World-Class Auctioneer on Claiming your Confidence w/ Lydia Fenet | builders podcast

0:00Show up and do it. Put your head down and grind it out. Try as hard as you can and show them that you're willing to jump in when other people won't. and you become indispensable quickly.

0:15Lydia Finette has raised more than a billion dollars as a charity auctioneer for Christie's and now her own agency. She has a pretty cool life. Last week, she tells a story about a competitive bid she was in the middle of between Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry, and others. Lydia is also an author. She has amazing stories about how she got her first job, overcome, overcoming failure, et cetera, that I think you will find inspirational and actionable.

0:46Hi, Lydia. How are you? Good to see you. It's great to see you too. Thanks so much for having me on. Yeah, really thrilled to talk to you today. You have so many accomplishments. You're an author, you've started your own boutique auctioneering agency, you've raised more than a billion dollars in charity auctions, which is kind of staggering to think about. But before I ask you about all those things, I kind of want to go back to the beginning of your career. You had a long tenure at Christie's. How did you get that job? Were you consciously going into that space? And then what's the first time you had kind of an aha moment that said, I might want this to be my long-term career?

1:21Well, when I was in college, I read an article in Vanity Fair magazine about Princess Diana's dresses being sold at a place called Christie's Auction House. I like to say that I had no context for this. My parents were not art collectors. I was not a big lover of art necessarily, but in this article, my imagination was completely captured by the fact that everyone who worked there seemed to be well-dressed. They had amazing experiences. They got to travel all over the world and they interfaced with really wealthy people. And in my 18, 19 year old brain, this sounded like the ideal place for me in New York City.

1:55And so essentially I started to lobby the internship coordinator. I called her pretty much every single day for two weeks. And at that time when I was starting out, there was no caller ID. So she just picked up every morning and I would make my pitch and she would say, listen, the internship program has been full for months. There are no positions. There really isn't even a wait list because these are sort of informal and kind of handed from people who know other people to their children. And I just kept asking. And And finally, after about two weeks, I could tell she was getting a little annoyed.

2:27It wasn't cute and it wasn't funny even more anymore. And I had a Southern accent at the time because I was still in Louisiana and also at that time at the University of the South in Tennessee. So I would sort of call her with my deep Southern accent. And I think at first she was amused. I think by that point she was not. And I just figured I needed to go in with a different strategy and said the last time I called her instead of saying, you know, I'm just calling about the internship. I said, can I just ask you something before you hang up on me? Why is the internship capped at a certain number?

2:58It just seems like these are people who are willing to help. You're not really paying anything or much. Is there a reason? And she said, well, in the afternoons, the interns go to the museums and the docents can only take 15 at a time. So the docents are the people who show people around the museum. They can only take groups of 15 and therefore we can only have 30 so that we have two groups. And as you may recall from the beginning of this conversation, there was nothing in me that was sort of like, I need to be at a museum every afternoon. I wanted to be at Christie's. So I immediately said, well, I don't have to go to the museum.

3:28You know, I could stay and do the things that nobody else wants to do. And I do believe a through line in my career has always been that I'm willing to do the stuff that not everybody wants to do. It's something I learned from my father. It was always just the show up and do it, put your head down, grind it out, try as hard as you can and show them that you're willing to jump in when other people won't and you'll become indispensable quickly. And that's really what happened that summer. I went to most of the museum things because other interns just didn't show up because they weren't jobs that they really cared about.

3:58But that was kind of where it started. I went right back after college. I was hired out of the next internship that I did right after college and ended up staying there for 23 years. And my aha moment in my career probably didn't come until well into my career, probably a decade in when I really thought to myself, this is actually a career. It's something I should take seriously 10 years in. But there was never a moment I didn't want to be there. And that for me always felt like I was moving in the right direction. Wow. There's so many things I want to ask about that. I mean, first of all, what you're describing is like a quintessential New York City hustle story.

