Measuring success

Today is the day. I want to be finished with this phase of my project tonight. Long as it takes. I want to get away for a day tomorrow in nature, take a hike. Been two months or so. Body is fighting me. I think the auction is going really well, some very encouraging signs. But we will see. You never know, you can always get fooled. So I am going back to work. Get this one done.

I took the day off. Mailed a package first thing and then drove out and went birding. My project is in the can for two more weeks. I can tighten up a few things, my jewelry shots are terrible for instance but all in all things are looking pretty good.

I got a message from Live Auctioneers yesterday that I got to the 5000 view mark very quickly. Today I am at 6300 views. I have 284 registered bidders at this point and over $70k already bid. These are all very positive metrics. On May 21st an email will go out to another half a million people with Blue Heron Auctions LLC May 25th auction as the featured auction for the day. This can not hurt.

Barry asked me what success would look like for me on this inchoate attempt? It is a good question and one I have not spent a lot of time dwelling on. But here goes; success for me would be not falling on my face and making an ass of myself. Success would be learning the platform well enough that it is easier next time and something I am comfortable doing. Success is not a dollar amount, I asked my wife what she thought and she said paying the bills and having something left over, which is always a reasonable outlook.

Mostly for me, success will be selling a bunch of my consignors' material and not having too many lots pass and not meet reserve. I really want to do well for the people who have trusted me with their possessions. Not really worried about the stuff I put in the auction, I think it will do fine. But I want everybody to be happy and to know that I gave it my best shot for them. Left nothing on the table. And I have left nothing on the table. I am exhausted. It has been hard work.

Money is just a way of keeping score. I held a lot of great things back because I want there to be a round two when I have finished round one. I think that if this auction is successful more people will want to work with me. We will see. I could have seriously padded the numbers but I wanted to offer material in a variety of price ranges that was all good so that there was something for everybody and in every price range.

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Birding was bleak. Hot and dry, nary a bird to be seen. Left the preserve earlier than I ever have, truth is I am pretty tired. Thought I would shoot the baby hawks on the way home, nowhere to be seen. Hope I didn't miss them. They left awful fast last year. We will see. Priorities suck sometimes.