Estate Sales are best when the professional you are dealing with correctly knows the difference between something that belongs in an Estate Sale and something that belongs in an auction – when Estate Liquidators  can explain their research capacity, and can demonstrate with records their past successes combining estate sales with auction placement strategies.

Use Caution: The Estate Sales Business is Unregulated. There are almost no laws governing an Estate Liquidators activities. There are unscrupulous so called professionals out there.

Solution: Only use Estate Sales Professionals who can provide you with recent referrals. Only use professionals who can show evidence of their past estate sales.

All The Best To You,

Martin Codina

CEO Fine Estate Sales

415-235-7238

It’s 6:00am here folks.

Getting up early, starting the day before the first roosters crow, well it’s all part of the estate sales business. If you are afraid of hard work, getting your hands dirty or rising before the sun does, then the estate sales business is not for you.

This past weekend saw us out in the rain putting up our roadside signs, all part of the preparations for the downsizing estate sale of a gentleman who is moving form Marin County, here in Northern California, to the wilds of Idaho.

It’s at least 3 or 4 times a week that someone sends me an email asking me to give them some advise which they hope will help them get into the estate sales business.

People need work, they have to feed their families and such, and that’s fine, I don’t begrudge them this. But let me just say, the estate sales business isn’t for everybody.

If you think the Estate Sales Business is glamorous, or that it is a business that’s going to make you a ton of money fast, then you will sorely be disappointed. The estate sales business is difficult. Make no mistake about it. If you do not have strong organizational skills – If you faint at the sight of throngs of people – If you easily get upset at estate sales customers rude comments – If you do not like to attend to a lot of painstaking research, then the estate sales business is most definitely not for you.

Did I mention Ethics? If you do not have strong ethics, well you’re sunk before your ship leaves harbor…

Now where was I?

Oh that’s right I was saying that it’s Monday morning following our estate sale in San Rafael, CA. We worked for a week to set that house up, the weekend to actually sell all of the household contents, and now we rise early on a Monday morning to set a clean up crew in motion. It’s all part of the estate sales process…Oh and did I mention that Monday morning also begins the process of starting to set up another estate sale for this weekend, this one in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco?

The Estate Sales Business Is A Lifestyle Business: If for whatever reason you want to see this differently…you might want to reconsider getting into the business, you’ll save everyone including your clients a whole lot of trouble.

Martin Codina

As you might imagine I get at least a few questions about how to work for, or how to start an Estate Sales Business every week. People are looking for different ways to generate additional incomes as a side jobs or they’re looking to start whole new businesses…the following post is my answer.

Let Me Just Say: There are far easier paths to cash than to start your own Estate Sales Business

Starting in The Estate Sales Business Is Like Entering a Maze

It’s Complex, Sometimes Difficult, and Always Challenging…

Here Are The 4 Questions from our reader:

1. How do I go about working for an Estate Sales Company?
2. What are the jobs that may be available in the Estate Sales Business?
3. If I work with someone just starting, where online would we find free appraisals?
4. How much would a starting part time hourly wage be?

“How do I go about working for an Estate Sales Company?”

The Estate Sales Business is a trust business, all of it, from the first entrance into a home to set it up, to all of the customer interactions, All Of It Is Based On Trust.

Expect any job inquiry of an Estate Liquidator to be met with a bit of skepticism. If you want a job in the Estate Liquidation Industry, first develop a relationship with them. The best way to do this is to go their Estate Sales from week to week – have them get a chance to know you before asking if they need any help.

“What are the jobs that may be available in the Estate Sales Business?”

The least known job in the Estate Sales Business is that of the marketer – if you have experience as a marketer or experience as a PR Person – especially if you have a demonstrable track record – I imagine, you could pretty much get a job with an Estate Liquidator any day of the week.

Estate Sales Professionals Want…

More Business… If you can help them get more business – You can have a job!

To be Better… If you can show them how to be more effective – You can have a job!

Increase Incomes… If you can help an Estate Liquidator make money – You can have a job!

If you want a job in the Estate Sales Business, then prove to an Estate Liquidator that you can do the above.

Other Jobs In The Estate Sales Business: Set-Up Staff – On-Site Sales Staff – Outside Consultants – Cashiers….

If I work with someone just starting, where on-line would we find free appraisals?

Free Appraisals are only worth their cost: In other words to find out how much something is worth you are going to have to either pay for it, have the experience to know already, or you are going to have to invest your time.

