We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nicole Ottley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Nicole thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s something you believe that most people in your industry (or in general) disagree with?

As my husband and I navigate running the joint family business and growing our family i.e. our legacy, we believe it is a misconception that you have to choose to have a successful career OR a tight knit family unit. It has become our own personal mission to disprove this myth with our actions that we take week in and week out. One of the biggest ways that we make both work for us is we incorporate our children into the business even though they are young. Also, when creating and implementing the CORE values that we expect our employees to measure themselves up to we made it a big part of the values that we are proud to encourage our staff to hold close as well. Without hurting the company our policies are very family friendly and we don’t intend to change that anytime soon.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Mid Kansas Auto Auction is a family owned and operated, dealers-only auto auction located at the corner of I-35 and 47th Street in Wichita, Kansas. Our founder, Mark Ottley (Nicole’s father in law and joint owner with husband Trevor Ottley), started the auction business in 2005 on I-70 in Hays, Kansas. The building was destroyed by fire in 2016, but the passion for the auction business motivated them to rebuild. In 2018, the former Mid-America Auto Auction went up for sale, and we couldn’t resist. With the success we’d seen in western Kansas, why not take our driven family-style auction to Wichita. Mark purchased the Wichita property in 2018, and had it renovated and ready for business in November of that same year. Mid-year of 2019, Trevor Ottley (Mark’s son) stepped in, and Dad returned to Hays. Trevor is now invested financially as a full partner and serves as the General Manager. He and his family moved to Wichita and are fully committed to the auction’s success. From the early beginnings in 2005 to present day, we are proud of our “auction family” which includes our staff and our dealers.

MKSAA specializes in business to business transactions that span all over the United States and even a few other countries such as Canada and Mexico.

We are most proud of the reputation we have built in the last 5 years both as a legitimate, trustworthy, “Kansas nice” family owned company and as an employer that you want to work for if given the chance, We take care of our people whether that is our customers or our employees. Auto auctions are loud, bustling and FAST. MKSAA loves to have incorporate fun into our work. After all, if you don’t love what you do then why keep doing it, right?! We have a promotional sale once a month that focuses on a specific theme and we go all out with employee and company participation to make sure the customers are enjoying their experience here AND getting work done at the same time.

The idea of stepping it up month after month to keep outdoing the success of the month before is a huge driving factor and a thrill in itself!

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

My background is a Master’s Degree in Organizational leadership. My husband is an entrepreneur by nature and when you combine them it has been so rewarding to put the material I learned in college to direct use. One of those resources is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. The idea of being able to have hard conversations, not avoid confrontation but take it head on in the most productive way possible and turning up the heat in order to BETTER ones situation has been LIFE. CHANGING. For both of us and now our employees. We are constantly practicing on adults that are older than us and watching before our very eyes as the methods are effective! It has literally effected every part of the business one tiny piece at a time.

The other majorly influential book has been “Principles” by Ray Dalio. The HARDEST book I have ever had to read, reread and digest. Every time I read it I see something in a new way and have new take away’s. Our company CORE values are intentionally aligned with many philosophies from this resource. We also give all new employees the illustrated version of this book when they start as a look into the way we see our company’s world.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Just. Keep. Asking. Do not take no for an answer, but an opportunity to find a different approach for that desired destination. Five years into our company and we are just now starting to acquire what we would consider some “big fish” of clients and it feels SO GOOD. Every time we got shut down, ghosted, dismissed as small potatoes, etc. we didn’t completely tear our model apart and start over from scratch but found people who knew more about that piece of the industry then we did and started to make slow, impactful changes. One department at a time we have dismantled the company over the years and defined processes, roles and the reason behind what we are doing. And then being willing to change those things if they didn’t make sense anymore. No matter how much we thought it SHOULD be working for us.

Being open to change and constructive criticism is the hardest part, it feels defeating more often than rewarding until you get the YES you’ve been waiting for. Doing it with poise and not burning bridges because of egos and hurt feelings in the moment is a huge factor in ever even getting that chance.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mksaa.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midksautoauction/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MKSAAWichita
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/78428411/admin/feed/posts/

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Marketing Maven Consulting