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Willie Johnson is one smooth talker who means business.

It's part of the job as a mover and shaker, selling off property with the fast-moving rattle of his tongue as a professional auctioneer.

Johnson is one of the few black auctioneers in a white-male-dominated profession.

"It's just not a profession that's thrown out there," Johnson said. "People don't realize that it's a profession. They look at it as somebody just steps out there and does that Saturday sale."

Johnson was a late bloomer to the business, deciding to become an auctioneer in 1989 when he was in his early 40s.

He had worked for Sears Roebuck & Co. for 27 years. But as the retailer moved away from its once large emphasis on catalog sales, which Johnson was heavily involved with, he decided to look for another way to pay the bills.

Growing up on a farm in Browns Summit, he remembered going to market as a child and hearing auctioneers. He also had a manager at Sears who was an auctioneer, and attended some of his auctions.

"I had to reinvent myself and find something to make some money," Johnson said.

He enrolled at the Mendenhall School of Auctioneering in High Point, where he spent two weeks learning the ins and outs of the business, from building auction cadence to learning the many ethics and bylaws involved. He started Willie Johnson Auctioneering & Associates in 1992, and went to real estate school a year later and obtained his broker's license.

By 1998 he merged his two specialities, creating Willie Johnson Realty.

Johnson has broken new ground as a minority in the auctioneering field. In 2005, he was the first black president of the N.C. Auctioneering Association. By 2006, Gov. Mike Easley appointed him to the N.C. Auctioneers Commission, one of the first blacks to serve.

"Willie is a role model in the field," said Harry Mullis, a fellow auctioneer and longtime friend of Johnson's. "There's not any good reason I can attest to it why there aren't more (minorities) involved in the profession."

Johnson has been to N.C. A&T on multiple occasions to talk to real estate classes about auctioneering and promote his field.

"As a minority, a first-generation auctioneer, I had no mentor," Johnson said. "I had to get started from the ground up. But I never got a negative feeling (from other auctioneers). We have a common bond of being professionals."

Contact Ryan Seals at 373-7157 or rseals@news-record.com