By Sam Reese – Rabin Worldwides
Zoe Kravitz, Hailey Bieber, Maude Apatow, myself, and many of you reading this have something in common. Allow me to explain.
Whether it’s Blue Ivy performing in Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour to great fanfare, or Drake’s 5-year-old son, Adonis, being featured in his newest album, the world is filled (for better or worse) with countless Nepo Babies. And the auction industry is no exception—as a matter of fact, it’s more common here than in the entertainment industry. Most of our member companies started out as family-owned businesses, with ownership passing from generation to generation, as long as someone wants to keep it going.
Over 10 years ago, I wrote my first article for the Podium discussing a generational shift destined to occur in the auction industry. So much—and so little—has changed since then. BidSpotter and their competitors have solidified their position as the way we run a sale. Live auctions (and even webcast sales) were on life support in favor of timed online auctions before the COVID-19 pandemic and have all but vanished since.
The auctions of today are more similar to the eBay auctions for “Magic: The Gathering” cards I participated in during my early teens than a sharply dressed auctioneer in a cowboy hat, speaking 1000 words a minute, selling livestock in 2002.
I’ve met a lot of the incoming generation—mostly at the IAA, and a few times back when we were still doing live/online hybrid sales. But the question is, how do we keep up with others who have earned their current positions solely through merit?
Our company started with three of my great uncles selling WW2 surplus goods in the late 1940s and 50s. That slowly evolved into selling anything and everything—from snack food companies in Oakland, breweries in San Francisco, to Halloween costume collections in the middle of nowhere.
We are now on the tail end of our second generation of ownership. My great uncle and dad ran the show as recently as 2010, and now with myself and four of my cousins involved.
We have grown to embrace the business. It isn’t glamorous by any means. Yet there is something special about heading into a plant with minimal information for the first time, or that feeling right when an auction ends that performs well above expectations, or right when you close a competitive deal with a signed agreement.
My path to where I am now wasn’t as cut and dry as many. I didn’t go straight into an office role.
From 2014 through 2019, I spent most of my time doing auction setup and checkout. Going from waking up at 11 AM in college to get to class at noon to showing up at a Hampton Inn in Chillicothe, Ohio and immediately hearing, “Be downstairs at 6:00 for breakfast, we leave at 6:30,” was… an adjustment to say the least.
In hindsight, that was actually the easiest setup job I’ve ever done, as it was a nuclear power plant through the Department of Energy where you needed to fill out a stack of forms to move a pallet to the other side of the room. We didn’t have to work weekends either, because our Union contractor escorts with security clearance only did 40-hour weeks Monday through Friday. My boss constantly reminded me to not get used to it.
I shouldn’t have gotten used to it. Two months later I was at an Aluminum Smelter on the Ohio/West Virginia border, where I spent a solid six months of my life. I won’t sugarcoat it—I was a terrible employee. I would not have kept that job for more than a week or two, if it weren’t for my last name.
I was used to California weather and was unaware of the concept of layered clothing. When winter set in and it dropped into the 20s and 30s, I was armed only with a sweatshirt and on more than one occasion, hid in one of the few heated spaces until I was inevitably caught and yelled at.
A customer spotted me once and reminded me about it three years later in front of a different group of plant employees, much to my embarrassment.
Many more set-ups followed. I went from four layers of clothing in the dead of winter in Central Maine to one layer in the spring (and was glad to get out of there once I saw the bugs come out). I spent the month before the COVID outbreak unloading, sorting, cataloging and reloading equipment in a series of two dozen containers in Sinaloa, Mexico. It was on farmland, and I got nailed by pesticides being crop-dusted once!
But a lot has changed since that aluminum plant. I slowly got better at following the schedule. I got chewed out less. Eventually, I moved into a hybrid on-site/office role, with my time being split as needed. Now, I’m in the office full-time. I still visit sites for tours and cataloging, but my days of sorting bearings and motors are over. The rest of my time I’m chasing deals and dealing with clients.
Did everyone follow this path when born into the industry? I don’t know, but I learned a lot about equipment, clients, the setup and removal process, and our customers during those years.
I have nothing but the utmost respect for those that dedicate their careers to auction setup and checkout. They deserve the world, and much like the current running back situation in the NFL, their employers aren’t always fully appreciating what they bring to the table.
While I may not be as fortunate as Blue Ivy or the Sandler daughter, I can very much confirm that I’m satisfied. I’ve got a stable career path ahead of me with near-unlimited opportunity for growth. Not many can claim that, and I’m sure countless more would kill for it.
Nepo babies or not, we can all grow to earn the positions we are given and forge our own path from where we started. We may begin by following in other’s footsteps, but as the world advances so do we.