Auctioneers should promote NAA Education Institute designations

As we were searching for the links for our coverage of the KAA Winter Convention, we were surprised by the almost-complete lack of designations listed with each auctioneer on his or her respective staff pages. While it’s possible that all of the auctioneers for whom we were searching simply didn’t have any designations, we think it’s more likely that those auctioneers who had designations simply didn’t have them listed. Listing an auctioneer’s designations next to his name on every piece of marketing material as well as the website is an important pieces of a holistic institutional marketing campaign.

While many auctioneers use the basic education found at an auction school and are happy conducting business indefinitely based solely on those fundamentals, more and more auctioneers are realizing the importance of continuing education to ensure that their businesses are using modern business practices.

There are currently seven professional designation courses offered by the National Auctioneers Association institute. These designations prove to prospective buyers and sellers that an auctioneer has continued to learn and improve his processes.

CAI – Certified Auctioneers Institute

AARE- Accredited Auctioneer Real Estate

ATS – Auction Technology Specialist

BAS – Benefit Auction Specialist

CES – Certified Estate Specialist

GPPA- Graduate Personal Property Appraiser

MPPA – Master Personal Property Appraiser

We covered the new ATS designation back in November. We’ll be covering each of the remaining designations in the next couple of months, concluding with an article on CAI in March.