4:35It's almost exactly like the beginning of the movie Wall Street, where I don't know if you've seen it, but I think Charlie Sheen's character goes in and is trying to get business from Michael Douglas's character every day. I think I'm probably missing it, but he brings in a gift for the receptionist every day and is trying to get that five minutes with this famous Wall Street Titan. That's really, really cool. And also about if you're inspired with something, don't say no, don't take no for an answer. Yeah. It's interesting. This summer, I started an auctioneering agency, which I know we'll probably get to later in this podcast, but there was a young woman who kept calling me and emailing me asking if she could have an internship.

5:16And I didn't plan to have an internship. In fact, summer is the only time when it's quiet for me over the course of the year. And I really wanted to be with my family. So I really didn't have very, very high hopes for things that were going to take place this summer. I just wanted to kind of squirrel myself away and work on a book proposal. And this young woman kept calling and emailing and I said something to my mom and my mom laughed and she goes, oh, she probably read your first book where you talked about getting the first internship. And she actually was right. And so I called her back and she ended up being my intern this summer.

5:45And sure enough, she's like, oh, I read your book. I knew exactly what to do. And it was so funny because I loved her from that moment on. I was like, oh God, I get this. I understand that. And sometimes that's all it takes. You know, it isn't that it happens every time, but, you know, I have a podcast called Plame Your Confidence. And a lot of times I'll have people on and they'll tell me something similar. You know, I went into this thing. I asked for this. I spoke to this person. And it's just that drive of not always being like, oh, they said no. So I'm going to just walk out of the door and cry or, oh, it's never going to work out.

6:17And that, I think, is a philosophy in life is always great because they never work out the way that you think they're going to work out. So just get yourself in there and try. And I love how you flip the script with your last year. The last question that you asked the person that you were calling every day. And it's kind of a variation of a question that I love to ask, which is like, what would have to be true for me to get this internship? You know, maybe I don't maybe I don't go to the museum every day. No, no big deal. If that's all if that's all it takes, I'm going to do it. You mentioned at the beginning, the thing that inspired you was, I think you said Princess Diana's dresses.

6:52And I don't what's the most unique item you can remember auctioneering? One where you say, I'm having this existential, you know, this out of body experience. There's this thing next to me. I'm I'm I'm auctioning off. I kind of can't believe it. Honestly, John, my specialty is charity auctioneering. And so I have those moments more than you can imagine. I mean, I have these moments where as recently as Monday night, I was auctioning off the opportunity for people to go and have a dress created by Balenciaga. and my bidders at the end were Kim Kardashian and Lauren Sanchez. And they were bidding against each other.

7:31And Selma Hayek was there and Priyanka Chopra was there and everyone's standing and yelling and having fun. And Katy Perry at one point was staring at someone. So she was bidding more. And it just became this whole thing where every once in a while, I just sort of look at my, I sort of look at my husband when I get home and he's like, how did the auction go? It's really hard to explain. My life has this, I have this thing where I'm on stage with these unbelievable luminaries from around the world who frankly are just people who were really fun and nice and having fun. And it's exciting for me.

8:01And then I go home to my three children, just like anyone else and climb into bed and get up the next morning and walk them to school. So it is such a hilarious job. But to answer your question, the most unusual thing I've ever sold was a number of lots that came standing next to Bruce Springsteen on stage at Madison Square Garden in front of 7 ,000 people. I was basically pushed out onto stage after, you know, he played a set and they said, go sell his guitar. So I went on stage and I started to sell the guitar and he was standing behind me. I introduced myself to him on stage. I remember saying, may I call you Bruce?

8:35And he said, you can call me whatever you want. I was like, you heard it here, people. And you know, you're playing to a crowd of 7 ,000, so you have to make it big. And so I sort of said, well, where do you think we should start out? And I looked out and a friend of mine was there and I said, let's start it at$10 ,000. And this friend has done very well. And I said his name out loud, and I saw him gasp. The bidding just went crazy. And we got it into the 200s. And then I sort of, I sort of looked at Bruce Springsteen and said, you know, what do you think? And he said, I'll throw in a plate of my mom's lasagna.

