Even though he heads a real estate auction company, John Brown?s see his job as marketing.
He must determine how to market an auction. What publication does he advertise in to sell a grocery store building?
And he has to market to potential sellers and persuade them to auction their property instead of using a traditional real estate agent.
Any way you cut it, he relishes the job.
“I stared working for a company and I fell in love with the process,” Brown said.
He eventually helped develop a business plan for Express Auction, which specializes in auctions of commercial and residential real estate.
Founded in 1988 and based in Baltimore, Express Auction also has offices in Manhattan, N.Y., Philadelphia and Washington. The real estate auction company has handled more than 30,000 real estate auction sales in the past decade.
And the company conducts about 4,500 real estate auctions a year for clients as varied as real estate agents and brokerages, financial institutions, corporations, government agencies, attorneys, appraisers, and private individuals, according to a company Web site. Express auctions have included luxury homes, residential and commercial property, land, and investment and new home sales, court-ordered and foreclosure sales.
For Brown, the task was to get his company away from the stereotype of an auction as meaning some sort of financial trouble for the property.
“Our business is really marketing,” Brown said.
“In August, we sold eight gas stations. We had to find out how to market those gas stations to reach the people most likely to buy it.”
That means finding the right publication to advertise in a manner that the most likely pool of buyers would notice.
Brown said the company is trying to get away from the negative stereotype of auction, particularly among residential users.
He said residential property owners are reluctant to use an auction to sell their home.
For Brown that merely is another challenge for him to reach buyers.
And that?s been his goal-oriented approach to problem since high school, said friend Dan Radebaugh, management member at First Mountain Title Co. based in Parksville.
“He hasn’t changed much,” Radenbaugh said.
“He has achieved a lot of success and he has a lot of business savvy,” he said.
John Brown, CEO of Express Auction
» First job: Recording Deeds for Brown & Brown Chartered
» Education/credentials: Loyola Blakefield ?91; B.A. in psychology, West Virginia University, 1995; B.S. in biology, Towson University, 1996.
» Best job perk: Loving what I do
» Daily e-mails: 300
» Daily voice mails: 10
» Essential Web sites: www.propertyauction.com, www.mdauctions.com, www.realquest.com, www.google.com
» Career objective: Introducing auctions to wider audience
» Favorite gadget: Casio EX-Z120 7.2 megapixels digital camera
» Hometown: Kensington
» Birthdate: April 21, 1972
» Original aspiration: Medical doctor
» Hobbies: Kayaking, photography
