On the Business of Antiques podcast Will Thomas of IACF and Love Antiques talks with Toma Clark-Haines, CEO of The Antiques Diva & Co about The Future of Antiques.

One of the things Toma has learned about manifesting is that in order to make your dreams come true, one of the most useful things you can do is to find role models who help you visualize what is possible. When you see other people's success in your industry – you can see what is possible when you put your mind to it. Having a Role Model helps you become more successful. Enter stage right – one of Toma’s heroes in the antiques world – William Thomas. William, by all rights, has built and operates an antiques empire. Something Toma herself is building with The Antiques Diva & Co.

Will is Managing Director of IACF (International Antiques & Collectors Fair), running Europe's largest antiques fairs, and he provides the best antique fairs in 7 locations across the UK: Newark, Ardingly, Peterborough, Shepton, Runway, Newbury, and Ally Pally. On top of running antique fairs, Will took the concept of the antique fair virtual by helping dealers sell antiques online when he founded LOVE ANTIQUES – the premier online antiques website. And, if that doesn’t keep him busy enough, Will has also dipped his hat into local politics working with his local counsel. He’s a family man, and rumor has it he runs marathons in his free time. He might just be a modern day Renaissance man.

Will came into the industry without any experience in antiques when his father bought the Antique Fairs off of the Daily Mail. “My family were event organizers by trade. We ran a lot of trade fairs and trade publications. So I just entered from that angle – as an event organizer.” Will started at the bottom and worked his way up, even cleaning the first fairs and eventually working his way up to marketing and then to running the fairs entirely. “I’m a firm believer of knowing the whole business and how it works.”

“Obviously I like antiques, and salvage is sort of my passion – but, I think because I didn’t know anything about antiques when we went to marketing, I focused on marketing to the people who didn’t know they liked antiques.” This unique marketing approach opened the antique fairs to a whole new audience, people who might not know the language or the terminology for what they are looking at. They just know whether or not they like it.

Will’s unique approach to the world of antiques opens him up to the future in a way others don’t even see. “Not to change the subject,” says Will, “but this is where AI will change our industry in the next 5 to 10 years. Machine learning and AI are really exciting, and, if done correctly, will have a very big impact for the industry.” Another flash into the future that Will is very interested in and knowledgeable on is bitcoin. “What bitcoin means for the world is huge – a lot of the newspaper headlines misrepresent what this is – it is simply a decentralized peer to peer currency which will make transactions much faster, with very very low, or non-existent charges, which enables international payments to be conducted instantaneously, improving cash flow for dealers while saving them a lot of time and money on fees. I think when it comes to international payments for antiques for example, bitcoin makes sense. It will be a big part of the payment mix in the future and is very exciting technology as well.” Toma exclaimed, “You don’t think about antiques and AI and bitcoin as going together, but this is what I LOVE about talking about this industry with Will, he always throws in nuggets that make me think beyond where I would go on my own.” Will is always bringing antiques into the future simply by the conversations he has and where his brain naturally goes.

Will’s other giant foray into the future of antiques involves his bold decision to launch Love Antiques, a third party aggregator site for UK Antiques Dealers to generate online antiques sales. It’s a highly competitive field, but Will is playing the long game with Love Antiques which is already the number one site of its kind in the UK. “I do genuinely like the industry – the tech and how we can help small businesses compete in a large-scale way.” Will elaborates on how Love Antiques stands out, “We have a much longer-term vision than all of our competitors (in my opinion), in that we are not here just to make money – we are very very competitively priced because we want growth.” And because they are such major fair players, the hope is that the online market will drive people to the fairs as well. And vice versa. They support each other. Another support system Will is making an exciting venture into is the software side of things!

This episode of The Business of Antiques not only is a beacon of hope for the future of antiques, but also is chock full of the practical methods to implement. Will’s brilliant insight into business as well as insider information on what is trending in the market makes for a perfectly balanced vision of a future in antiques that is SO BRIGHT, you gotta wear shades!

For More Info

https://www.iacf.co.uk/

https://www.loveantiques.com/

Instagram

@Iacfantiquesfairs

@loveantiques_com

Twitter: Willytwales ( but only follow if interested in bitcoin)

This episode is sponsored by www.AntiqueDealerTrainingProgram.com

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