9:04And then he's just started throwing in all these other things every sort of 10, 20,$30 ,000 until we got it to the point where it sold for$370 ,000. Oh my gosh. And he doubled it right before I sold it. So he actually did it twice for the people who won the bidding. And it was just one of those amazing pinch me moments that an auction can be. They can be so magical when you're in a room with people who want to give, feel inspired, probably feel a little competitive. All those things lend itself to a really dramatic, fun auction. And you're doing it for a really, really important cause. And so you have a job to do, which is to raise as much money as you can for the charity.

9:42And you kind of hinted, I think, at some of the tricks of the trade that you have, if you will, like, but wait, there's more. That's that one. The other one, which I'm curious on the Balenciaga example, is you have two competitive bidders and then someone outbids. And then it's like, actually, there are two. Do you want this? Do you want this one also as a way as a way? I'm curious, are there any other kind of tricks of the trade without giving away all your trade secrets? The double one that you just said, you know, as the auctioneer, your job is really to get it to the highest price possible.

10:17And a lot of times you'll know that something's doubled. But even in that same night, you know, I had something. It was a trip to Cannes. You were going to the opening festival. You were going to have dinner seats. You were going to go to the VIP suite. It was just sort of thing after thing after thing. And we got it up to$55 ,000. And I was about to sell it. I was at the going once, going twice, and I always pause to see if the other person will jump in. And the person who donated the lot yells, double it, which means that I can sell it twice. So all of a sudden, two people at 55, and we ended up with 110 ,000.

10:49So that's always fun. Part of being a charity auctioneer is really involving the audience as much as you can. People always think that there are all these secrets, but if people are having a good time and there's no limit to the amount that they can spend, which typically at these charity auctions, those front few tables, that's really the case. As long as they're having fun, as long as it doesn't seem like they're being gauche with their money, as long as you can keep them in a place where it's positive and people aren't like, oh, this is getting, this seems like too much. And to always remind people that they're giving money for a nonprofit.

11:20So yes, you're going to have this amazing trip. Yes, you're into Bruce Springsteen's house. Yes, you're spending a lot of money, but all of this goes back to X. and that for me is always the formula it's like you get people they're having so much fun and then you get to that place where they're sort of top top maybe not quite the top and to push one more you always just remind them you know while you're here one in eight women are going to have being diagnosed with breast cancer this can be the bid that saves someone's life like let's go you know and so really threading those messages through i think is what makes it fun for the people who are there and also makes people feel good, which is ultimately what it's about.

11:58You wrote a book entitled Claim Your Confidence. You did it about the same time that you started your own agency. What gave you the inspiration, the confidence, the desire to make that switch and to create your own company? When you write a book, you have about a year after you finish it. And when I finished the book, it's a longer story. It's actually the last chapter of claim your confidence, but my family was in a very serious car accident that really caused me to reprioritize everything in my life. You know, I was basically in the hospital for two weeks, I had multiple surgeries. And when I came out of that, when I went back to work, it was actually kind of difficult to even sit up for long periods of time, because I had a spinal fusion in my lower spine.

12:41And I'd been, although I loved my job, and I had always loved my job, my enthusiasm for the job that I had been doing for almost 23 years, it started to wane. And everything that seemed exciting and new kind of seemed outside of the four walls of the company that I was working in. And I think that this was in both sides. I don't think that this was just me. I think you can get to a place in a company where you're kind of like, I'm done here. There's nowhere else for me to go. Yet you still love the company. So you want to stay. And the company's also probably thinking the same thing, like the lights are out, but we still love you.

13:13So you stay. So when I went back after the accident, we had a conversation about transitioning into an ambassadorship role for the company, which was perfect. It was a year more if I wanted it. And a year for me felt like the right time for me to figure out the next chapter of that story in a way that allowed me to have the continuation with a company that I'd spent a long time with and had a deep love for. And so it was during that year that I really started to think to myself, what is it that I want to do with this talent? And I had so many ideas, should I start a public speaking school? Because that's relative to what I do and I'm a keynote speaker.

