About Sayre & Jones

43 years on the mic. 40 years building this company. Still all-in.

We didn't set out to become one of the country's leading fundraising auction teams. We just believed every cause deserved the same energy, excitement, knowledge, and professionalism, regardless of the size. That's still the standard.

Our story

The auctioneer who turned fundraising into a cause worth fighting for

Keith got his auction license at 19. He grew up in the family business, auto auctions, business liquidations, furniture, and estates. Trained at the Missouri Auction School in 1984. Founded Sayre & Jones in 1986.

The pivot came at a charity event in the early years. He discovered that with the right energy, the right chant, and knowledgeable consulting delivered with real flair, a fundraiser could raise dramatically more for the cause. He's never looked back. It's the only way he knows how to work.

Today, we're a small, sharp team based in Chicagoland, travelling across the country. We use a select group of auctioneers, the same ones who've worked with us for years. We don't just check who's available. It's the only way to do this right. What had become standard practice was not energizing the room. We never strived to do the most events in one night, we strived to be consistent. It's the only way to be true to the clients.

See the work

Named for the people who started it.

The Sayre in Sayre & Jones is Fred Sayre — Keith's stepfather. Keith's biological father passed when he was young. Fred took him in, brought him into the auction business, and showed him what professional auctioneering really looks like. Fred served as president of the Indiana Auctioneers Association and was inducted into the Auctioneers Hall of Fame in 1987.

The Jones is for Keith — and for his mother, Lorraine, who raised six kids and held the family together. The company is named for both of them. They aren't here to see what it became. But they're in every room we walk into.

How We Work

Collaboration, not a script.

Most auctioneers walk in with a playbook and run their show. We don't. We listen to what you've tried, what worked, what didn't, and what you're trying to hit this year. Then we add ideas — paddle-raise framing, item order, room flow, Chant — that we've seen move the needle across hundreds of events.

We'll never be experts in your cause. But by the time we walk on stage, we're educated on it. Your crowd can tell.

When the mic is on, we're up front. But the night belongs to all of us.

"We're not the show. It's all of us working together." — Keith Jones

Meet the Team

your auctioneers.

Keith leads every engagement. But when you book Sayre & Jones, you get a full bench — auctioneers, professional bid spotters, and clerks who've been with us for years, not contractors pulled off a roster. Several are state champions or Hall-of-Fame inductees in their own right.