Kevin Wieman is part of the third generation of family ownership of Wieman Land & Auction, the company that began with his grandfather, Earl Wieman, in 1949.
Kevin said he started helping with the family business at the age of 15 and remembers that his father would pull him out of school to help with auctions. He graduated from the World Wide College of Auctioneering in Mason City, Iowa in 1988.
He went to work for Cenex Harvest State for a while as an ag loan officer. Then his father, Gary, asked him to come back and join the family business. He did sell in 1997.
“It’s been a wild ride,” Kevin said.
He said the part of the auction business he most enjoys is the people and providing a quality service. He said his grandfather and father stressed the fact that the items they sell are parts of people’s lives.
“We don’t take it lightly,” Kevin said.
Today the Marion, S.D. based Wieman Land & Auction is owned by five members of the Wieman family — Rich, Derek, Mike, Ryan and Kevin. The second generation — Earl’s sons Gary and Rich — joined their father in the business in 1967 and 1974, respectively. Earl, Gary and Rich are all now in the South Dakota Auctioneers Association Hall of Fame. Rich was inducted in 2018, Gary in 2012 and Earl in 2005.
Gary’s sons, Kevin and Mike, and Rich’s sons Ryan and Derek, joined the business at various times between the 1980s and the 2000s, Kevin said.
“We always say Wiemans are like weeds,” he said. “If you don’t spray for us we double every year.”
Perhaps as evidence of that, Marlo Wieman, a cousin to Gary and Rich, moved his implement dealership to the company’s lot in 1994, creating Wieman Machinery Auction, a subsidiary of Wieman Land & Auction.
Today the company, also includes a trucking company, repair shop, body shop and detail shop. It employs about 21 people.
When it comes to the auction side of the business, Kevin said the company specializes in land and machinery, but also sells “antiques, houses, tools, anything of value.”
“Our motto at Wieman Auction is we sell the earth and everything on it,” he said.
Its business is done primarily in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and South Dakota.
Kevin said the company has typically done about 100 to 125 auctions a year in recent years. When he started full-time with the company in 1997, it did about 350 auctions a year. Kevin said that’s due in part to the company combining sales at its site southwest of Marion on South Dakota Highway 44. He said they do fewer, but larger dollar sales that way.
Another change in the business since Wieman Land and Auction began 71 years ago and even since Kevin came on full-time is the use of online auctions. Kevin said the company started getting into online auctions in 2007 or 2008, but it didn’t take off until about 2013 or 2014.
“It took many years to convince our public that this was a safe thing to do,” he said. “They were pretty leery of it.”
Now the company offers traditional live auctions, live auctions with simulcast internet bidding and timed internet only auctions.
Kevin said many people like the online option because it doesn’t take as much time as going to the auction in person. He said customers tell him that works better because they have to work more hours than in the past to make a living. What they miss, however, is the social aspect.
“Farm sales used to be a great social gathering,” Kevin said.
During a live auction, he said about 20 to 30 percent of the sales are from online bidders. Since March when the pandemic started to affect daily life, the company has had only a few live auctions and most of their business has been online.
Kevin said the company has actually picked up some business online that it might not have gotten before. It does, however, come with risk. If people sign up online, he said they never know who they’re dealing with and sometimes people don’t claim or pick up their items.
Another big change in the auction business, according to Kevin, is the level of information that the public demands from them. He said the sale bills in the 1950s contained just the basic information about what was being sold. Now customers want serial numbers, work history and more.
“Now the public wants all the information we can give them,” Kevin said, and that requires more time to prepare for each auction.
While many years have passed and many things have changed since Wieman Land and Auction began, Kevin said the company still sticks to what his grandfather told them. That is the importance of maintaining your word as your bond and the power of a handshake.
“That’s how we operate,” Kevin said.
He said those in the auction business never know what the future will hold, but the family believes that if they continue to honor Earl’s philosophy, do honest business and treat people right, the family business will continue on.
“We try to keep our name good,” Kevin said.