Entrepreneurial undergrad makes bid for lucrative auction career

At 21 years old, Jonathan Kraft has achieved a goal ­­— and an income ­­— that many entrepreneurs twice his age wish they could reach.

As a licensed auctioneer, the Krannert junior has his own business and is pulling in around $100,000 a year. He’s a second-generation auctioneer who owns Kraft Auction Service (Web site: KraftAuctions.com) in Hobart, Indiana, with his father, Conrad.

Live auctions are a $270 billion industry in the United States, according to the National Auctioneers Association. Records of auctions have been documented since ancient Greece, and now with new technologies, the Internet combines with traditional auctions so that someone in rural Indiana can reach all over the world.

Kraft has traveled to Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and just last year went to the Philippines. He sold more than $2 million of merchandise for Kraft Auction Service in 2006, and an additional $100 million working for other companies, including auctioneering giants Ritchie Brothers, Kruse International, and Asia International. He has sold and will sell everything from antique cars to tractors and farm equipment to household goods to junk scrap.

“There are a lot more aspects to the auction business than most people know or think about,” Kraft says. “I make probably 100 phone calls a day on a week of a busy auction, and I’m up late most nights sending e-mails and organizing the next job.”

The first task is attracting clients, and the Kraft Auction Service has risen to the challenge with auctions that are scheduled every weekend for the foreseeable future. Next come signing the contract, listing the auction, inventorying items, advertising on flyers and brochures, and booking the location.

A typical auction day, usually a Saturday, runs from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Kraft and his dad hire anywhere between five and 40 people to help work that day, usually a tight-knit group of family and friends. “My aunt is a cashier, my mom is a clerk, and a friend is the ‘ringman,’ my right-hand man who holds up items as we sell them and looks for bidders in the crowd I might miss,” he says. Afterward, Kraft settles up with the clients, writes checks, and gets ready for the next event.

Kraft has been preparing for this career since he was 5 years old, and practiced his “chant” on a karaoke machine because “a good chant draws people.” Indiana requires auctioneers to be licensed, so Kraft studied at the World Wide College of Auctioneering, where he became convinced it could be a viable career.

“I wasn’t in love with the profession when I went there, but that one-week course was what fired me up,” he says.

In early February, Kraft took first place in the Michigan State Auctioneers Association Bid Calling Championship. In 2007, he won the Indiana First Runner-Up Auctioneer and was first runner-up in the International Junior Auctioneer Championship organized by the National Auctioneers Association. And he anticipates an even better showing at this summer’s competition. On campus, he put his auctioneering skill to work when he auctioned “dates” for a campus group raising money for a non-profit organization.

Kraft is earning a bachelor’s degree in accounting with a minor in marketing. With better than a 3.7 GPA, he is applying to Krannert’s MBA program, which he hopes will prepare him to join Ritchie Brothers. He can be reached at KraftAuctionInfo@aol.com or (219) 973-9240.

— Maggie Morris

Krannert senior Jonathan Kraft plies his trade at an auction in Lake County, Indiana.