Here are two places to conduct research – by the way there are others: Our Research Antiques and Collectibles Pages, and a site I use everyday – Prices4Antiques.Com – If you like Prices4Antiques.Com then click the link to find out about a discount code for them.

How much would a starting part time hourly wage be?

In the San Francisco Bay Area, we likely pay more per hour for our estate sales staffing then most places in the country – at Fine Estate Sales we pay our staff between $12.00 – $18.00 an hour.

But I feel certain that in other parts of the country you’ll likely find that wages for Estate Sales Staff are lower.

Sign Me: Grateful To The Estate Sales Industry,

Martin Codina
CEO Fine Estate Liquidation, Inc.
San Francisco Bay Area

It’s That Simple

Here’s The Big Web Secret: It ain’t personal; whether a visitor buys an antique or stays on your website is dependent on one thing and one thing only. Is your site useful to their search, to their objective for visiting your site in the first place. If not, they will leave, your bounce rate will remain high, and your Google Analytic’s will sink, and your site will tumble and fall through layer upon layer towards eventual mediocrity. And the biggest secret of all, is that the way your fortunes will fail, poised as they were on your ineffectual web strategies, won’t be personal.

Let Me Explain: It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve spent on your site, how fancy your logo is, how many hours you spent on your message. It only matters what the consumer of your little bit of PHP or HTML wants – that the information consumer, like the retail consumers of old, is always right. Yes they are, they are always right; what they want, how they want to see it, and how they will respond, is entirely in the hand that holds the mouse.

Please know that their surfing habits are just like your surfing habits, and like you, visitors to your site who do not either understand your sites navigation, or who do not resonate with your content will leave, and they will leave quickly.

And It Won’t Be Personal: The wind of their quick exit is impersonal. That’s just the way it is. They don’t know you, don’t care necessarily, and will only stay on your site if there is something in it for them. So give them something…

Websites and Antiques Have To Be Useful

It’s That Simple!

Antique Marketing Secret #1: In today’s economy it’s more true than in times of boom, that buyers tend to wear their practical shopping hats when shopping for antiques. Yeah they want items that look good, that are stylish, that have value, but more than ever what they buy has to provide a practical solution to something that is missing in their home.

Shoppers leave antique stores without buying, when the store they are visiting can not match their desire with anything useful to the utility of their search.

Websites Too, Have Secrets: Think of your website as the answers to questions – not the questions you pose, or the answers you found on a get rich quick SEO marketing site…the only questions that your site should answer, are the questions being posed by visitors to your site.

You see, your visitors are smarter than you about what they want to find on your website, they know what they want to find, and again, if they don’t find what they are looking for, they will leave quickly.

And It Won’t Be Personal: If you want people to stay, to enjoy what they read, then find out what they want to read. Every page on your website is like a test. This site for example has about 300 pages on it. Here in order of visitor preference are the top 5 most visited pages on this site:

1. Home Page
2. Audrey Hepburn’s Wedding Dress
3. Our On-Line Store
4. Estate Sales Company List
5. Estate Sales, The Billion Dollar Business You Need To Know About

When visitors get to these pages they tend to stay, they tend to read, and more importantly, they tend to take action, by either buying, or letting others know via various social networking platforms about this site. Here Are Mine: MY Twitter Profile – My Facebook Fan Page – My Stumbleupon

Visitors Stay On Websites When Given Something Of Value

It’s That Simple

Look At This Site: Notice the paucity of advertising, yes there is a bit here and there, but not much. My focus is clear: I want to give, and have given a lot of valuable Antiques and Collectibles Research Information away for free, as my gift of gratitude to the industry that has supported me for the last 14 years. I am not afraid that this gift of information about where and how to find an Estate Sales Professional will undermined me, to the contrary, I know that my Estate Sales Business has grown from this…I watch this happen everyday.

Your Antique Store or Website Can Do The Same: The Big Guys in the antiques business are slowly taking over, buying up URLs, setting up innumerable shopping sites, and slowly taking over the internet for searches related to antiques, collectibles, estate sales and so on. I describe this process here as Big Business Is Making A Web Mall Of The Antiques Business.

Take Control Of Local Antiques Searches: In the same way that you sweep and clean your store, and manage your store’s presentation, give some attention to the internet, to the way shoppers are looking for the kind of antiques you sell…never allow for them to find an antique on the internet – from some far away store or dealer, when they could find it down the street in your store.

Don’t let the big boys control your physical mall because they are more sophisticated about how to exploit and capture local search terms and present the answers to antiques and collectibles web queries on their websites.

Good Luck Out There…

Martin Codina

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