The auction industry does not provide the opportunity to make a lot of money quickly.  Your odds of failure are above 99 percent if you are not financed initially, if you do not work for a successful auctioneer for a couple of years cheap (with a contract assuring you experience in all facets of the business, on a guaranteed schedule of activities, with a termination date, and with the employer having the right to fire you at any time with no severance owed) or your paying him, before you ever even consider hanging up a shingle or printing a business card.  Auction school did not emphasize these points.  They are in the “selling” business as much as the auctioneering business.

Know your product - - the items you are selling plus the advantages and disadvantages of the auction system of transferring ownership.

Being a normal participant in an industry that is steeped in tradition is not good for your personal auction business.  Be creative, devise new methodologies.  “That’s the way its always done,” is not the correct answer to, “Why are you doing X?”