Coming up with a list of great domain names you want to buy can be an endless process. I am always reading things and thinking about domain names, and I don’t think it would be possible to come up with a comprehensive list of good names I would buy (endless.com, process.com, always.com, thinking.com, possible.com, comprehensive.com to name a few from the first two sentences!).
Inquiring about domain names is also a time consuming process. You need to do Whois searches to find the owner, investigate to get good contact information, craft emails, and for the best results, you will likely need to come up with a reasonable offer to start the conversation. Being good at this takes time and it may be difficult to do this effectively.
I thought of a way to generate acquisition leads that I want to share with you.
I regularly receive inquiries for various domain names I own. Much more often than not, the price is beyond the buyer’s expectations. I have found that many prospective buyers are also inquiring about other domain names. The other domain names are quite possibly of the same quality as mine, and their prices may vary greatly. I would suggest asking the prospective buyer to send you the names he has inquired about with their pricing and offer a 10% “finders fee” upon a successful purchase.
Similar to hiring someone to inquire about domain names on your behalf, you would be able to have someone approach sellers without obligation. Since these prospects elicited a response from you, they likely received responses from others as well. With a 10% finders fee attached to potential deals, they may be willing to share names they received prices on but decided not to buy. There’s really no downside for them once they have decided not to pursue those deals.
The potential here is likely very limited. Most people probably won’t be willing to share good names at good prices. However, on the off chance that it does produce a good deal, it’s worth the ask.
I actually was reviewing a DNS expired lead followups, and saw one of their brokers attempting to do this with my leads. I know this has been a hot topic before, but I did not appreciate it the least bit, their offer was in the 4 figure range, so it was not a $5 lead they were swaying.
I think with the new uniregistry platform, all leads after X many days now get followed up for brokers, so it will be nice for DNS/Uniregistry to come out with some clear policies about this.
As well addressing Uniregistry grace/redemption periods also.