Story by Brennon Clark
Photos by Colin Jones
Josh Strasheim sits, waits, and wonders. Five hours have passed and his fellow competitors have come and gone. Strasheim has been waiting for this moment since childhood. It’s a now-or-never feeling as his number is called when it’s his turn to take the stage. More than 2,000 people stare back at him from the packed warehouse, not one familiar face in the crowd. Trent Stewart, the reigning 2007 World Champion, watches intently as Strasheim starts speaking into the microphone and his practice begins to take hold. “Sold!” marks the end of a sale of ten head of cattle, and years of practice are over in a matter of minutes. This is the World Livestock Auctioneer Championship, one of the most prestigious competitions in auctioneering.
It’s Strasheim’s life goal to become a World Livestock Champion Auctioneer. A third-generation auctioneer and owner of the JS Sales Company auction house in Eugene, Oregon, Strasheim has been practicing to become the World Champion since he was eight years old. He says he taught himself the auctioneer’s chant as a child by imitating family members, including his three uncles, who owned several livestock auction houses also in Oregon. Growing up immersed in the industry allowed Strasheim to develop his own auctioneering style. “Once you master the basic cadence, it all comes down to practice,” Strasheim says. “When I drive to and from work sometimes I just turn off the radio and sell items to myself. It’s definitely something you have to work at.” The basic structure of the cadence auctioneers use has multiple parts, Strasheim says, although the chant isn’t as quick as bidders think it is—it’s more of a fast-paced rhythm. Each auctioneer chant is specific to the person, but it also incorporates a standard language structure. The first part is called a “filler word,” which can be any word a bidder hears other than a number. Auctioneers emphasize the filler words more than the other words to break up the monotony of just calling numbers. In Strasheim’s case, he uses two filler words: “Dollar bidder” and “Now.” The phrase “dollar bidder” is used because the syllables it contains can easily be spoken at a fast pace. Strasheim says having words with multiple syllables allows for pauses between numbers and helps create a rhythm.
As the rhythm methodically continues enticing bidders, the dollar increments the auctioneer calls out increase on a scale. Strasheim says the amount of the increase depends on the auction and the item being sold; in most auctions, bid increments range from $1 to $100, although livestock auction bids can increase in 10¢ to $1 increments per pound.
A chant from Strasheim might sound something like: “One dollar bidder, two dollar bidder, now.” Every time a bid is cast, he changes the numbers, but the filler words remain the same. Each auction starts with smaller items and builds up to the bigger, higher priced items. Strasheim admits the cadence is not only used to sell items but also to create excitement among the buyers. At times Strasheim uses his charm to get bids on items that may not otherwise sell. If a smaller item is not doing well or not fetching the desired price Strasheim will stop his chant to assure bidders the item has value. It is the auctioneer’s responsibility to sell items for as high a price as possible because the bidders are trying to buy at the lowest price they can get. “I have no problem slowing down or stopping to make something clear,” says Strasheim, referring to buyers new to the auction business.
It wasn’t until 2000 when he graduated from the World Champion College of Auctioneering in Bakersfield, California, that Strasheim’s childhood hobby became a career with the start of his own auction businesses. He first worked as co-owner of the Roseburg Livestock Auction before building his own company, JS Sales Company, from the ground up much like his grandfather.
he Strasheim family got their start in the auction business by a stroke of bad luck after Jerry Strasheim, Josh’s grandfather, was sued by Sinclair Oil for damages caused in a oilrig accident by a company Jerry owned in Nebraska. Jerry says Sinclair sued him for everything he had, and because he was unable to afford an auctioneer to sell his estate, Jerry decided to attend auctioneer school to make money to pay for the lawsuit. After the estate auction, the Strasheims had nothing left in Nebraska, so they packed a car full of their few remaining belongings and headed for Corvallis, Oregon, for a new beginning.
After re-establishing in Oregon, the Strasheims got their start with a furniture auction. The family eventually became owners of livestock auctions in Eugene, Portland, and The Dalles. During their 20 years in the business, the Strasheims processed more than 2,000 head of cattle per week through their Pac-West Auction Company.
The family also experienced success working in the equipment auction industry. Josh’s father, John Strasheim, managed an auction house in Eugene in the early 1990s that sold construction and logging equipment. In just three years, the business earned $38.5 million in sales. Their biggest day of auction totaled $6 million with more than 2,400 registered buyers. “The auction business does well whether the economy is up or down,” John says. “People are always looking to sell items, but it does better than normal in an economic downturn.”
When auction day comes around, John says the excitement builds up to the point of the sale. Even before the auction begins, buyers register for bidding numbers and items are displayed for viewing. About an hour before the auction, the building is opened to the bidders who browse the items for sale. Each item must be tagged with a number that shows the order it will be sold in and to ensure that each reaches the winner of the auction. After the auction each buyer checks out and usually takes home more than one item.
A new addition to the auctioneer business is the ability to sell items online in real time all over the country. Strasheim recently began using a website to bring in more buyers. He says bidders can view a live feed of the auction as well as listen to the auctioneer’s chant. “The auctioneer may be the most exciting part of the auction,” says John, who is now retired from the auctioneer business. “In reality, the chant only makes up two percent of the whole process.”