13:51And I was having dinner with a friend of mine who said, I sort of threw that idea out there. And she said, I think the one thing you should never forget is that what makes you unique is the auctioneering. Because there are a lot of people who can do public speaking, but there are very few people who understand that job. And it was really that conversation that led me to think about what is it that I can do that's going to separate me and take my specialty and be able to help other people do it, help the nonprofits. And one thing that had been true for many years was number of requests that I was getting for my time had become untamable.

14:24You know, I purposely capped off the number of auctions that I take at 70. These are all in the evenings. Some of them are on weekends, usually not the ones in New York, but the ones that are all over the country. So I was traveling a lot. And it really came to the place where I sat down and I was like, I'm going to start thinking about how many requests I'm getting. And it was hundreds of requests on top of the 70 that I was doing. And I realized at the same time that I had been sending people's emails, people I'd never seen on stage. I had no idea if they were good. I had trained pretty much every auctioneer that had come out of Christie's as a charity auctioneer for 12 years.

14:59So I knew the ones that I thought were good from that. And a lot of them had already left. And so I started reaching out to them and said, listen, if I were to put a structure around this and create a talent agency, would you be interested in me representing you? And that way, you know, I know that you've been taught in a way that I like. I know that if I'm sending you, you will show up, you know, well-dressed, well-spoken, not drunk, like all the things you hear about charity auctioneering and charity auctioneers, you know, those are things that the auctioneers who work with me know that is a zero.

15:29Like you don't ever do that because I would never do that. And if I'm sending someone on my behalf, they will be on time. They will be put together. They will know what to say. They will not be rude on stage. The things that you can find in other people, great. That's not what we represent. And so that was kind of where it started. And so when my ambassadorship was sort of coming up for the renewal after the first year, I just couldn't sign it. I couldn't bring myself to sign the contract for another year and I couldn't figure out why. And it was really this agency idea that had come into my mind.

15:59It was like a seed that started to grow. And then I went on someone else's podcast, actually a woman named Erica Ayres-Badan, who's the CEO of Barstool Sports. And this was probably about three weeks after I got the contract for renewal for my ambassadorship. And she asked me at the end of the interview, do you have a manager? And I said, I mean, I have a talent manager. She said, do you have an agent? And I said, well, I have a literary agent and a speaking agent. I mean, like how many people are in my life? And she said, but who takes care of the auctioneering? like who's who's represents you for that and i said well i represent myself but i'm going to start an agency and i said it out loud on her podcast even though i'd not done a single thing and it was funny i just had her on my podcast this week and i told her that story she was laughing so hard because we turned it off and i looked at her and i said i've never told anyone except my husband that i'm going to do that and she said well do you want me to take it out edit it out yeah it out and i was like no when is this running and she said probably two weeks and i was like let's go.

16:56And so I got all the branding ready. I got everything. I got everything ready. And the day it ran, I use that as my date and I hit go and resigned from Christie's. And that was kind of the end in the beginning. So it was really exciting. Wow. So you almost needed to speak it out loud to make it happen. I love it. Yeah. I do that all the time. I want to ask you about some of the parts of your book. So we before we before we started taping, you know, we were There's the notion of juggling family responsibilities, life, work. You have a job that requires you to do things at night. And you have a chapter in your book entitled, Say Farewell to the Myth of Work-Life Balance.

17:40And I'd love to hear your perspective on that because I don't think that's a universal believed statement. So tell the audience why your perspective as that? I just got so tired of people saying to me, like, how do you balance it all? And I would just look at them and sort of laugh with balance. I mean, I'm trying to keep one side of my life from hitting the ground while the other one is sky high. There's no balance. Right. And so what I really was trying to say in that chapter is, you know, people have this sense that everything has to be equal at all times. Like we're all trying to make everything perfectly equal.

18:17And I just don't think that's true. And I think, especially as a mom of three, and you're a father of two, we were talking about this before, there are so many things that come into play over the course of a day, a week, a month, a year that are going to be unexpected. And if you're always trying to maintain this perfect balance the whole time without any sense that sometimes of the year, things are going to be crazier than others, then you're going to drive yourself crazy trying to maintain that status quo. And so what I use in my own language, I use it with my friends, I use it with my children is I'm going into a period where I'm in a sprint versus is a plateau.

18:52So I talked to you about this right before, you know, summer for me is a much slower time. I specifically take the entire month of July off. My voice needs a rest. I need a rest. My kids are in camp and I want to be there every day to pick them up. And so July for me is a non-negotiable. I take the whole month off of stage, not one auction. The rest of the year, it's there are certain seasons. So January, a little slow, February, a little slower, March, April, May are full on sprints. And so when I hit those sprints in my life, that is when I cut down on the coffees with friends. I don't go for drinks at night.

19:24If you're going to see me at dinner, it's for a water before or a dessert at the end because I'm on stage during that peak time when everybody eats. So I use that language to my friends. Like I'm in a sprint for the next six weeks. When I come out, let's definitely grab dinner. I use it to my children. I'll be traveling a lot for the next six weeks. When I'm back, these are the things we're going to do. And that helps me frame my life in a way where I'm like, it's okay if right now, things are falling through the cracks, I'm going to sprint. When I'm in a sprint, I mean, if you get an email from me, be shocked because I need brain power to get through stage every night, plane in the morning, stage every night, plane in the morning.

19:59And so I can't be responding to things that are happening three months from now. When I hit that plateau, that's when on LinkedIn, you'll see people who emailed me like, you know, five months ago, all of a sudden I'm tearing through those like 15 minutes. I'll set up a whole day of 15 minute informational interviews in one day, just to kind of bang those out, because that's something that I like to do. And so I say to people, like, don't worry so much about keeping it balanced at all times, understand that there are going to be points in your life, also points in your career. You know, I went back after having three children, and it wasn't until the third one that I felt like I gave myself some grace.

20:32And I was like, maybe this isn't the year that you try to do the 90 things that you want to do in your career, you just get some sleep, try to get up past four o 'clock in the morning. And you know, maybe run once a week. This is not the year for the marathon. So a lot of it really comes down to just giving ourselves grace and giving ourselves the language to help other people understand where we are in the process. I don't know who a parent who walks into the first two weeks of September, if your kids go back to the school then and doesn't think to themselves, I'm in a sprint right now. But three weeks in when the kids are settled and things are starting to settle out, plateau.

21:08Let's have dinner. If you recognize that balance or perfect balance, if you will, is unattainable, that's better than the alternative than constantly beating yourself up for not paying attention to enough to one part of your life. I also wonder, just based on how you talked about your experience, if you're going to go through intense periods of work, the sprints, as you call them, how important is it that you love your work? Oh, so important. So important. And everybody has their own journey, but I loved my time at Christie's, especially those beginning years. At the end, I felt like there were so many times where I would be sitting in meetings, just thinking to myself, this is just such a waste of time, really wasting my time.

21:54I should not be on this call. I should not be having to sit here for half an hour. Nothing here is sparking joy to use Marie Kondo's information. And so I've used that feeling and all of those thoughts about that as I've moved into my own business. And so I don't do things anymore that don't bring me energy or things that I'm not passionate about because, frankly, I don't have to at this point. And it took a long time to get here, you know. And so I don't want to say to someone out there who's just starting out like, you know, I licked envelopes on a lot of event invitations for many years. You know, I was the check-in girl more times than I can tell you at events over the course of the years.

22:34There is the grunt work. There is the hard work. There are those things that bring you to where you are. But I do also think if there's something that you truly love, you're never going to run out of energy for it. Or certainly that's the way that I viewed life. I view it the same way. In your book, you also talk about failures and fear, whether you've written a book to do a signing and nobody comes to having a charity auction where, for lack of a better word, maybe you bomb or it doesn't go as well as intended. Why was it important for you to talk about that? You referred to something called the Teflon shield.